Brian O'Malley

Thank you Team @Coupa for inviting me to celebrate your 20th birthday. It was a true pleasure being part of the early story and an honor to meet the team responsible for the next 20 years! cc @neisner @jebinger

@nrmehta So sorry for your loss Nick. Much love to you and family.

[This post is very heavy] “There are moments that the words don't reach There is suffering too terrible to name You hold your child as tight as you can And push away the unimaginable” “It’s Quiet Uptown” from Hamilton Last Tuesday, the unimaginable happened. We lost our 17-year-old daughter, Summer Devi Mehta. Unimaginable suffering. Unimaginable grief. Unimaginable fog. We held her tight for so long, with the help of so many. But ultimately, it wasn’t enough. But yet, equally unimaginable was the love. We hosted a celebration of life on Saturday, which we called “Summer Lovin’,” after the song “Summer Nights” from the musical Grease (we are all theater nerds here). About 100 of her classmates, teachers and staff joined our family and we heard countless tales about how Summer impacted the lives of others in big ways and small. One person told us that Summer lived a more vital existence in 17 years than most do in 100. To that end, Summer’s last wish was to raise $1M or more for the Trevor Project, with the goal of reducing youth suicide and having fewer stories end in such an unimaginable way. Check out Summer’s story and donate, if you choose, here: lnkd.in/g_R9RC39 We felt so much caring from the community and recommitted to living our lives with heart and purpose, as Summer did. On Friday, we handled the most painful task of cremating her remains. After the ceremony, we went to Half Moon Bay and stared out into the ocean. I imagine Summer’s spirit riding those waves into peace. The final lines of “Summer Nights” capture how we feel now: “Summer dreams ripped at the seams But, oh Those summer Nights! (Tell me more, tell me more, more, more)”

It's a weird time. I am filled with wonder and also a profound sadness. I spent a lot of time over the weekend writing code with Claude. And it was very clear that we will never ever write code by hand again. It doesn't make any sense to do so. Something I was very good at is now free and abundant. I am happy...but disoriented. At the same time, something I spent my early career building (social networks) was being created by lobster-agents. It's all a bit silly...but if you zoom out, it's kind of indistinguishable from humans on the larger internet. So both the form and function of my early career are now produced by AI. I am happy but also sad and confused. If anything, this whole period is showing me what it is like to be human again.

Congrats @zachtratar. Looking forward to seeing what you build @NotionHQ!

The stage is set for a new wave of companies to massively improve people’s lives. Few investors have this conviction--consumer investing looks silly until it becomes obvious. @tactilevc is filling this void. Dove into this and more with @DavidWeisburd here: howiinvestpodcast.com/episodes/UTaCr…

2005: Accel is raising Fund IX- a significant reduction from $1.6B to $440 million. The dotcom bubble left scars everywhere. Social networking is dead. Friendster failed. Nobody wants to touch the category. Jim Breyer invests $12.7M into Facebook anyway in May 2005. VCs whisper it's embarrassing. "College kids will graduate and forget about it." 2011: Partial sales return the entire $440M fund. At IPO, the stake is worth billions. This is consumer investing. The category looks dead. The first movers crashed. Everyone moves on. Then the real winner shows up, and it's generational. The best investors back the 3rd, 5th, and 10th companies in a "doomed" space. They have conviction when everyone else has moved on. They understand consumer doesn't work until it suddenly does. Market timing is everything, except when it isn't.

Congrats to Team @ArrivedHomes on the launch of the first stock market where investors can freely trade shares of actual properties as well as the credit used to support development. Coming on the heels of RobinHood simplifying equity purchases and Coinbase simplifying crypto, we believe Arrived has a bright future brining what used to only be available to the affluent to the masses. On a day when the #DowJones is down more than 800 points, it is a good reminder of the value of diversification!

@villi I've almost exclusively switched to Delta or American...like 1/2 the cost. Goodbye 1k.

Oct 27-29

Prices for a round trip from SF to NY are crazy!

Love this by @dauber. Not enough people talk about how to identify & recruit amazing investors and the impact those people have on moving firms to the next level.

Congrats @ClayHQ team! Excited to see what you all can build as part of the @automattic platform!

Congrats to the Fora team on their $40M Series C round led by @ThriveCapital. Fora has become the fastest growing company in travel, booking 2 million room nights and over $1 billion in annual spend. This growth has been based on the simple premise that, when given the choice, travelers actually prefer booking through real people, especially when they receive better deals and treatment upon arrival. Fora has helped thousands of people who share an interest in travel build a business based on this passion. As AI reshapes what is possible, Fora looks to merge the best of both worlds: efficiency and scale through AI while continuing to lean on advisors for trust and curation. fortune.com/2025/04/24/for…

So many quotable updates in this @chudson post on the state of the industry, but this is my favorite: "Somewhere along the line, we traded metrics for taste. Metrics give you the comfort of absolute and relative comparisons. Venture firms can invest like algorithmic hedge funds when metrics are the only input that matters. But taste is where the magic is in this business." chudson.substack.com/p/what-does-it…

@HarryStebbings Pretty good business…just need to focus on dogs versus people!

Convince me otherwise: Meal prep companies are one of the most unattractive investments. Low margin. High competition. Difficult product marketing. High CACs. Low retention. Hard logistics. Any counters?

@yanda @wandb @CoreWeave @l2k @vanpelt @shawnup Congrats!

Delighted to see this incredible combo of @wandb and @CoreWeave come together! Grateful to @l2k, @vanpelt & @shawnup for having built such an epic company. Thankful to have been part of the journey as an early investor and then as an executive. 🥰🎉

For all the talk about preventative health, only one brand is: - Serving 100k+ members - Generating $100m+ rev and profitable - 10x the scale of competitors despite raising less $$$ - 100% integrated across hardware, software, radiologists, and ops - Quickly becoming synonymous with the category We're really psyched and proud to lead @prenuvo's Series B. Thanks @andrewlacy and team for your life-saving work.

Announcing @ForerunnerVC led Series B round in @prenuvo, teaming up with @andrewlacy and co-investors @speechu & @leftlanecap. With only 2.5% of healthcare spending focused on preventative medicine, the US system waits for people to become sick before intervening. Consumers have grown tired of this and are responding with their own wallets. Prenuvo is the preeminent solution for a comprehensive understanding of one’s health, giving today’s patients unprecedented levels of knowledge to not just understand, but proactively intervene in the challenges that arise as we all age. Longevity is the new luxury and Prenuvo is democratizing access so that more can benefit from this. We're proud to support the company on their mission. businesswire.com/news/home/2025…

Tired = AI Assistant. 🥱 Wired = AI Operating System 🔥 Check out @zachtratar new product, Embra, that gets work done for you by tapping into root sources of data and then operating async without requiring you to initiate each workflow. Feedback welcome!

"Roon is essentially what you’d get if you combined WedMD with Perplexity, but trained *only* on doctor-created clinical information and answers." @eurie_kim on why there's arguably no better team to drive the Search to Service shift in health: forerunnerventures.com/our-perspectiv…

@benblumenrose Heartbreaking. His legacy and what he brought to the community will live on.

It is with a heavy heart that I share that Enrique Allen passed away this week. He was an incredible partner and friend. He will be dearly missed... 💔 designerfund.com/page/Rememberi…

Time to be open-minded, think big, and be optimistic. And be courageous. Our newest fund is dedicated to maximizing these rare opportunities ahead and their value for consumers. Announcing Fund VII! forerunnerventures.com/our-perspectiv…