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
Apoha Debuts with $36M for 'Wave Form' AI Data Innovation Pioneering Liquid AI Data
Apoha, an AI data startup, secures $36M to pioneer a "liquid wave form" approach, fundamentally altering how AI applications are built.
Reid Hoffman Enters 'Founder Mode' with AI Drug Startup Manus The Future of AI Drug Discovery
Flourish: Bezos, Google Ventures Back New Brain-Tech Unicorn Non-invasive BCI & AI diagnostics
Anthropic President: AI IPOs, Costs, & The Long Game for Returns Understanding AI's Capital Demands
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
Benchmark Raises First Growth Fund, Pivots Strategy with $2B Capital
Legendary early-stage VC firm Benchmark breaks three decades of tradition by raising its first-ever growth fund as part of a $2 billion capital raise, signaling a major strategic adaptation to evolving market dynamics.
Nvidia Powers Unitree H1: Humanoid Robotics Platform Validated A New Era for AI Robotics
Nvidia's integration of its Jetson Orin platform into Unitree's H1 humanoid robot validates the emerging category, signaling a critical market shift and positioning Unitree for accelerated growth.
French Quantum Startup Quobly Secures $133M for Silicon-Based Computers
French quantum startup Quobly secures $133M to accelerate the industrialization of its silicon-based quantum computers, underscoring investor confidence in this scalable technology.
Alex Liberman (Ex-Anduril) Raises $42M for Continuum Materials 'Amazon of Composite Parts'
Alex Liberman, an ex-Anduril engineer, secured $42M for Continuum Materials, a startup aiming to build a vertically integrated supply chain for advanced composite parts.
Focused Energy Secures $240M Series A for Laser Fusion Tech
Focused Energy's $240M Series A funding signals strong investor confidence in laser fusion technology, demonstrating the critical role of national lab breakthroughs in deep tech innovation.
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.
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