Avidan

We have a new coffee grinder (and $190M fund). I rebuilt the electronics to add grind-by-weight and Wifi/BLE. The firmware is also running a server to announce our new fund: rootventures.coffee ☕️🚀🤑

I was today years old when i discovered that linkedin has dark mode. I don't know why, but i just assumed they would be the last site to adopt it.

@semil @haystackvc @aashaysanghvi_ @DivyaDhulipala there are very few people as thoughtful in the game as this team. congrats! haystack LPs are a lucky bunch.

[brief update] we have a new set of funds for @haystackvc announcing haystack 8 plus more, but it's really about my teammates @aashaysanghvi_ & @DivyaDhulipala thank you to all of our frequent ecosystem co-conspirators, our LPs, our co-investors, our founders. i'm very grateful 🙏 and this is the most fun role in the world! semilshah.com/2026/04/26/new…

@garrytan Fully agree

I don't think anyone should attend Web Summit

IYKYK

@ikirigin i hope they walked away questioning everything they "know"

Just had a spicy exchange at my front door: -Him- Hi we're gathering signatures for rent control. =Me= Rent control is one of the worst ideas in all of economics. Did you even google this? - Yes, and I studied economics actually. = You think a majority of economists think it's a good idea? - Yes actually. = That's not true. It lowers the supply of housing. Landlords don't have money to maintain units. - We'll force them to. = Cities with rent control are missing tens of thousands of units because upkeep isn't worth the money. - You think landlords can't afford it? = They have less money, it's just a business choice. Meanwhile, can you guess what I pay in property taxes? - No = Can you guess the ratio of my property taxes vs my 5 neighbors combined? - No = I pay literally double the next 5 houses combined. - Are you saying you can't afford that? = No, the city has less tax revenue for roads and schools and police. You could be trying to fix that. Have you heard of CEQA? - No, I don't know what that is = Please quit your job.

@PleaseStacy Nah. Been involved since GPT2. Funded two of the authors of the transformer paper. I was just able to keep up with the new releases during “normal waking hours” until recently.

@avidan Did you just learn about AI?

I'm losing sleep over AI. I have to force myself to go to bed after playing with all the newest releases of the day. I haven't been this enamoured by technology since building my first computer.

@bznotes @semil @nabeel I love falafel products. I am going to taste test one. Its going to be my lunch.

Dear fellow Falafel VCs: maybe its time for us to shine with falafels and hummus :-) @semil | @nabeel | @avidan

@pitdesi They were better prepared than the Ayatolah

Gotta give them credit for being quick on the draw

This year, I’m making Persian flavored hamantaschen. Thinking pistachio+rose and date+walnut. Any other ideas?

@BillCrosby grace period is a setting! currently 15 seconds

Announcing: Pedal4BrainRot. 🚲 You get to watch YouTube on your Peloton, but only if you keep pedaling. If your RPM drops? BOOM. Firewall block. It’s like the movie "Speed," but the bomb is a firewall. github.com/avidan/Pedal-4…

The requirements. RaspberryPi Magene S3+ Cadence sensor Ubiquiti Network (install server on the RPi) A kid who loves YouTube Peloton (hey @onepeloton -- this would have been easier with a documented API!)

My boys (3rd & 5th grade) are training for Bay City AAU basketball. They started "slow pedaling" for brainrot the second they saw YouTube on the Peloton screen. As a dad, I had to solve the problem. Now, if they want the content, they have to earn it through cardio.

Oh good, I can run Doom in a terminal in @zeddotdev.

@mr_ameji glad our site was able to inspire

When I started in the VC ecosystem, I noticed that a lot of VCs had very similar websites & after speaking & working with more & more VCs, I think I get why: most tell their designers & teams that they hire, that they want something "clean, minimal, and modern” and they get to work. And honestly, the "pre-VC-knowledge version of me" would have made the same mistake of not understanding that differentiation is one of the most (if not THE most) important things for emerging funds when they're on competitive rounds, especially when everyone can offer cash. So, When we built VSC's website, we wanted to fully lean into what makes VSC different from other VC firms. What exactly was that? VSC is the firm that partners with companies in “dirty, dusty and dangerous” industries to help them tell their story and get them infront of their customers & business partners. So if VSC isn’t a typical firm; then why should make them “normal”. They use their distribution engine which right now comprises of their podcasts and daily content as their primary engine for deal flow & networking. We took inspiration from firms like @RootVC (where @Avidan built a site that actually reflects their engineering personality) and decided to turn VSC’s site into a content platform with a style built around a camera. We wanted it to feel like a "Netflix for VC & founders"(I kid you not, this was the brief 😂) & a place where you can actually see their media engine in action, rather than just reading another long generic mission statement. The end result is a website that fully embodies the media driven nature of VSC ventures, that works more like Netflix and acts as a centerpiece of the distribution engine rather than just a dead page. Link to the website is on the first comment.

@UboPod no, but it did tell me how to give it a credit card to use

@avidan cool! does it wire investment yet? 😆

openclaw + notebookLM. took a meeting with a founder today in an interesting/unique field. i had openclaw spend the night compiling 40 pages of research. Loaded the report into notebookLM to create a 30m podcast that i listened to on the drive down to the meeting.

@UboPod Restaurant reservations. Sourcing founders. Sourcing new hires. Finding flights. I find new uses daily. I’ve been using for about 3-4 weeks, but only feel like I’ve scratched the surface.

@avidan cool! what else do you use openclaw for?

@avidan How helpful was it?