Brent Willess

Seven lessons I learned in six years at Uber: 🕸️ Decentralized talent is a superpower 🏦 Everyone needs to be an owner 🎯 Design for what matters 🚀 Moonshots take time 🍦 Build marketing into the product 🚨 Disrupt yourself–or someone else will 📈 Use data when making bets /🧵

It seems crazy that I have to say this, but I still believe deeply in human talent. The reason that no one likes AI is that a bunch of CEOs are running around touting how it’s going to “replace jobs” and “improve efficiency.” That may make for a good earnings call but it’s a terribly uninspiring message for the workforce. Tech collectively needs to wake up from its echo chamber.

Last week, @MikeyShulman announced that @suno has surpassed two million paying customers and $300M in annual revenue. I would love to say I had a grand theory about where AI was heading when I was the sole investor in their pre-seed round in 2022. The truth is I’m largely tone deaf to tech trends, but I do have a reasonably good eye for founders. So far, much of the AI story has been about making engineers more efficient. Suno is about making music more experimental and accessible. That shift has a lot to do with Mikey. He studied physics at Columbia, earned his PhD at Harvard, and later taught at MIT. That kind of academic pedigree can produce a prima donna. Mikey is the opposite, combining serious intellectual firepower with the creative instincts of a jazz band leader. (Fun fact: he’s also an accomplished bassist.) As impressive as he is, I was encouraged by the chorus cheering him on. Hugo Van Vuuren and Nancy Zimmerman were emphatic in their praise. His co-founders and former @Kensho colleagues, Martin Camacho, Georg Kucsko, and Keenan Freyberg, were similarly lauded by every reference I checked. When people you respect harmonize like that, it’s wise to listen. In the early days, the team was experimenting with different ways to commercialize the engine that would become @suno. They were commercially ambitious, but also deeply committed to empowering creators, and early enthusiasm from creative customers gave confidence that they were on the right track. Major talent and Minor ego is a rare combination, but in this case has produced one of the most consequential developments in music since MTV.

Klaviyo cofounders Ed Hallen and Andrew Bialecki are donating $6 mil to MIT aimed at keeping more entrepreneurs in the Boston area instead of decamping to California. This is one of several great initiatives designed to make Boston a fertile ground to start & scale.

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@RangerNetHQ incredible work here - this is huge

@OnlyInBOS felipe’s - harvard sq cc: @josephflaherty

What Massachusetts restaurant does this remind you of? █ █ █ █ █ █ Quality Cost

@Waymo let’s go Boston!

New cities, new horizons. 📍 Boston & Sacramento, we’re here to lay the groundwork for our autonomous ride-hailing service. The future of mobility just got a little bigger. Learn more: waymo.com/updates

@mattyglesias Surprised me as well cause I love the DMV. it’s the hub of New England which is really nice. Mountains for skiing and hiking (VT/ NH) + beaches (Cape, islands, Maine). Quaint, small towns in the suburbs with top public schools and diverse career opps (bio, tech, finance, uni)

@JasonrShuman Completely agree! We talked about this all the time at FC. If you're a seed investor, by the time something is in a market map you're too late to that category. Build and invest in companies that shape next year's theses.

I wonder if VC content erodes alpha. Publishing theses and market maps clearly accelerates competition. More investors show up faster. More founders chase the same ideas, and CACs increase. The supply of startups increases as narratives turn into templates, creating more noise and making true outliers harder to spot for both investors and customers.

@aeyal1 @saullevin @EntreeCap best news ever, @saullevin is one of a kind. Equal parts wonderful person and investor. Couldn't have happened to a better person and firm!

👏 We are promoting @saullevin to Partner at Entrée Capital today (@EntreeCap). From the moment we met it was clear that Saul possessed the unique combination of hunger, integrity, and intellectual curiosity that we look for. His dedication to founders and his ‘can do’ attitude align with our firms’ DNA and succession plans. We are proud to have Saul join the partnership. Congrats!

@jonmcneill @bhalligan Love all of this Jon. Thank you for getting involved and helping to capitalize on all this potential

I've been cautious about weighing into the discussion on the Boston ecosystem, but with people I really respect, like @bhalligan opening the door, here are some of my observations. I don't believe this is about taxes or housing costs (they are both way higher in the Bay Area). With experience in both Boston and Bay Area ecosystems, my take on where Boston needs to close gaps are: 1) VC Risk appetite -- this is so starkly different between markets, it's stunning. We'll show one of our seed companies to multiple Boston VCs and get very detailed questions on sales productivity, sales motion, etc - basically risk mitigation questions. It's seed and these are companies growing 100% with millions of $'s in revenue. We show them to SF VCs and the questions are about the team, how big can this be, and terms are on the table in the first meeting. This has to get fixed -- no amount of adding YC or others to the ecosystem will address the lack of VC aggression in Boston. West Coast VCs -- come east, the market is large and vulnerable to your competition!

Can Massachusetts become an AI powerhouse? I believe it can. -2 of of the world’s best universities in Harvard and MIT -Strongest global biotech and health ecosystem -Great city in Boston But we are not there yet. This month, Whoop launched the Massachusetts AI Coalition to take this problem head on.

@abarrallen @bhalligan come visit! @abarrallen

@bhalligan Awesome, go Brian!

There’s a lot of movement since this original X post. A bunch of folks are working on things that should help create the very fertile ground for a whole new generation of Boston tech startups to rise. Here are some things I know about. 1. There are conversations w both YC and South Park Commons about cranking up here. We’re at the right level and there’s interest. I’m hopeful one of them steps up. Given founders of 17 of the top 50 ai companies went to school here, I think it’s a good idea for them. 2. @sequoia is doing two new things in Boston. (a) We are spinning up a “Starter Series” where we connect high potential students in Boston to Sequoia, other founders, etc. & (b) We have an opening for an associate/analyst/principal type and I’d like to find that person here in Boston. I’d like someone w a technical degree who went to school in the Cambridge ecosystem in last few years that is outgoing. If you’ve got the perfect referral, hit me up on DM or LI. I’m strict on the profile, so please keep it tight as my inbox runeth over these days. 3. @A16Z is programming a bunch of content in Boston. 4. We are talking to the government about making Boston an even better place to live and thrive for those founders. The average age of a Fortune 50 AI founder is 28, so we need to make it great for that crowd. We had a good first call with the mayor and are scheduling a meeting with the governor. Hats off to them for reaching out. Housing costs, transportation, & fun, oh my. 5. The @Whoop folks were already working on and just launched the "Massachusetts AI Coalition" which is going to bring ai talent to Boston and be a major convener in the city. HubSpot has signed up to be part of this as well as @Suno, @Lovable, @Draftkings, @Wayfair, @Klaviyo, @circle , and a bunch of the next gen startups. Big big props to @willahmed & @Durkin. 6. MIT is working on some amazing new stuff that’s not ready to be talked about yet. 7. Some good signals from @epaley about revisiting the non-compete & non-solicit rules. 8. Discussions with the existing early stage incubators are happening. 9. The Patriots won their first playoff game in 7 years and the Red Sox signed an excellent pitcher. A lot more convening. A lot more west coast energy. #FertileGround Most of this is being done by other people. Since I started all this trouble I thought I’d just document all the great stuff that folks were doing. Thanks everyone. If you’re in Boston and doing amazing stuff that I missed that will help it be a place where the next 28 year old ai superstar founder starts her company, put in the replies.

@stash_pomichter @dimensionalos @AlexLin14876 this is wild!

Agents can now understand physical space and temporality on Dimensional. Input: “Find the model airplane” With SpatioTemporal RAG, our agent has an emergent understanding of objects, stairwells, and obstacles in latent space.

@garrytan @arc_4n0n @teddyschleifer @RMac18 @hknightsf Perfect time to bring it back

@arc_4n0n @teddyschleifer @RMac18 @hknightsf Turns out people move where the best jobs are The best CS program for AI is in MIT Maybe it’s time to start YC Cambridge again

NEWS: Larry Page and Peter Thiel are making moves to leave California by the end of the year to avoid a possible billionaires tax that could hit them where it hurts. With @RMac18 + @hknightsf. nytimes.com/2025/12/26/tec…

Think you would get a ton of grads who are either sniped by salary to soulless career or whose activation energy just doesn't quite get there to apply to move for 3 months. Catch the young fish before they swim away elsewhere 🐟

+1 If I were getting my undergrad in CS again, I'd be trying to get into MIT (probably wouldn't make it in, but I'd try).