She had no CS degree. She used AI to teach herself to build.
Anastasiia Shumilo had no computer science background when she decided to build software. She taught herself Flutter and Xcode using AI, founded Shumi Technologies, and is now developing Draw Flow — an AI-powered construction technology platform that automates drawing analysis, quantity takeoffs, and cost estimation for construction professionals.
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
OpenAI Leads $153M Funding for AI Drug Discovery Startup Biossil
OpenAI's $153M investment in AI drug discovery startup Biossil signals a pivotal expansion of AI into biotech, validating generative AI's capacity to accelerate novel therapeutic development.
Databricks Acquires Row Zero to Bring AI to Enterprise Spreadsheets
Databricks acquires spreadsheet startup Row Zero to embed enterprise-grade spreadsheet capabilities and AI into its Data Intelligence Platform, bridging the gap between data science and business analysts.
OpenAI Faces Legal & Safety Crisis Over Piracy & AI Agents *Implications for AI Founders*
OpenAI is embroiled in a multi-front crisis, facing a piracy lawsuit over copyrighted training data and internal reports of AI agent safety failures, forcing founders to rethink compliance.
Anthropic's $11.6B Akamai Cloud Deal: CPUs Over GPUs A Strategic AI Compute Bet
Anthropic's $11.6B Akamai cloud deal prioritizes CPUs over GPUs, signaling a unique AI compute strategy and offering critical insights for founders navigating resource-intensive tech.
Gagan Biyani's AI Academy: Tuition-Free Talent for Founders A New Model for AI Talent
Gagan Biyani's AI Academy offers a tuition-free model, using ISAs and RSAs, to cultivate critical AI talent and democratize access to high-demand skills for founders.
Founders desk
Plate 01Anastasiia Shumilo
Anastasiia Shumilo is a Ukrainian-born technology founder who started over in Canada and built her career in technology from the ground up. She founded Shumi Technologies, an international B2B softwar
Plate 02Cover · Issue 47Tony Loeb
The man who decided hospitality needed just ten minutes — co-founder of 10minutes.news, the quiet media engine now read by 220,000 hoteliers across Europe and North America.
Plate 03Kateryna Eisen
Founded Momploy to solve a problem she lived on both sides — as a small business owner who struggled to hire part-time, and as a mother who needed flexible work. Now building Toronto GTA's local trust layer for skilled parents and the businesses that need them.
Plate 04Dylan 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.
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