Russell Smith 🤙

Having done YC before, it's amazing to be back. The energy is the same 14 years (!!) on. Also, the quality of the folks I met was just as a high, if not more. So many have done a ton already, some are early. All are moving super fast. Crazy achievement by the YC team and @garrytan. My personal takeaways from the kick off of P26: - the vibe/how folks/users feel matters - prolly even more for hardware - what is the smallest thing one can actually ship rn - watch out for hero-mode; are we solving the real problem, or the easy one - strong cofounder bond is key, and the easiest way to fail, even vs funding - building a pro sports team, not family - post more to LinkedIn, as spaced rep is a thing, and starts a brand - create a tribe. convert people. if founders don't no one will: but build one tribe, not more

@aryanlabde $100/mo one is 5x Plus.

@aryanlabde You know there is 20x plan - $200 for codex?

As a vibe coder, which plan are you on right now? - $20 codex - $100 codex - $200 claude

@matvogels @BlackFlagVC Good to hear!

@rhs @BlackFlagVC Was my biggest surprise for the list. BUT I can share that a big reason for this was so many Texas companies were in stealth, chose to remain so for this year. I expect a massive flip for next year.

500+ founders. 1,500+ nominations. 100 companies. The Black Flag 100 is back 🏴‍☠️ No VC votes. No fund picks. Just pirates chasing storms over certainty. The 2026 list 🧵🏴‍☠️

@pioneer_fund @TimSuzman @BlackFlagVC @ycombinator It's still actually missing us...

@pioneer_fund @TimSuzman @BlackFlagVC @ycombinator Nice. Ya I didn't tell them about who our investors are.

@BlackFlagVC tbh surprised to see Texas so small in numbers here! Texas FTW.

The next generation of critical technology, being built mostly on the coasts and increasingly everywhere. But the Bay Area is still where the most magic happens. 🌉 40% Bay Area 🏖️ 20% SoCal 🗽 18% East Coast 🤠 8% Texas

We made the #1 spot here (yay sorting). Lets goooo!

@StuartGarcia1 @mrmikeMTL kek

Name a video game that you've easily put 1,000 hours into Gifs only

@garrytan Boom. Time to switch. This was stopping me moving.

GBrain v0.31.1 just shipped real MCP thin client support. So basically you can run ONE "home GBrain server" and everything else can just connect to it via MCP and it'll work pretty close to as well as running it locally. GBrain just went client-server.

@pquerna Dolphins first

We made an LLM to make SVGs but we still can’t talk to dolphins or whales. I’d accept either.

@MarioNawfal ugh.

🇺🇸 A full-on brawl erupted outside Clavicular’s Bacara nightclub… Florida nightlife doing Florida things again.

There’s a lot of alpha in putting your ego aside by being willing to be cringe, willing to fail in public, willing to ask for what you want and face rejection, etc.

@sama can we get a smarter voice mode?

what would you most like to see improve in our next model?

@jaiselsingh dm me!

@rhs yep! in the look for investors/vcs at the moment! etcrobotics.com

here's a follow up ground based drone tracker :> this little setup runs with 100Hz+ tracking updates, ~20ms latency, low light, no motion blur. (4d object tracking + 6dof pose/velocity)

@ycombinator @pavoot_com @gohar_tamrazyan I've run tons of events, and this would have been amazing. Lets goooo!

Companies spend millions on events because relationships drive revenue, but converting attendees is still manual. Pavoot (@pavoot_com) is an AI agent that sources your top leads and turns events into personalized customer journeys. Congrats on the launch, @gohar_tamrazyan and @anayflima! ycombinator.com/launches/QFK-p…

@s43stha @flutterflow @ycombinator you wearing them for DD?

@flutterflow @ycombinator appreciate it. we still have the costumes 🦞 if you ever need to borrow them 🤩

someone asked “what’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken” we wore lobster costumes to our @ycombinator interview and we got in :)