Sam Teller

Introducing Mesh

We are pleased to announce the close of Thrive X. Exceeding $10 billion, Thrive X comprises $1 billion designated for early-stage investments and $9 billion designated for growth-stage investments. We do not view this as a milestone, but as a commitment to the long work ahead. We view Thrive as a company. Our product is partnership - the willingness to commit deeply to a small number of founders, and to stand with them through momentum and adversity. This is the discipline we bring to our work, and the responsibility we accept when founders partner with Thrive. We do not hedge. Concentration demands loyalty to the founders and missions we back. In this moment, exposure alone is not a strategy. Judgment without commitment is not enough. Advantage will accrue to those who choose deliberately, commit deeply, and endure through difficult moments. Thrive was founded to be an enabling technology for the world we want to see. We are deeply aware that we are not the main character. The founders that we are fortunate enough to partner with are the artists. Our role is to help create the conditions where great work can come to life. We take a long view grounded in the belief that category-defining companies tend to create structural compounding advantages over long arcs. This fund reflects the continuity of our approach and the ways our work has deepened alongside the founders we support. We are grateful for the trust our Limited Partners place in us, and for the opportunity to work alongside those who are building with purpose, integrity, and courage. thrivecap.com/thrive-x

Exactly ten years ago, SpaceX made history by landing the Falcon 9, the first orbital-class rocket to do so. It was one of the best days of @elonmusk's life and for the SpaceX team.

It is such an honor to work with the incredible people at my companies

With Tesla’s Annual Meeting fast approaching on November 6, Board Chair, Robyn Denholm, sent a letter to shareholders on the critical nature of this vote. The fundamental question for shareholders at this year’s Annual Meeting is simple: Do you want to retain Elon as Tesla’s CEO and motivate him to drive Tesla to become the leading provider of autonomous solutions and the most valuable company in the world? Make your voice heard — vote with Tesla on ALL proposals today! votetesla.com Dear Fellow Shareholders, As you know, Tesla is at a critical inflection point, and we need your vote to help determine the future direction of our evolving company. Your vote matters, and the deadline for voting is 11:59pm ET on November 5th. The fundamental question for shareholders at this year’s Annual Meeting is simple: Do you want to retain Elon as Tesla’s CEO and motivate him to drive Tesla to become the leading provider of autonomous solutions and the most valuable company in the world? Kathleen and I engaged in a rigorous, seven-month Special Committee process resulting in a highly customized performance plan that aligns shareholder value and measurable business outcomes with the interests of our CEO. Our goal was two-fold: (1) retain and incentivize Elon to capitalize on the unique opportunities that lie ahead for Tesla and (2) do so in a manner that promotes the development of products and services that will propel our world toward a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous future while creating unparalleled value for our shareholders. We’ve done this by challenging Elon with the potential to secure what he values most—meaningful voting influence—conditioned on his commitment to continue leading Tesla for at least another 7.5 years while successfully driving our company to ambitious new heights. The bottom line is simple: Elon is rewarded only if and when he delivers extraordinary performance that benefits all Tesla shareholders. When negotiating this performance award, we necessarily considered what Tesla’s future without Elon would look like, and we did not believe it was the future that our shareholders deserve. At a time when companies—both big and small—are competing to be the first to bring groundbreaking AI technologies to market, we could not risk losing the best leader in the industry to put Tesla on top. Now is a pivotal moment for our company to emerge as a leader in AI, and with our exceptional CEO at the helm, we are perfectly positioned to seize it. Though it’s no question that Elon has other pursuits, he has proven that one of the many things that make him unique is his ability to stretch his capacity beyond normal limits and remain successful at Tesla. However, if we fail to foster an environment that motivates Elon to achieve great things through an equitable pay-for-performance plan, we run the risk that he gives up his executive position, and Tesla may lose his time, talent and vision, which have been essential to delivering extraordinary shareholder returns. Without Elon, Tesla could lose significant value, as our company may no longer be valued for what we aim to become: a transformative force reimagining the fundamental building blocks of mobility, energy and labor, with products such as FSD and Optimus, and working to better humanity in the process. While there may be nothing wrong with being just another car company, our Board believes that Tesla can be more, that our shareholders deserve more, and that Elon is the right leader to help us achieve our full potential. Elon’s leadership is also built upon the critical support of our “tailor made” governance structure, including our carefully constructed Board. Good governance should be customized to the company, not applied with a “cookie cutter” approach, and it is exemplified by the results that Tesla has delivered, and this Board has overseen. We therefore ask you to vote “for” the three members of the Board—Ira, Kathleen and Joe—who are up for re-election to ensure that the Board, which has worked alongside Elon for years, complementing and enhancing his efforts to deliver extraordinary shareholder returns, remains in place. That is why your vote is so consequential to the future of our company. A vote here is both an endorsement of Elon’s vision and a vote for Tesla’s carefully tailored strategy and governance. I urge you to support Proposal One, which ensures the continued leadership and support of our outstanding and experienced directors, as well as Proposals Three and Four, which aim to keep Elon focused on our mission here at Tesla. I feel strongly—as do the rest of my colleagues on our Board—that Elon singularly possesses the leadership characteristics and technical manufacturing know-how to keep us on the path towards maximizing long-term shareholder value as well as social good. We at Tesla are laser focused on exceptional performance—not promises—and we structure our awards in line with this principle. If you care about building a better world for humanity and supporting our vision for Sustainable Abundance—then you should vote “FOR” Proposals One, Three and Four. If you want Tesla to have a shot at becoming the world’s most valuable company—then you should vote “FOR” Proposals One, Three and Four. Please read the Special Committee Report, which is attached to this year’s proxy statement, for a more detailed explanation of Kathleen’s and my work in coming to the essential conclusions embodied in the proxy statement and how we structured this performance plan to align Elon’s incentives with delivering extraordinary performance for all of you. Thank you for your continued support of Tesla. Very truly yours, Robyn Denholm Chairperson of the Board

Vince (@vhankes) is one of the best investors in the world and an even better person. He thinks independently and holds conviction most only see in hindsight. He rarely steps in front of a mic, so this episode is a real treat.

We are humbled to announce Thrive Holdings, a permanent capital vehicle dedicated to investing in, acquiring, and operating businesses for the long term. The mission of Thrive Holdings is to transform enterprises through the strategic application of technology to foster enduring growth. Since inception, Thrive has always invested in and built companies at the same time. Everything we do is informed by the mentality and lessons we have learned as founders ourselves. At Thrive, our steadfast commitment to being concentrated in both people and ideas will always guide our strategy. To that end, we are excited to partner with businesses that have the potential for sustained prosperity over many decades. thriveholdings.com

Inspired by one of my best friend’s cancer diagnosis, Biograph was founded with @PeterAttiaMD on the belief that with the proper application of advanced medical technology and early detection, we can save lives.

SpaceX’s first rocket landing was 9 years ago.

Thank you to all those who have served, including the 1,600+ men and women at SpaceX Happy Veterans Day!

NASA just decided that SpaceX needs to rescue Boeing’s astronauts. Written before the Starliner debacle, Berger’s forthcoming book Reentry tells the backstory with plenty of foreshadowing, starting with Boeing’s attempt to be the sole crewed spacecraft provider: “Boeing had a solution, telling NASA it needed the entire Commercial Crew budget to succeed. Because a lot of decision makers believed that only Boeing could safely fly astronauts, the company’s gambit very nearly worked.” (p.270) After “a cascade of pro-Boeing opinions swept around the table, a building and unbreakable wave of consensus” (272), NASA’s human exploration lead Gerstenmeier took a month to decide, eventually asking for more budget to support two competing efforts. Ultimately, Boeing would receive twice as much funding as SpaceX, but SpaceX was in the game, as the new kid on the block. “It had been a very near thing. NASA officials had already written a justification for selecting Boeing, solely for the Commercial Crew contract. It was ready to go and had to be hastily rewritten to include SpaceX. This delayed the announcement to September 16.” (274) “Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman helped write the proposal and provide and astronaut’s perspective. But their small team was no match for Boeing’s proposal-writing machine. It was intimidating knowing that 200 people were working on Boeing’s proposal, when Dragon’s team could fit in a small conference room.” (275) With Reisman in photo 2 above from 2012, after pulling an all-nighter at SpaceX: flic.kr/p/c5sY3N “BOEING HAS AN ASTRONAUT PROBLEM” (291) “When the SpaceX engineers could be corralled, they were eager to hear feedback from the NASA astronauts , excited to work with them, and attentive to their suggestions. By contrast, Boeing engineers seemed indifferent to hearing from the four commercial crew astronauts.” (293) “There was an arrogance with them that you certainly didn’t see at SpaceX.” (astronaut Hurley, p.294) “Boeing also underperformed. Not only were its engineers overconfident, but the company’s management also was not putting skin in the game. Hurley did not see any urgency from Boeing’s teams. Rather, they appeared to be working part-time on Starliner. ‘It was all about managing dollars and cents from Boeing’s perspective,’ Hurley said.” (295) “During the summer of 2018 as Boeing worked toward a pad abort test in White Sands, New Mexico (Boeing never flew an in-flight abort test)… a significant problem occurred due to a propellant leak. Ultimately, this would delay the company’s pad abort test by more than a year, but at the time, Boeing neglected to tell the Commercial Crew astronauts about the issue.” (295) “That summer NASA was closing in on making crew assignments for the first flights. Hurley told the chief of the astronaut office he would not fly on Starliner.” (296) He went on to fly the first SpaceX Dragon to bring crew to the ISS (we were there for the launch, photo 3). “‘It was the second space age,’ Hurley said. ‘And it started in 2020.’” (313) My video from Mission Control captured the excitement of capture: youtube.com/watch?v=bwqdEK… “SpaceX emerged triumphant over another major domestic competitor, Boeing, as well. The company that supposedly went for substance over pizzazz, ended up with neither in the Commercial Crew race.” (340) Just prior to their first human flight, there were several “shocking discoveries, especially so close to the flight. Neither NASA nor Boeing had good answers for why they had been found as astronauts were about to strap into Starliner. Questions emerged about the company’s commitment to the program. Because it operates on a fixed-price contract [and despite being 2x higher than SpaceX’s], Boeing has reported losses of nearly $1 billion on Starliner.” (342) After being stranded in space, Suni will fly with SpaceX, as she originally hoped (photo 1 above). And during this same time, there was a Boeing – Lockheed joint venture competing for launch, ULA: “The U.S. rocket wars were over. SpaceX had won. Since then, SpaceX has kept beating the dead horse. Over one stretch, from the end of 2022 into the first half of 2023, SpaceX launched more than fifty rockets between ULA flights. It has become difficult to remember that these two companies were once rivals, or that ULA’s employees would drive up to the SpaceX fence, jeering.” (339) Reentry book pre-order: amazon.com/Reentry-SpaceX… cc @ElonMusk

Flight 4 liftoff from Starbase

It’s been a hell of a year. And today we’ve capped it off with a humbling fundraise, led by @sparkcapital. Huge thanks to our incredible community. We wouldn’t have gotten here without you!

Scoop: a start-up called Cognition AI has released what appears to be the most capable coding assisstant yet. Instead of just autocompleting tasks, it can write entire programs on its own. Is backed by Peter Thiel and Founders Fund, among others bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Today we're excited to introduce Devin, the first AI software engineer. Devin is the new state-of-the-art on the SWE-Bench coding benchmark, has successfully passed practical engineering interviews from leading AI companies, and has even completed real jobs on Upwork. Devin is an autonomous agent that solves engineering tasks through the use of its own shell, code editor, and web browser. When evaluated on the SWE-Bench benchmark, which asks an AI to resolve GitHub issues found in real-world open-source projects, Devin correctly resolves 13.86% of the issues unassisted, far exceeding the previous state-of-the-art model performance of 1.96% unassisted and 4.80% assisted. Check out what Devin can do in the thread below.

Hardware is hard. That’s why Elon is by far the greatest founder of all time. Remember — countless startups die just while trying to put stationary beige boxes on desktops. Very smart people get crushed by supply chain disruptions, or China tariffs, or lockdowns, or shipping interruptions, or regulatory delays. Not Elon. He didn’t just survive financial crisis and coronavirus. He managed to build physical things in America while fighting the state and the laws of nature at the same time. Somehow he managed to simultaneously build not just a car company but a rocket company. Those don’t just have “moving parts”, they are a moving whole. The difficulty level here is insane. Hardware is completely different from software. One recall, just one serious bug, can destroy your company. If you are charging $50 for something that costs $40, and you need to recall and replace a million units, you’re usually dead. So just one of these companies — just Tesla, or just SpaceX — would be an incredible accomplishment for anyone. Even a very intelligent and hardworking person would have to live an incredibly boring, disciplined, focused life to possibly maintain the extremely low error rate needed to profitably ship such complex products. Not Elon. He did SpaceX and Tesla while having N children by K women. While also cofounding OpenAI and Neuralink and Boring Company. While fighting and defeating countless journalists, politicians, haters, and short sellers. And of course while buying Twitter, posting all the time, and building a following larger than almost any politician. The better you are, the better you understand how much better Elon is. If you’re good at math you appreciate Ramanujan’s greatness. If you’re good at basketball you respect how amazing Michael Jordan was. Elon is like that, for tech. Everyone in tech understands the sport we’re playing, and he really is the greatest of all time.

Falcon 9 completes its 300th successful mission

Retro lets you create recaps of your most memorable photos and send the best ones as postcards techcrunch.com/2023/12/07/ret…

Away from markets and technology - I thought it was awesome that Elon visited Israel today and met with families of the hostages. Some thoughts on Elon, the media and Israel: Many of the same media organizations who struggle to cover the conflict in Israel accurately have rushed to condemn Elon for antisemitism.  These facts are related. It is easy for many in the media to condemn a comfortable foe like Elon who often challenges the media. This condemnation helps them to feel virtuous and inoculated from charges of antisemitism while they - or the media organization for which they work - have simultaneously engaged in reporting since Oct. 7 that has often ranged from merely biased to de facto antisemitism.  Consider the various refusals to report on the mass rape of Israeli women, to report on the torture of young Israeli children, the description of kidnapped Israeli children under the age of 4 who were held hostage as “soldiers” as a way to create a moral equivalence with Hamas prisoners in Israel who were convicted of crimes, and credulously reporting every assertion by Hamas and its supporters - often via push notification - while meticulously fact-checking and challenging every Israeli statement, most prominently in the reporting about Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli hospitals.  Finally, far too late, most of the media has conceded that Israel was correct with regard to the hospitals, but the damage has already been done, fanning the flames of antisemitism. There is a reasonable case to be made that Elon’s ownership of X and commitment to free speech has enabled the world to know the full truth about the atrocities of Oct. 7, given the bias present in most other social media platforms and media organizations.  Freedom of speech matters.  And there is a tradeoff to this, in that those who condemn Israel also have freedom of speech on X. The X platform, however, is the only social media platform or news organization of which I am aware that has banned the genocidal slogan “From the River to the Sea.”  To the best of my knowledge, Elon is the only American CEO/Founder who has taken the time and the risk to visit Israel, meet with families of Israeli hostages, and visit some of the communities where terrorist atrocities were committed on October 7th. Actions always speak louder than words. I have received an incredible number of emails and messages this morning from my Israeli and American Jewish friends about how much Elon’s visit to Israel meant to them in terms of shining a light on the atrocities.  The images alone were incredibly powerful for them. I would encourage anyone with an open mind to listen to the X Space that Elon held with Netanyahu in Israel, and read his posts carefully, before reaching any conclusions. For myself, as I have said before, I do not believe he is antisemitic - quite the opposite in fact. I am also profoundly sympathetic to the plight of ordinary Palestinians.  It has been great to see the recent videos of crowds in Gaza condemning Hamas and to hear the anti-Hamas statements from many Arab and Muslim leaders. And it has been awesome to see the many displays of Muslim/Jewish unity in Israel since October 7. I think important to always highlight those displays as that is the only path to a lasting peace. Hopefully Gaza will be rebuilt and be more prosperous free of Hamas than it ever could have been under their corrupt rule. And I hope the people of Israel will eventually be able to live in peace and security. And yes @atreidesmgmt is an investor in some of Elon’s companies so perhaps I am biased. Regardless, this is the last time that I will comment on this - going forward, I will be back to regularly scheduled programming on markets and technology mixed in with the occasional sports, video-gaming and SciFi/Fantasy commentary.