Daniel

.@travisk says building a company in stealth creates a culture of builders: "You build a culture of people that want to build and do not need to be famous when they do it, which basically means - emotional intelligence." It's human nature to want to be acknowledged for the things you do. You'd like the things you build to be seen and for somebody to know that you did it. When you cut against that core of human nature, you wind up with a very high EQ culture. "But - you have to go the extra mile to recruit, the extra mile in sales, etc."

Startups die when they stop believing. 2024 almost broke Rysk. We built a leading DeFi options protocol, but scaling was hard. Everyone kept saying: "No one wants options." Finding capital and PMF felt impossible. We nearly quit. But Rysk team never stopped believing. We regrouped, got scrappy, analyzed every design and on-chain behavior, questioned every assumption, and relentlessly talked to users. Builders, investors, and friends like @evan_van_ness pushed us forward. They challenged us to take a new approach. To build something completely new. Rysk V12 isn’t just a product. It’s proof we refused to quit. Refused to stop believing. It’s our mission.

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The State of ML Competitions 2025 by @ml_contests report analyzed 390 competitions across 30+ platforms. The findings are a fascinating snapshot of where the field is right now. A few things stood out to us. 🧵