Mark Jacobstein

My great-great uncle Meyer Jacobstein en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Jac… was a 3-term Congressman from Rochester & opposed the Immigration Act of 1924

TBT to our Minus One fireside with @echen. The @HelloSurgeAI story is wild: bootstrapped → $1B+ revenue -> 🦄. But two things really stood out: - It started with a deep curiosity at Minus One: high-quality data collection — and Edwin just kept pulling that thread. - A relentless obsession with product and data quality that still guides the company today.

Grateful to my old friend Professor Steve Collins for the lab tour at @Stanford last week; if we're going to build the future at @southpkcommons we need to understand what the best labs in the world are working on.

We stopped by @Stanford to see the robots. Thanks for the tour of the biomechatronics lab, Professor Collins!

One of the coolest companies at @southpkcommons right now; Maya will bring the power of AI to billions of people.

Packed house at @southpkcommons NYC for Dinner & Paper Reading Night with AI Socratic. AI is moving insanely fast. The only way to stay at the frontier is to be in talent-dense rooms debating the work in real time. S/O @rhobusiness

And here on Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/73FS6e…

Catch the full conversation youtube.com/watch?v=Bv1ET_…

I've known and admired @AndrewYang for more than 25 years; long before he became a Presidential candidate and an urgent and provocative voice for political reform, Andrew was a young tech entrepreneur in NYC. Andrew's always been deeply thoughtful about how to build a better future and improve social cohesion: he was the first major voice to talk about job loss and AI, UBI, and, as this clip shows, how to improve political outcomes by changing our primary voting system. Andrew is also an extraordinary exemplar of a notion we hold dear at @southpkcommons, the idea that "we can just do things." Andrew's entire career speaks to the power of agency — if you see something you want to change, take action. @adityaag and I were lucky to sit down with Andrew recently for a wide-ranging conversation I know you'll enjoy. Check out our conversation on this week’s Minus One podcast.

Most people thought @AndrewYang was crazy in 2018. He warned that AI would destabilize the entire economy. Millions of jobs would be at risk. What's actually happening now?

@GoodfireAI's first office was a windowless storage room at SPC. Last week we stopped by their new (much better lit) office to learn from @banburismus_ and team about the latest in mech interp. The SPC research group is visiting a frontier lab every month to learn from those pushing the boundaries.

Most have now heard about @GammaApp's Series B. Profitable $100M+ ARR, 70M users, $2M ARR per employee. One of the most efficient, hyper scaling startups. But now that the dust has settled…here’s a story that doesn’t get shared broadly. This wasn’t an overnight success. It took a couple years before stuff started to work. One of my favorite moments in this journey with Gamma was actually a pretty dark day. March 10th, 2023. We had time set aside to jam on their soon to launch AI-powered version. SVB melted down two days prior. Accounts are frozen that morning. They don’t know if they’re going to make payroll next week. Given everything, I’m like, “Guys, totally understand if now is not a good time to jam.” Co-founder Grant says, “We’re already here. Let’s do it.” It’s a small thing, but it embodies one very simple thing that makes these guys special. They’re maniacally focused on the most important thing - building a great experience for their customer. If you hear @thisisgrantlee talk, he’s all about understanding what their customer wants and how they build a solution that delights. Even if the world around them is burning down (figuratively, but kind of literally that afternoon in March), they’re still focused on the same thing - build a great product. If you're already here, you might as well build something great. It’s been so fun to be along for the journey through @scriptcapital and @southpkcommons from day one. So much more to build. Let’s go.

Congratulations to @ericho_goodfire, @banburismus_ , @DanJBalsam, & the @GoodfireAI team! They're doing incredibly important work, we're excited to continue supporting what's next 🚀

This policy led to the US becoming the freest, richest, and most powerful country in the history of the world. Everyone wanted to come here, to be American, for their children to be American, and to thrive as America thrived. You would destroy all of that out of racist spite.

Those that are paying attention feel the acceleration. It's about to get pretty weird. If you think it's crazy for @southpkcommons to fund builders pre-idea in this environment, here is why you're missing the point.

Amazing to have people like @yaroslavvb roundtripping at @southpkcommons

Working with @southpkcommons has been a blast. This helps explain why.

SPC turns 10 this year. A decade ago, Ruchi and I just wanted a space for people who weren't ready to start a company but knew they wanted to build something. We wanted to create a startup that would help other startups and founders. The best founders aren't just creative. They're ferociously competitive. They want to win. Not because they care about status — because they're greedy. Greedy to bring about the change they know must happen. And so I am feeling greedy. We have had a great 10 years. But I want more. I want more startups to exist and solve big problems. I want to work with more insane and wacky builders. The problems get bigger. The stakes get higher. Your ambition expands to fill the space. If you're in the -1 to 0 phase and feeling both terrified and alive: that's the signal. Don't ignore it. Be more ambitious. We at SPC certainly are going to be maximally aggressive and ambitious on our end. It's Day Minus One. Let's build.

What do we look for in founders @southpkcommons? Five characteristics. That's it. 👇 (Screenshot from our internal docs. 😬)