The Council

Empathy is not soft. In caregiving, it is infrastructure. Duanni Hurd went from Silicon Valley hardware leadership to building a 24/7 home care company. On First Builders, she shares why trust drives scale, why care cannot be Uberized, and how AI can support operators.

Loved diving in with @FilArons on his journey as a repeat founder, engineer at Northrop Grumman, and now CEO at @DiracInc. Dirac bridges assembly design to manufacturability for companies like Anduril and Siemens. @rachtsui and I are proud to to have them in The Council portfolio! 00:00 Introduction 02:35 The Journey into Engineering and Hard Problems 05:27 The Birth of Dirac: From Aerospace to Software 08:11 Addressing the Opioid Crisis: A Personal Story 10:43 Deciding What to Build: Timing and Passion 12:58 Navigating Hardware and Software Challenges 15:32 The Day-to-Day of Tackling Hard Problems 18:31 Manufacturers' Willingness to Innovate 22:57 Building Trust in Complex Industries 24:58 Embracing Risk in Entrepreneurship 26:39 The Assembly Company: Dirac's Unique Approach 31:48 Reintegrating American Manufacturing 36:24 Defining Success and Milestones at Dirac 38:14 Rapid Fire Insights: Leadership and Innovation

.On First Builders, Dirac CEO @FilArons discusses his journey so far building Dirac and explains what it takes to deploy software inside mission-critical factories. Link to full episode in the comments below. @TheCouncilCap @AmberIllig @RachTsui #firstbuilders #startups #leadership

From neuroscience labs and defense systems → the factory floor. Filip Aronshtein founded Dirac to tackle assembly in manufacturing. On First Builders, he explains why execution, trust, and working with reality beat elegant theory.

@AmberIllig @rachtsui maven.com/p/6ba660/how-t…

🚨 Last Chance to Sign Up! 🚨 Our FREE webinar on Angel & LP Investing hosted by @AmberIllig and @rachtsui is happening tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb 17 at 9AM and this is your final chance to join us! If you’ve been curious about how angel investors evaluate deals, how LP investing works, or how to start building exposure to private markets, this session is for you. 👇 Sign up now! Link in the comments. And this is just the beginning… Our full 6-week deep dive course on Angel & LP Investing is coming soon. See you tomorrow!

Thinking about angel or LP investing but not sure where to start? If you’re a tech leader, terms like term sheets and cap tables can feel like a different language. Good news: operators make great investors. ✨ Free live session 📅 Feb 17 • 9 AM PT How Tech Leaders Start Angel & LP Investing with Amber Illig No jargon. No gatekeeping. Just a clear place to start. Angel-curious? LP-curious? This one’s for you. RSVP in the comments.

Early Chrome OS builds → healthcare data infrastructure → advising founders. Lina Scroggins spent 17 years at Google building systems before playbooks existed. On First Builders- why operations is strategy, systems beat symptoms, and leadership doesn’t need managing people.

🚀 Spring Cohort apps open for @TheCouncilCap angels! Join 200+ operators from Airbnb, Square, Figma, OpenAI & Twitch angel investing together. 🧭 North star = more women on cap tables. Deadline: Feb 27 thecouncil.co/angels

From construction and trucking → the food supply chain. Charles Julius built platforms at Procore and Motive before founding Loamy to reduce food loss. On First Builders, he he explains why trust, design, and correctness beat speed.

I recently joined the First Builders podcast to talk about my journey from early-stage SaaS to starting @SharkToothBio (see link in post below). We covered what drew me to building very early at @NotionHQ and @typeform: solving problems from first principles, learning directly from customers, and building teams and systems that can scale. We talked about hypergrowth. Everything constantly changes, hiring great people is the most important ingredient to success, and teams often spend too much time fixing what’s broken instead of doubling down on what’s working. Then the conversation shifted to my move from SaaS to Shark Tooth Biotech, a company I started to develop a treatment for my son's rare disease. Learning a new scientific domain and building in a new industry has been challenging and energizing, and we discussed some of the transferable skills. I hope you enjoy the conversation, and that it's helpful for fellow builders. I'm grateful to @rachtsui and @AmberIllig from @TheCouncilCap for inviting me and for the thoughtful conversation.

@davidcapple left SaaS to build treatments for a rare disease @SharkToothBio affecting his son and over a million others. On First Builders, he shares why purpose, first principles, and AI matter when building in biotech.

AI doesn’t fail because of bad ideas, it fails because reliability is an afterthought. On First Builders, @AutoblocksAI founder @haroonc explains why testing & evaluation are the missing layer in AI, especially in healthcare and other high-stakes environments.

🎧 thecouncil.co/podcast 🎙 @AmberIllig @rachtsui

Born too late to be employee 20 at Palantir? Born just in time to be employee 20 at Dirac? Come join us! We’re hiring for a billion things! Act now! That Employee 20 seat is going fast! Email me at contact@diracinc.com!

New look has arrived! @TheCouncilCap thecouncil.beehiiv.com/p/a-new-chapte…

We just rebranded The Council after 6 years of building quietly behind the scenes. Here’s why.

From rail to robots to voice AI. Zach Esmili, CEO of Quintess AI, built voice AI from his work at RATP Dev, Cruise, and Burro. - Maintenance as “healthcare for equipment” - Why voice beats screens for frontline workers - Operator-to-founder leap in industrial AI

Our newest and earliest port co joined our AGM yesterday. They met another VC during a break and piqued their interest. They ended up finding another room and chatting with the investor for an hour. The investor asked them to meet the firm’s GP and they said why not now. They all left the AGM, met the firm’s GP, and came back. The entire team also just moved to SF within the past week. Bullish.