Giuseppe Stuto

@WillManidis Very fair points, Will. Shared my experience here with some proposed solutions I’m working on through 2026.

@jonmcneill @bhalligan 🙏🙏🙏

@gstuto @bhalligan Spot on. No notes.

Boston doesn’t have a talent problem. It has an early-stage behavior problem. Recent posts from @bhalligan and @jonmcneill surfaced something I’ve felt for a long time. I wrote something longer on how we fix it. 🔗 @giuseppestuto/note/p-184871981?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=6ilbbr" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@giuseppestuto… Founders shouldn’t have to move west to learn how ambition, risk, and early conviction actually work. We can bring the best of both coasts together if we’re intentional about it.

@jonmcneill @bhalligan x.com/gstuto/status/…

@bhalligan Deal - Put me in coach!

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!

@jonmcneill @bhalligan This is so spot on, on so many levels, Jon. Some of the work and actual movement behind the scenes by some of us is very real and is aimed at turning the tide. Next time we meet I’ll fill you in. Time for Boston to flip the script.

@bhalligan Lots going on!

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.

If I were a16z, yc, or sequoia, I’d be aggressively investing in startups that are building novel ways to collect and annotate real-world data. > Billions of hours of driving data > Factory workers interacting with appliances and heavy machinery > Audio segmentation with deep dialectical and cultural understanding > Wet-lab experimental data > Continuous collection and annotation of agent traces at compute scale When we built LLMs, most of the data already existed on the internet. We just had to scrape, clean, and scale. But as we move toward world foundation models, the bottleneck is high-quality, real-world, well-annotated data. And annotation quality matters. There’s a massive difference between: “Apple on a tree” and “Ripe apples on a tree. The wind is blowing at 2 miles per hour. The temperature is around 18°C.” The question is simple. How much of the world can you actually capture? Today, LLMs know that apples fall because of gravity, not because they understand causality, but because they understand language correlations extremely well. Understanding the causal structure comes next. If I were building towards that future, I’d anchor data collection in India and other South and Southeast Asian regions. I’d deploy hardware, collect thousands of hours of human activity data, health signals, and vitals, and run annotation pipelines continuously. Day and night. If I were a16z, I’d fund founders to do this. I might just have the urge to do it myself.

@bhalligan @lilylyman @Alfred_Lin very helpful post on vc talent schema, thanks for taking the time to compile Brian.

Some thoughts on @Alfred_Lin for Boston VC's thinking about hiring profiles. 1. Harvard undergrad & Stanford MS in math -- technical. No MBA. 2. Good work experience from talent dense companies. 3. Connects well with young CS students and founders who want to build. They see themselves in him. 4. Contrarian. 5. First principled about everything. 6. Surrounds himself w/ a spike-y team that includes several Stanford CS grads who have domain expertise and relevant networks. 7. Utterly obsessed with helping his companies and Sequoia thrive. He's not "central casting."

I’m starting to worry about Massachusetts 1. Biotech is way off from a few years ago 2. Only 1 of the top 50 ai companies are in MA 3. The Fed research funding cuts hitting MIT, Harvard, Whoi are brutal. 4. The millionaires tax is working in the short run, but I know a lot of wealthy folks preparing for a FL move. 5. A glut of empty condos 6. It’s not “cool” for young folks 7. It’s expensive as sh-t. I honestly don’t think the MA/Boston govt can do that much about it as they are kind of macro issues. I give them big credit for working on building more housing and fixing the T, which will help. I’m trying to help w HubSpot, partnering w WHOI, teaching at MIT. I’d like to help more. Specifically I’d like to encourage and help more ai and climate companies in the state. I think ai and climate should be our dual growth engines.

@ItsSnibby @withglide thank you! definitely a non-obvious, special initiative @withglide is pushing forward!

@gstuto @withglide Nice breakdown. Credit unions and community banks are underrated wedges, and infrastructure-first execution compounds quietly. Non-obvious founder insight usually explains the breakout more than surface metrics. @gstuto follow back appreciated fr

Our third edition of the "idiosyncratic phenomenon" covers another one of our fastest growing portfolio companies, @withglide. Since we invested in Winter, 2021, they've continued to breakout within the world of credit unions and community banks with their unparalleled infrastructure. Check out some of the non-obvious elements we found when we first met the founders, @gautamka, @vishnuchakrobo, @sameerskapur and their journey since! giuseppestuto.medium.com/idiosyncratic-…

@bonatsos @generalcatalyst Legend!!!

After 15 wonderful years @generalcatalyst I am moving on to new adventures. The best days for GC are ahead! Super grateful to every single one of my teammates that I had the fortune to work with over the years. I learned a lot. Very thankful to our limited partners too for their long-term support. Equally importantly, it's been the privilege of a lifetime to work with so many inspiring tech startup founders from the very early days.

@bhalligan 100% 🫡. We will all make 2026 a productive year of REAL BUILDING!

@gstuto Thank you. Lets try to get moving beyond talk and tweets to real action.

I did a bunch of analysis of the AI 50 produced by Fortune this year (not perfect, but vaguely right). Of the 50 companies listed, 2 are Boston (actually Cambridge), Suno and OpenEvidence. OpenEvidence is headquartered in Miami. So, 1 out of 50 is actually in Greater Boston. Thank you @MikeyShulman! 17 of the 50 top ai companies have founders that went to school in Boston. The average age of those 17 founders was 28.5 years old when they started the company. We need to make Boston a great place to start a company. We need to make Boston an extremely attractive place for new grads to put down roots. There is a lot to like about Boston! A bunch of us are getting together on Wednesday night to talk about it. This is a problem worth solving. Lets continue discussing, debating, and engaging on how to improve the region. I'd like to see some of the elected officials who are DM'g me weigh in here.

My best advice is to stop using motivation as your only fuel. I know it feels great when you’re fired up, but it’s a short-term fuel source. That’s why the vast majority of people who start anything - diet, fitness, new projects - don’t finish. They run out of gas. The only lasting fuel is routine. And you only get a routine by dragging yourself on the days when you have no motivation. Over and over. I know that’s not the answer anyone wants. I wish I had a magic pill for you. But the only thing that works long term is showing up for yourself even when you don’t want to. Brute force. I’m slightly crazy and don’t have any investors or consultants to listen to, so I’m giving people 50 dollars of their 100 dollar annual subscription back when they show up for themselves and complete a full program in my app. If that motivates you to start, it’s designed to build your routine to keep you going like it has for thousands of other people, so join us: arnoldspumpclub.com/pages/bet-on-y…

@ItzSuds @Jakebrooks @triumpharcade Watching them since day 1 has continued to be highlight of my trips to SF. Jake is unequivocally one of the most special founders in the country.

I’ve seen inside the fastest growing startups & somehow @triumpharcade is growing faster No one has executed better in a harder space than @Jakebrooks I truly thought consumer was uninvestable. Turns out it’s only an impossible nut to crack until the right team shows up 🚀🦄

@JoshuaKushner @pmarca said it best— most ideas come to fruition, just a matter of timing and sheer founder might to will something into existence! This is the marvel underpinning the innovation economy. Well said, Josh!

sometimes i pause and reflect on how amazing it is that most startups are trying to do something everyone who came before them either thought was impossible or failed at

@andrewdsouza @goswish Great job building this, team! QQ— how selective are you being on the VC front? Approximate % accepted etc?

This is what happens when you actually build something founders need. Still accepting founders and investors to the program. Sign up here: go.boardy.ai/100founders go.boardy.ai/100investors

Look who I found, @jjacobs22 cooking up something new!

@TheDanielJeong DMd you

Where is the startup community in NYC A lot of opportunity here but also lots of noise Send me some signal

Super interesting and a broader reflection that the traditional SaaS model doesn’t really work in AI world.

Tried @UseReasoner on @arcprize’s just-released ARC-AGI-2. Reasoner passed on first try. “Correct!” (Screenshot shows one rated “hard” by Arc Prize.)