Dylan Field and the design tool Adobe couldn't buy
Figma's $20B deal with Adobe collapsed in December 2023 under regulatory pressure. The independent path that followed turned out to be the higher-variance outcome — and the more valuable one.
This week
The most important act of a founder this decade will not be building. It will be deciding what not to build. Restraint is the unwritten chapter of every great company — and the next four years will reward it more than any cycle in memory.
The feed
Vishal Sikka's Hang Ten: $32M AI Venture to Disrupt IT Services *An AI-native IT services challenge*
Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka's new AI venture, Hang Ten Systems, secures $32M to revolutionize the multi-trillion dollar global IT services sector with an "AI-native" approach.
OpenAI's Custom AI Chips: Sam Altman's Billion-Dollar Plan A Global Fabrication Network
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seeks billions for a venture designing custom AI chips and building global fabrication plants, aiming to reduce supplier reliance and cut operational costs.
OpenAI's IPO Challenges: Unique Structure & Investor Maze
OpenAI's unprecedented corporate structure, blending non-profit oversight with a capped-profit subsidiary, creates unique hurdles for a potential public listing, redefining investor expectations.
Menlo Ventures: How a $750M Anthropic Bet Led to a $3B Fundraise A Case Study in VC Conviction
Menlo Ventures' bold $750M bet on Anthropic, deploying 60% of a prior fund, generated multi-billion-dollar gains, enabling a $3B fundraise and validating its AI-first thesis.
The Dotcom Queen's Fall: Lessons from Julie Meyer's Controversial Career
Julie Meyer's dramatic fall from 'Dotcom Queen' offers crucial lessons for founders on financial accountability, robust governance, and unwavering integrity in business.
Founders desk
Plate 01Cover · Issue 47Lina Ouedraogo
Three exits over fourteen years. A method built on saying no — and the long interview to prove it.
Plate 02Dylan Field
Dropped out of UPenn on a Thiel Fellowship, spent six years building a design tool that ran in the browser, said no to Adobe's $20B all-cash offer when the regulators killed it, and IPO'd anyway.
Plate 03Mira Murati
Was the CTO who shipped GPT-4 and Sora. Left OpenAI at the peak of its public arc to start a research lab — Thinking Machines — that raised one of the largest seed rounds in history before it had a product.
Plate 04Aravind Srinivas
Left Berkeley, left OpenAI, and built the first AI-native search engine — Perplexity — that took Google's most defended product and treated it like a research problem.
By desk
Read with the people who build the next decade.
Wednesdays at 7am Pacific. One letter, four minutes, and the five stories that actually mattered — chosen by the desk, not by an algorithm.
- ✓ The week's five most important reads, briefly
- ✓ One short interview, often unpublished elsewhere
- ✓ A memo from the editor — three minutes, one idea
- ✓ No ads, no roundups, no growth tactics