tela

@RUNDennisMC Yup that’s mine

The image is JUST ONE BANK OF SERVER CABINETS (two rows?) that makes up all of Cortex (the nick-name for @Tela's "supercomputer" at Austin Texas). Each cabinet might contain 50 to 60 GPUs. Roughly 20 to 25 banks of cabinets. So... imagine a room with 25 times the number of cabinets you see in the main photo. To think that ANY COMPANY (let alone another CAR company) will have ANYTHING CLOSE TO THIS ANYTIME SOON... laughable. Even Google will not be building a 50,000 GPU cluster to teach cars how to drive in the wild. And @elonmusk said that Optimus humanoid robots will need 10x the training resources... WHO is training their humanoid robots like Tesla?

@nimanojoumi @pitdesi @SantoJLeo Agree on the use case for fintech. But announcing equity and debt together is potentially more misleading in this scenario.

Incredibly different. Debt in a lending business is part of the product itself and is typically accounted for as COSP or COGS since it directly funds the loans provided to customers. This type of debt often comes with strict covenants and guardrails, limiting its use to funding the approved lending program. Venture debt is a financing tool for startups to support operational or strategic needs like growth, working capital, CapEx, or extending runway. It is not tied to a product and is used to complement equity financing without diluting ownership further.

How could a company shut down abruptly with no warning? The Answer: Debt Covenants on Venture Debt While this isn't specifically about Bench (I have no inside knowledge), their "$60M" Series C illustrates an important point - Pitchbook shows it was actually $37M equity and $23M debt. Further evidence that they used debt: Bench lists SVB as an investor on their website, likely venture debt. A plea to journalists: Always ask companies to break out equity vs debt in fundraising announcements. Only include equity in headlines! You are doing us all a disservice by including debt. Venture debt is most often used alongside an equity round. On paper, it seems counterintuitive for the lender - you get the risk of an early-stage company with capped upside of debt. Lenders get interest payments, warrants, and equity kickers, and only back companies where they're confident VCs will continue supporting them. Most importantly, they protect themselves with debt covenants. These covenants are mandatory conditions during the loan term, including financial requirements like: -Maintaining minimum cash balances -Meeting revenue/growth targets -Staying under maximum burn rates -Maintaining debt service coverage ratios And non-financial conditions such as: -Board composition -Major investor participation in future rounds Breach these covenants, and the lender can demand immediate full repayment, freeze bank accounts, and seize collateral - effectively forcing an instant shutdown. While rare (many companies don't fully utilize their venture debt, and lenders often show flexibility if communication remains open), it does happen. When lenders lose confidence in getting repaid, they'll call the capital and seize assets. Can venture debt be useful for scaling? Yes. But it's often misused to extend runway or inflate perceived fundraising totals - both dangerous moves. When business turns south, those seemingly helpful strings become deadly chains. As Warren Buffett noted (2018 letter): "We use debt sparingly. Many managers, it should be noted, will disagree with this policy, arguing that significant debt juices the returns for equity owners. And these more venturesome CEOs will be right most of the time. At rare and unpredictable intervals, however, credit vanishes and debt becomes financially fatal. A Russian roulette equation – usually win, occasionally die – may make financial sense for someone who gets a piece of a company’s upside but does not share in its downside."

@wilreynolds The bros were bandwagon. So much goodness in founders creating the vision and the structure.

All the "founder mode" stuff seemed to be shared by a certain type, so I assumed it was bro-ey stuff. Thanks for friends who say, there's value there and make you take a second look. Agree or disagree, this will make you question your self and think. youtu.be/-JnqbfeaXXA?si…

@ericbahn The play date meetups for TARSs and CASEs are gonna be fun!

Just watched Interstellar again last night. I need one of these GP-TARS!!

@typesfast Not nuclear. Still problematic

👀

Someone is selling an AIM Sidewinder missile online the week the Pentagon failed an audit…

@jjen_abel 💯part of a strategy. The right mix at the right time

@tela And faster churn

smb is not easier than enterprise biggest startup misconception

@dohertyjf My cousin is a real estate agent in Hawaii who sells condos mostly to local families. That’s eliminated the only class of entry level ownership in towns where there are no single family homes less than $1M

@tela I feel bad for them, then. I'm fortunate that I could if I really had to.

Insurance companies out here messing around, increasing rates and not telling me. Insurance is the biggest scam in the world. Makes me want to pay off my properties and just not deal with it.

@dohertyjf I don’t mean the insurance co of that name. Insurance rates across the country are going up. Folks in condos with HOAs don’t have the option of paying off or moving, and many won’t be able to afford the new payments. Catastrophic for many marginal folks.

@dohertyjf It’s nationwide

@sm How many of them were From people named Tela?

I just accepted over 800 pending LinkedIn connections. AMA.

@Altimor @DanielleFong The next step is for agents to understand the tools they use, and OpenAI says that’ll be out this year. I think that will hockey stick usefulness and adoption of agents.

2024 was the year AI agents went from "very exciting, but not quite working yet" to "making a real business impact / automating entire functions." The trend will accelerate in 2025, and I expect that's when we'll start seeing fully-autonomous AI companies, albeit simple ones at first (we've already just passed the milestone of the first millionaire AI agent). In the meantime, folks like Andrew who are starting to implement agents in their businesses are getting not just a glimpse of the future, but a taste of the new present.

@adamkropp @a19grey @Jason Tasty tasty nuke wafers

@a19grey @Jason Yup. Right next to the Necco wafer factory.

Today I’ve learned that there are two nuclear power plants ~150 miles away from me in Austin So, apparently, thats the exact distance away from me I’m ok with!

@Trace_Cohen Have you see. Lady Snowblood? Totally inspired Blue Eyed Samuray and Kill Bill

Wow blue eye samurai is 🗡️🔥🔥🔥

@RepRashida @kroger Pass a law preventing this abusive pricing

Families are struggling to put food on the table. I sent a letter to @Kroger about their decision to roll out surge pricing using facial recognition technology. Facial recognition technology is often discriminatory and shouldn't be used in grocery stores to price gouge residents.

@rustybrick OFC the monopolist calls it radical. The market calls it hope.

DOJ is leaning towards a Google breakup after the monopoly ruling, Google calls this radical seroundtable.com/google-monopol…

@ChanningAllen Love that positioning!

Paper knowledge vs pavement knowledge

@rjonesy We’ll be flipping DMA switches soon if this keeps up

Photo settings have gone too far. WTF is happening.

@tomfgoodwin I get it and see this, but I also see a lot of hungry “on” people and teams that have energy and have thoughtfully taken the tools we were forced to use in COVID and made a new culture out of it. People are accelerating into this gap.

I know we never dare speak of it. But the vibe in the world has never really recovered after Covid The energy to events. The sort of passion behind doing things. A sort of sense of being alive and spontaneous and relishing the world. I can’t put my finger on it. But sometimes you can sense an underlying trauma in everything that takes an edge of it. I’m not expecting many replies or likes here. But in private a LOT of people speak about it . I do wonder in our strive for efficiency we lose out on living . I wonder if we’ve atrophied muscles that we no longer miss

@jefielding Passing out from hunger is the new power nap, I guess 😳

‘No breakfast is the new Power Breakfast’ -guy at the next table with a glass of water, Crosby Street hotel 🙄