William Stringer

Tagline update: “We provide startup and brand capital to entrepreneurs, athletes and creatives” 🤔

yo so just to recap the week: - google released gemini 3.1 but it disappointed tf out of people who claimed its not as good as they advertise - BUT THEN google dropped an AI song generation model which kinda slaps (Lyria 3) AND a new feature that 1-shots product photoshoots putting photographers (and fashion models) out of a job (Google Pomelli) - Microsoft pioneered a way to STORE DATA ON GLASS - stores data for up to 10,000 fucking years (🤯) and way cheaper than using silica. - Taalus fused an ai model DIRECTLY into silicon processing 17,000 tokens PER SECOND which is 17X faster than openai’s quickest model but 10 TIMES CHEAPER than nvidia blackwell gpus. (smaller models tho) - Apple is releasing 3 new AI devices: glasses, airpods with cameras and a pendant. - anthropic wiped $10B off the stock market after launching an ai that finds and help fixes security flaws in your code. cybersecurity stocks dumped <1 hour after launch. - BUT THEN Pentagon threatened to blacklist anthropic for failing to provide them uncensored access to claude. - xAI dropped grok 4.20 spawning 16 specialised ai agents that work together to solve any prompt. the model self-improves EVERY WEEK. - scientists discovered dna in meteorites suggesting humans could’ve originated from outer space (what) - Meta dropped Manus Agents going head-to-head with OpenClaw. - a cardiologist won 3rd-place in anthropic’s hackathon after vibe coding an app that helps his patients understand and act on their medical results. fucking hero. - china announced a cure for diabetes 1 & 2 after creating stem cells that make insulin - Moonshot labs is raising $500M immediately after raising $700M LAST WEEK. - ex-Deepmind researcher raised europes LARGEST ever seed round $1B at $4B back right as europe announces $13B new fund to catch up with america. - Stripe’s ai agents autonomously merged 1300 pull requests (up 30% from last week) suggesting top companies are now recursively improving using AI. dear f*cking goodness GOODNIGHT

My API bills are through the roof right now. I’m playing around with different automations, building internal apps, testing new agent workflows, breaking things and rebuilding them. It adds up fast. We’re talking $500-1000/month just in API costs, and that’s before any other tooling. (Yes I’m probably not routing models efficiently) But here’s the thing. The stuff I’m building with that spend would have required hiring multiple people not that long ago. The true builders out there have to be facing the same costs. People who see the opportunity, know what to build, but need a little capital to cover the real expenses of experimenting and shipping. API bills, tooling, maybe some contract help. It hit me that @ChisosCapital is perfectly suited to fund those builders. Our investment structure was designed for exactly this kind of need. Not $2M venture rounds. $10-25k to cover the small but real costs of getting an AI-native business off the ground. You don’t need a VC to start an agentic business. You need enough runway to let the experiments turn into something real.

I've been using Claude Code for two months without knowing what half the terms actually stand for 😂 Here are 20 acronyms non-dev vibe coders should know: 1.CLI = Command Line Interface 2.IDE = Integrated Development Environment 3.API = Application Programming Interface 4.SDK = Software Development Kit 5.IaC = Infrastructure as Code 6.K8s = Kubernetes 7.OCI = Open Container Initiative 8.VPC = Virtual Private Cloud 9.IAM = Identity and Access Management 10.SSO = Single Sign-On 11.SRE = Site Reliability Engineering 12.CI/CD = Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (or Deployment) 13.PR = Pull Request 14.JSON = JavaScript Object Notation 15.YAML = YAML Ain’t Markup Language / Yet Another Markup Language 16.REPL = Read-Eval-Print Loop 17.SSE = Server-Sent Events 18.RAG = Retrieval-Augmented Generation 19.LLM = Large Language Model 20. MCP = Model Context Protocol

This is the age of CEOs crushing 10 people’s work with Claude Code in nights and weekends and I am so here for it The fire in your belly that got you here never really goes out and now we are all cooking 20 hours a day

I’ll do $25k all day

@michelleefang Check out thesfgrind.com by @justingordon212 for even more

If you're new or looking to get more connected to SF tech: bookmark these 60 irl events 🗓️ A list of what's happening this week (Dec 8 - Dec 15) ⬇️

The secret to investing is to invest in unstoppable people building inevitable things.

@SahilBloom @Keepinglyco

There’s a huge opportunity in solving this problem: The friction of home ownership vs. renting. When you rent, you have a single point-of-contact for all problems. When you own, you have to somehow stay on top of the long list of recurring and one-off maintenance things. I’d gladly pay $500+ per month to have 24/7 access to a “home manager” who could be the single point-of-contact for my home. • Schedules all recurring services • Coordinates all one-off services • Consolidates all service costs into one bill It’s probably a local/regional business (probably hard to coordinate the service provider relationships at scale), but a huge opportunity nonetheless. Could be a franchise model with software at top and local franchises. It solves a real home ownership pain point, so I’d bet a young hustler could go door to door and probably sell 100 houses at $500 per month over a single weekend… I’m sure there are some people trying to do this, but I haven’t ever been pitched on it for my homes, so it clearly hasn’t scaled yet. It feels similar to the local/regional pest control business opportunity that has now become pretty saturated. What am I missing?

Uber founder Travis Kalanick: “Every angel deal that gets done is a momentum play” Below are the key excerpts from Travis’s blog post [Startup Seed Raising Skillzzz]: 1. Priming the Pump. “Go to angel gatherings, industry conferences, any and all networking events. Meet people who are angels or who know angels. Give ‘em the elevator pitch… make sure you’re meeting with somebody new EVERY DAY.” 2. Intro meetings. “Informal discussion where you pitch the company over a lunch/coffee/etc., and expand potential angel network through referrals. Get your pitch down to 5-10 minutes, and prepare a tight FAQ in your head so that you have tight answers to the top 20 questions. Let them pay. Be proud of your scrappiness.” 3. ABC’s – Always Be Closing. ”At the end of every meeting, get a clear understanding of where they stand on your deal opportunity.” 4. Referrals are key. “Most angels will immediately offer up a couple folks they can hook you up with… always ask for more folks you can connect with.” 5. Advisors: ”Turn a couple of these potential angels into advisors. Having a few top-notch people in your corner can make all the difference in turning the tide in an angel round.” 6. Thought Partner: ”Pick one advisor, co-founder, or mentor who will be your thought partner in managing the process.” 7. The List: ”Keep a list (aka pipeline) of the people you’re meeting with, the referrals that they provide you, and the level of their interest in the seed round. Stay on the ball…Always follow up.” 8. Passion/Charisma. “Focus on the positive, have confidence, be amped, bring passion to your game, and share the love with the person across from you.” 9. Credibility. ”DO NOT FIGHT THE TRUTH… Do not try to spin out of what your weak points are. Do not try to make something certain that is not. Do not pretend to know something that you don’t. Credibility is the name of the game in fundraising.” 10. Momentum and Urgency. ”Investors are fickle creatures, they are motivated by fear and greed… Time IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! The longer the process drags out, the more it seems that nobody is interested in your deal, and the less likely you are to actually get one.” 11. Getting the Lead. ”Until you have a lead, you don’t have a deal… The way to get a lead is to spur one of the larger, most interested investors into making an offer.” 12. The Competitive Deal – The Need for Speed. ”The second you have a single term sheet, you need to move *very* quickly to get a second one. You don’t have a lot of time, because momentum at this point is crucial to closing… Your second term sheet will be easier to get than your first, but it will make a HUGE impact on your deal. Without a second termsheet, you will be in a position to take whatever crappy terms the original lead provided, and it’s quite possible that the terms could get worse (or even go away!) as the one-termsheet deal drags out.” 13. Herding the cattle. ”Once you start working the competitive leads, you need to start getting word out to ALL of the interested parties, that this deal is getting hot, and that you could start moving to close in very short order… This makes them anxious about the competitive situation you’ve created b/c now your deal has been validated.” 14. Anti-Collusion. ”The heavyweights in your deal will have the inclination to collude to make the terms better… Keep it short and sweet with each potential colluder, and draw a very straight firm line that the material terms are not changing.” 15. Sprint through the close. ”Until the deal is closed, you have at best a 50/50 shot of it happening. Keep working new seed investors, keep the competitive leads warm, get your deal oversubscribed, because until your deal is done, it’s just a nice fantasy in your head.” Video source: @TechCoHQ (2011)

🚨 $COIN Coinbase acquires Echo for $375M in cash and stock Echo’s Sonar platform has hosted 300+ token raises totaling $200M+ and will now power Coinbase’s push into tokenized fundraising and on-chain capital markets

🚀 Big news. @ChisosCapital and @CrowdsurfXYZ have teamed up to back the next generation of ambitious individuals shaping the future of business and culture. This partnership is a major step toward building the investment platform for people. Read the release ↓

Trust is one of the greatest economic factors in the world

The founder of @Replit's advice for young people in 2025: “The future is entrepreneurship. Not just building companies, but being entrepreneurial inside companies too. We see non-engineers on Replit creating millions in revenue for their employers.” “The main skill is resourcefulness. The worst thing you can do today is just do what you’re told. Young people need to think for themselves, they’ll know better than parents or teachers what skills to learn.”

Proud of this partnership. Athletes deserve more than endorsements — they deserve ownership. Excited to see Chisos + Kold Sports Group working together to make that happen. The best investment is in people. Always.

In early-stage investing, sometimes the greatest value-add isn't services or platforms—it's having the guts to be the first investor to say "yes." Early conviction sparks rounds, creates momentum, and is far rarer than most VCs admit.

Two technical visions. Only one had the experience to execute. In today's Talent Ledger, I break down why technical capability isn't universal: ✅ When domain expertise beats general engineering skills ✅ How I validate technical feasibility beyond my expertise ✅ Why "technical" means different things across industries Technical assessment must match industry complexity. Link to the full issue in the comments.

Invest in the person. People rarely fail. Companies fail

Has anyone already done the @superpower vs @function comparison deep dive?