Pinned Tweet
[brief update]
we have a new set of funds for @haystackvc
announcing haystack 8 plus more, but it's really about my teammates @aashaysanghvi_ & @DivyaDhulipala
thank you to all of our frequent ecosystem co-conspirators, our LPs, our co-investors, our founders. i'm very grateful 🙏 and this is the most fun role in the world!
semilshah.com/2026/04/26/new…
we have a new set of funds for @haystackvc
announcing haystack 8 plus more, but it's really about my teammates @aashaysanghvi_ & @DivyaDhulipala
thank you to all of our frequent ecosystem co-conspirators, our LPs, our co-investors, our founders. i'm very grateful 🙏 and this is the most fun role in the world!
semilshah.com/2026/04/26/new…
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Right now, @aerovironment are scaling production at pace to meet the demands of their customers.
Their CTO, Scott Bowman, on connecting every lesson from test, production, and the field, so engineers and AI models start from what the team already knows.
Their CTO, Scott Bowman, on connecting every lesson from test, production, and the field, so engineers and AI models start from what the team already knows.
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Big day for @Nominal_io. We’ve just announced a delivery order award from @PAEAviation's Rapid Capabilities Cell (RCC) to accelerate integration and testing of @Castelion’s Blackbeard on the F/A-18.
More details here: nominal.io/blog/rcc-annou…
More details here: nominal.io/blog/rcc-annou…
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Introducing Pangram Image 1.0, our newest model for AI image and video detection.
Pangram Image 1.0 identifies 99.2% of AI-generated images while maintaining a 0.27% FPR.
It integrates into our Chrome extension, so you can check for AI images and video anywhere on the web.
Pangram Image 1.0 identifies 99.2% of AI-generated images while maintaining a 0.27% FPR.
It integrates into our Chrome extension, so you can check for AI images and video anywhere on the web.
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We’ve pivoted Oboe. The first version, which we spent the past two years building, didn’t work. No excuses. Here’s the full story, culminating in what comes next: an all-new Oboe, available today.
We launched Oboe with a mission to make humanity smarter. That mission is core to ’t changed. The first way we thought to achieve it was by leveraging frontier models to offer everyone personalized tutoring.
But through many iterations over the past two years, it became clear that we built the wrong product. First, we’d made strategic decisions that left us undifferentiated in the age of LLMs. Second, by focusing on utility above all else, there was little organic incentive for people to return to the platform. And most importantly, no matter how great our product was, not many people were motivated to actively learn every day.
Despite our best efforts to serve everyone on the planet, we landed on a small, loyal user base that loved a product which wasn’t growing fast enough.
So we took a step back: How else could we serve everyone on the planet and still achieve our mission?
We decided instead to focus on a motivation everyone has: to have fun. Every day, billions of people entertain themselves on their mobile devices, filling countless minutes with mindless scrolling and brainrot that doesn’t make us smarter. In many cases, it actually makes us stupider.
What if we could replace scrolling that makes us stupider with scrolling that is both fun and makes us smarter? That’s the new Oboe.
It’s a fully personalized feed of dynamically generated, interactive, anti-brainrot challenges. Every scroll is designed specifically for you, to help you get smarter in a few minutes every single day.
We’ve been blown away by usage from our thousands of beta users. The differences in engagement and retention between this and the original version are stark. The product is working. It’s already clear that this new direction taps into a universal need that none of our previous iterations did.
For all of those people out there like me who feel like doomscrolling wastes their precious time, who enjoy feeling fulfilled, and who wish there was a better alternative: this one’s for you.
We can’t wait to see what you think.
We launched Oboe with a mission to make humanity smarter. That mission is core to ’t changed. The first way we thought to achieve it was by leveraging frontier models to offer everyone personalized tutoring.
But through many iterations over the past two years, it became clear that we built the wrong product. First, we’d made strategic decisions that left us undifferentiated in the age of LLMs. Second, by focusing on utility above all else, there was little organic incentive for people to return to the platform. And most importantly, no matter how great our product was, not many people were motivated to actively learn every day.
Despite our best efforts to serve everyone on the planet, we landed on a small, loyal user base that loved a product which wasn’t growing fast enough.
So we took a step back: How else could we serve everyone on the planet and still achieve our mission?
We decided instead to focus on a motivation everyone has: to have fun. Every day, billions of people entertain themselves on their mobile devices, filling countless minutes with mindless scrolling and brainrot that doesn’t make us smarter. In many cases, it actually makes us stupider.
What if we could replace scrolling that makes us stupider with scrolling that is both fun and makes us smarter? That’s the new Oboe.
It’s a fully personalized feed of dynamically generated, interactive, anti-brainrot challenges. Every scroll is designed specifically for you, to help you get smarter in a few minutes every single day.
We’ve been blown away by usage from our thousands of beta users. The differences in engagement and retention between this and the original version are stark. The product is working. It’s already clear that this new direction taps into a universal need that none of our previous iterations did.
For all of those people out there like me who feel like doomscrolling wastes their precious time, who enjoy feeling fulfilled, and who wish there was a better alternative: this one’s for you.
We can’t wait to see what you think.
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Today, we’re excited to share that Fiddler AI has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by @CrowdStrike.
We started Fiddler to help businesses understand AI. Together with CrowdStrike, we intend to turn that understanding into the confidence to put AI to work across the enterprise.
To our customers, partners, and team: thank you for trusting us with important systems and shaping our work through your hardest production problems.
Read more from Krishna: fiddler.ai/blog/fiddler-j…
We started Fiddler to help businesses understand AI. Together with CrowdStrike, we intend to turn that understanding into the confidence to put AI to work across the enterprise.
To our customers, partners, and team: thank you for trusting us with important systems and shaping our work through your hardest production problems.
Read more from Krishna: fiddler.ai/blog/fiddler-j…
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CrowdStrike agrees to buy Fiddler AI, which helps monitor AI agents, for ~$400M, and Dreadnode, an automated security AI testing tool, for ~$95M, mostly in cash (@JimRundle / Wall Street Journal)
(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)
(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)
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Today, I am excited to share that @fiddler_ai is joining @CrowdStrike. Eight years ago, @amitpaka and I started Fiddler on a question I’d worked on at Facebook, where we built “Why am I seeing this post?”: if a model makes a decision that affects you, can we explain it?
In 2026 re like: why did my coding agent suddenly change a production access policy when I only asked it to investigate an incident? To secure and safely deploy Agents, we need deep Observability into the inner mechanics of how they are working. Thats where the AI Security meets AI Observability! As @georgekurtz aptly described in his keynote today at Falcon EU, Fiddler is the flight recorder for every agent: the observability to explain exactly what an agent did and why. This level of agent visibility and control enables AI safety.
As we enter our next phase, I'd like to thank so many folks. Starting with our investors who continued to believe in us during these 8 years from @semilshah , @ravi_lsvp , @jamescham, @bznotes, @breeves08, @ravirajjain, @gkm1 and so many others who supported us in this journey.
To our customers and partners: thank you for trusting us with important systems and shaping our work through your hardest production problems. To our team: you’ve built through eight years of change while staying committed to our mission. I’m proud of what we’ve built together. Also, we extend gratitude to so many advisors who helped us on our journey!
Together with CrowdStrike, we intend to leverage Agent Safety and Observability to build customer confidence to deploy AI safely across the enterprise.
In 2026 re like: why did my coding agent suddenly change a production access policy when I only asked it to investigate an incident? To secure and safely deploy Agents, we need deep Observability into the inner mechanics of how they are working. Thats where the AI Security meets AI Observability! As @georgekurtz aptly described in his keynote today at Falcon EU, Fiddler is the flight recorder for every agent: the observability to explain exactly what an agent did and why. This level of agent visibility and control enables AI safety.
As we enter our next phase, I'd like to thank so many folks. Starting with our investors who continued to believe in us during these 8 years from @semilshah , @ravi_lsvp , @jamescham, @bznotes, @breeves08, @ravirajjain, @gkm1 and so many others who supported us in this journey.
To our customers and partners: thank you for trusting us with important systems and shaping our work through your hardest production problems. To our team: you’ve built through eight years of change while staying committed to our mission. I’m proud of what we’ve built together. Also, we extend gratitude to so many advisors who helped us on our journey!
Together with CrowdStrike, we intend to leverage Agent Safety and Observability to build customer confidence to deploy AI safely across the enterprise.
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Today Larridin announced our $30M Series A, led by @termsheet at @Pelion_VP with continued support from @arampell at @a16z, @darian314 from @GradientVC and with tons of new investors including @jeffatNvidia from GFT Ventures, W23 and many others.
Thank you to our customers, investors and team. This support will go back into the product, so every company can prove what it gets from AI. There has never been a more impactful technology, so there has never been a more critical need to measure the impact.
You can read more at larridin.com/press-releases…
Thank you to our customers, investors and team. This support will go back into the product, so every company can prove what it gets from AI. There has never been a more impactful technology, so there has never been a more critical need to measure the impact.
You can read more at larridin.com/press-releases…
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Main Street doesn’t need to out-build the world’s biggest online retailers and grocers. What it needs is access to what others have built for themselves. @DoorDash and @Instacart share that mission and focus. Coming together will enable the best possible logistics and software infrastructure to produce the best possible grocery delivery experience. The combined reach and network density will lower fulfillment costs for grocers, offer more savings and faster delivery options for consumers, and provide greater earning opportunities for Dashers and Shoppers. Grocery delivery is still early and the product isn’t there yet, but we think its future is local - because when more people shop local, more dollars stay local.
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Tony and I have explored bringing Instacart and DoorDash together on and off over the years. We kept coming back to it because the industrial logic has always been clear.
Customers have 21 meals a week to figure out. Groceries and restaurant delivery each solve part of that problem. Serving customers well means bringing together the best of both.
As the biggest companies in the world move deeper into this market, retailers and restaurants need the technology and service to compete. They shouldn’t have to become technology companies themselves to stand a chance. Bringing Instacart and DoorDash together can give them a stronger partner in that fight.
For shoppers and Dashers, the opportunity is equally straightforward: less time waiting between orders, more time earning.
I’m incredibly proud of what we built at Instacart and grateful to everyone who helped make it possible. Tony is an extraordinary entrepreneur and leader. I’m excited for Instacart to be part of a founder-led company again, and I can’t wait to see what these two teams build together.
@t_xu @DoorDash @Instacart
Customers have 21 meals a week to figure out. Groceries and restaurant delivery each solve part of that problem. Serving customers well means bringing together the best of both.
As the biggest companies in the world move deeper into this market, retailers and restaurants need the technology and service to compete. They shouldn’t have to become technology companies themselves to stand a chance. Bringing Instacart and DoorDash together can give them a stronger partner in that fight.
For shoppers and Dashers, the opportunity is equally straightforward: less time waiting between orders, more time earning.
I’m incredibly proud of what we built at Instacart and grateful to everyone who helped make it possible. Tony is an extraordinary entrepreneur and leader. I’m excited for Instacart to be part of a founder-led company again, and I can’t wait to see what these two teams build together.
@t_xu @DoorDash @Instacart
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Iconic
Anthropic discloses only one venture capitalist in its S-1 filing: 37-year-old Yasmin Razavi. The Spark Capital GP is also the only VC backer who holds a board director seat.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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Grateful for the mission partners who continue to trust @Nominal_io. We intend to keep earning it.
$71.2M to advance hardware intelligence for Air Force and Navy Air Dominance Capabilities.
$71.2M to advance hardware intelligence for Air Force and Navy Air Dominance Capabilities.
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Some takeaways from LPs at RAISE:
- With everyone widening their mandate into AI, every pitch sounds identical. True portfolio concentration is the only thing standing out.
- The person taking your meeting is usually an analyst who will not be at that firm when your DPI shows up. Give them something that pays off this year. An intro, a co-invest, help getting promoted. DPI gets you the next fund. Being useful now, gets you this one.
- When an LP can pick freely between asset classes, venture loses. You stop pitching your fund and start defending the whole asset class, and that is a fight you do not win.
- An LP put it bluntly: LPs have zero FOMO right now.
- With everyone widening their mandate into AI, every pitch sounds identical. True portfolio concentration is the only thing standing out.
- The person taking your meeting is usually an analyst who will not be at that firm when your DPI shows up. Give them something that pays off this year. An intro, a co-invest, help getting promoted. DPI gets you the next fund. Being useful now, gets you this one.
- When an LP can pick freely between asset classes, venture loses. You stop pitching your fund and start defending the whole asset class, and that is a fight you do not win.
- An LP put it bluntly: LPs have zero FOMO right now.
Heard from VC LPs this week. It was our AGM, so I had a ton of convos. Theme is liquidity and differentiation. Some quotes 👇🏻
- “we see a huge difference btw the posture of the GPs who do public + private and those that just do VC/Growth. They are living in different realities.”
- “every GP is raising again faster than we thought, either because they just blew through the money, or because they want a war chest for when the market trips over itself”
- “Across the top GPs, everyone is in market. TVPIs look amazing - differentiation is DPI, concentration and portfolio mgt”
- “We really need the PE guys to start selling some stuff!!”
- “If Anthropic IPO goes great, we are worried it sets the bar too high for everyone else. And if it doesn’t go great, then the bar is even higher…”
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I asked @orenzeev what his calendar looks like:
"Many VCs, once you start measuring it, optimize for whatever you measure. You want to show LPs broad deal flow. We saw 8,000 deals this year. And you did one of them. I try to see as few as possible.
Let me check my week. Monday, meeting. That's it. Tuesday, a couple calls and a board, and in between I went to the ocean and surfed.
So my days are really empty. Which is exactly what lets me be responsive. Every day five or six founders message me, and I reply within minutes, sometimes seconds.
People say it sounds like I'm not doing any real work. They're right. Two meetings a day, of course it's not work. It's a hobby. Work is something you do because you have to provide for your family. I don't have to do it. So of course it's not work. It's just what I love to do."
"Many VCs, once you start measuring it, optimize for whatever you measure. You want to show LPs broad deal flow. We saw 8,000 deals this year. And you did one of them. I try to see as few as possible.
Let me check my week. Monday, meeting. That's it. Tuesday, a couple calls and a board, and in between I went to the ocean and surfed.
So my days are really empty. Which is exactly what lets me be responsive. Every day five or six founders message me, and I reply within minutes, sometimes seconds.
People say it sounds like I'm not doing any real work. They're right. Two meetings a day, of course it's not work. It's a hobby. Work is something you do because you have to provide for your family. I don't have to do it. So of course it's not work. It's just what I love to do."
New @ThePeelPod with @orenzeev
He manages $2.7B across 11 funds with no team. He has no meetings, doesn't write investment memos, and has never shown an LP a single slide from a deck.
We get in to the 30-minute conversation that turned into his first fund, why most partners add s his calendar is empty enough to surf on a Tuesday, his fund that had only five companies (and why diversification is a lie), how Navan went from a $90M run rate to zero in a month (and survived), why he does cross-fund investing, refusing DPI when LP's want it, and the 30-year history of Israel's startup economy.
Full episode here + links below.
Timestamps:
0:00 Running $2.7B with no team or partners
1:58 How one person can beat a team
4:43 Omission beats commission: why committees miss
7:13 What really fills a partnership's day
9:23 The returns business, not the production business
10:58 A week in his nearly empty calendar
16:49 The mistakes new solo GP's make
19:34 Eleven funds, zero slides
22:09 No thesis
24:28 Why diversification doesn't work
27:14 The fund with only five companies
30:44 TripActions insight: everyone hates their travel software
34:59 Paying employees to spend less
37:34 COVID: $90M run rate to zero
39:24 How Navan survived
41:34 A $100M round with no way to price it
44:29 Keeping the team: the real test of leadership
46:04 What Oren looks for in founders
50:39 Cross-fund investing, and "trust me, bro"
53:59 Always his own biggest LP
55:14 The DPI stand that cost him LP's
58:54 Decart, and the Anthropic deal
1:03:54 Inside the 30-year rise of Israel's tech ecosystem
1:07:19 The Yozma program that built an industry
1:11:59 Why Israelis build now instead of selling early
1:14:39 Moving to the Valley in the 2002 nuclear winter
1:17:19 Audible, and why the first home run matters
1:19:29 Leaving Apax, and going solo
1:22:04 Peter Thiel and a fund raised in 30 minutes
1:24:24 The second fund: 48 hours, still no deck
1:25:49 ICON: helping Israeli founders crack the Valley
1:30:29 The leader he admires most: Anwar Sadat
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1/ Today we're launching @different_ai , my third company, with $48M in seed funding led by @htaneja at @generalcatalyst, with participation from @ravi_lsvp at @lightspeedvp.
Different is an AI marketing system that runs demand generation end-to-end for lean B2B marketing teams.
Different is an AI marketing system that runs demand generation end-to-end for lean B2B marketing teams.
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