Chris Lee

We just rebuilt every startup in @ycombinator's latest demo day batch. Here's what our agentic "founders" pulled off and what it means for the future of startups. Fully useable products at the bottom of the thread below 🤖🧨

This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon. Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic. Instead, @AnthropicAI and its CEO @DarioAmodei, have chosen duplicity. Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of “effective altruism,” they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives. The Terms of Service of Anthropic’s defective altruism will never outweigh the safety, the readiness, or the lives of American troops on the battlefield. Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable. As President Trump stated on Truth Social, the Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives. Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Their relationship with the United States Armed Forces and the Federal Government has therefore been permanently altered. In conjunction with the President's directive for the Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic's technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service. America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final.

The S25 @ycombinator class has several 18-year-old founders. While dropping out of university was once revered as the rebel entrepreneurial thing to do , there's a new generation who are weighing the opportunity cost of finishing high school vs. founding a company. Formal education is now considered conformist. You don’t need a teacher to learn, and a structure of grade levels/rules that gatekeep knowledge and your pace of learning. Controversial? Yes, but in a world with democratized access to information and AI superintelligence like @grok, I think this trend will continue. Inspiring to see so many young minds building the future of technology. Shout out to @nozomioai