Linus Upson

The newest issue of The Pragmatic Engineer found a surprise uptick in eng hiring in the typically slow summer season - I'm curious to see how the macro environment impacts this uptick as we head into the fall, but I remain hopeful. I asked Gemini to give me the tldr of the article to share with my team (sorry, Gergely Orosz) and found it missed one of the most interesting pieces of the article. Gemini's highlights - Unexpected surge: Tech recruitment has seen an unusual spike in June and July, contrary to typical trends. Increased demand: Startups, especially AI-focused ones, are driving the hiring uptick. Global phenomenon: This trend isn't just limited to the US; Europe is also experiencing increased recruitment activity. Reasons for hiring: Companies are backfilling positions, investing in growth due to improved financials, and responding to increased VC funding. Challenges remain: While the job market is improving, finding qualified candidates and offering competitive compensation remains difficult for many companies. What I found most interesting - The nature of the backfills: the article finds that a lot of new headcount are actually backfills of folks that were "over-slashed" during rounds of layoffs. Not entirely surprising with the "trim the fat" and "rebuild lean" mentality, but interesting nonetheless. Either way, the uptick is encouraging (and don't always rely on Gemini's tldrs). #hiring #startups #VCbacked #softwareengineering

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To all my fellow Arizonans in particular… Here’s the Cliff Notes version of why our Silicon State focus on “atoms” in addition to bits is SO on point for our times. The world of atoms shall be underserved no longer. And Avanced Manufacturing (of all kinds of things in all kinds of industries) is right on the $! 🙏🏼🌵🚀 https://lnkd.in/gNbGmPsC

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I got a preview of this talk. It's going to be good. If you think we've reached the end of the gen AI opportunity, then you should listen to what Roman Shaposhnik and Tanya Dadasheva have to share about the future of transformer architecture for AI.

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Ever wondered where the perfect balance between tranquility and innovation lies? For me, it’s Seattle. Unlike the Bay, Seattle has a more serene environment that’s perfect for focusing on building products and businesses. The city’s vibe encourages deep work and creative thinking, free from the overwhelming hustle. But let’s be honest, Seattle’s founder and investor communities aren’t as vibrant as those in SF. Yet, this city holds a special place in my heart – a blend of my love for startups and the charm of Seattle. I believe in Seattle’s potential and I’m on a mission to help ignite its startup community. From connecting with fellow founders to engaging investors, let’s come together to build something extraordinary here. Seattle has all the ingredients to be a startup hub – talent, innovation, and a supportive ecosystem. What it needs is a spark. Let’s be that spark.

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This week I attended TechCrunch's Disrupt 2024 in SF, and I'm still processing the sheer innovation on display. As a founder, what struck me most wasn't just the technology – it was how startups are wielding AI to solve real-world problems. There were over 200 startup pitches and I sat and listened to at least 150 in various categories such as FinTech, Healthcare, EdTech, MarTech, Saas, AeroSpace, Enterprise, Productivity, Logistics etc and it was refreshing to see how startups are applying latest AI technology to revolutionize the industry. What energized me the most was, seeing solo content creators building viable businesses around AI tools Key takeaway: AI isn't just transforming how we build products; it's fundamentally changing who can build them. The democratization of AI technology is creating a new breed of innovator. This isn't about jumping on the AI bandwagon – it's about understanding how these tools can amplify human creativity and problem-solving. If you're not exploring AI applications in your industry yet, now's the time. Curious to hear from other attendees – what innovations caught your eye? #TechCrunchDisrupt2024 #ArtificialIntelligence #StartupLife #TechInnovation #AI #Entrepreneurship #fintech #machinelearning #llm

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It’s been an action-packed year since we rolled into 2024. Today, we’re announcing that Depot has raised a $4.1M seed round from Felicis, Y Combinator, Aviso Ventures, Tokyo Black, and several incredible angels. We’ve grown over 6x since the start of the year and are now processing over 1.3M builds per month across thousands of organizations, with over 13,750 build hours per week saved. Beyond making Docker image builds up to 40x faster, we are now bringing that same performance to Depot GitHub Actions runners. We’ve also started building some incredible partnerships with Fly.io and Cycle.io to bring Depot’s build performance to other platforms. But we’re not stopping there. We’re focused on making builds, all builds, near instant. The build acceleration platform we’ve built with Depot is going to eliminate the wildly inefficient and painfully slow builds that frustrate all of us developers on a daily basis. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished up to this point as a small team of three that expanded to five in July. Depot has grown from a developer tool that solved our own day-to-day challenges with builds into a platform that is helping thousands of organizations. All powered by an incredibly talented, focused, and determined team to make developers’ lives easier, faster, and less annoying, while simultaneously helping businesses iterate exponentially faster. I can’t wait for you to see what we do next 🚀 Check out the full VentureBeat article 👉 https://lnkd.in/d-d2jgGf

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If you're running a data or AI-focused startup, connect with Stephan Goupille and his team! When three of the industry's brightest data minds join forces to back your venture, you get more than just funding – you gain invaluable operator expertise. They understand the challenges and opportunities you face because they've been there themselves.

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Since the YC deadline to hear back for W25 is coming up next week, here’s the story of how we went from 2 students coding in an MIT dorm room to being full-time YC founders building Delve in SF. For all you founders anxiously waiting to hear back, just keep building — you’ll be successful regardless of the decision. -- In Fall 2023, my co-founder Karun Kaushik and I were studying AI at MIT and spending all of our free time building an AI medical scribe to help doctors. We had vaguely heard about YC from a friend who had just gotten accepted but had no plans of applying whatsoever. However when the YC deadline rolled around, we spontaneously decided to put in an application on the very last day. We spent that whole day in Karun’s dorm room typing up the application and filming all the required videos. We finally hit submit the minute of the deadline! By the next day we had already moved on. We went back to the usual rhythm of coding in the dorm room, calling with doctors, attending conferences, etc. If anything, we were even more motivated now to get more traction and be successful regardless. Later that week, while we were eating in the dorm kitchen, I noticed I got an email saying we had a YC interview scheduled. My heart rate spiked. I jumped up out of my seat and immediately told Karun. I never seriously considered YC, but for the first time it hit me that it might actually be a possibility. When the day of the interview rolled around, we did mock interviews with former YC founders and focused mostly on calming our nerves. More important than the actual content of the interview, we wanted to show our excitement for building and hacking together as co-founders. Unfortunately the interview caught us by surprise. The group partners didn't seem to care as much about our actual AI medical scribe. Instead, they seemed more curious about a side idea we had listed in our application that we wrote up in a day. The idea was about streamlining HIPAA compliance (since we had to go through HIPAA for our AI medical scribe). By this point, we were already seriously considering pivoting into this and had made a lot of progress on the idea. The YC interview was our tipping point Not too long after, we got an ominous email titled “YC.” We were freaked out. I could not sleep the entire night. Then, in the middle of class the next day, I got a phone call from Karun with Surbhi on the other end of the line. My heart rate spiked. I ran outside of the classroom. That turned out to be our acceptance call:) -- For everyone out there still waiting to hear back, just keep grinding. Build as if you’ve been rejected and you might just be pleasantly surprised. I’m also always here to help with mock interviews/give advice! We’ve helped a handful of friends through the YC app process and are always here to support other founders!

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Kids Care Finder is now a #semifinalist for this year’s Pepperdine Most Fundable Companies List! There are less than 100 companies that have moved into the semifinals in the entire country! So glad to see #childcare is getting noticed by investors. Now let’s get to the finals!! #startups #fundraising #womenintech #angelinvesting #childcare #parenttech #famtech #femalefounders #investing

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Wanna hear a great example of the power of partnerships? 📈 "The company now has almost 200 customers from just five in the summer of 2023." 💥 "The breakthrough for Hydrolix was when our fledgling technology partnership with Akamai Technologies blossomed into a fully integrated service offering... the sales funnel at Hydrolix blew wide open.” 💰 “The collaboration with Akamai was so successful that we decided to create our partner program ... Powered by Hydrolix Partner Program to create new revenue streams for partners...." 🚅 "The program delivers partners a speedy path to revenue that requires minimal in-house resources..." 🚀 "Year-over-year revenue grew 100% largely because of the Powered by Hydrolix Partner Program.” The partnership lessons: 🔭 Focus on making one flagship partner successful first. Instead of trying to add as many partners as possible in a short time, the Hydrolix team was intensely focused on making the partnership with Akamai successful - allocating the right resources to support it - before expanding the program. 🎁 Give to get. Did the Hydrolix team wait until they were asked to create a mountain of enablement content and resources? Nope. Abby Ross and the marketing team had a relentless determination to make sure the Akamai teams had everything they needed and then some - before they knew they needed it. (Seriously - I need binoculars to see the bar they set for me it's so high) 🎉 All in - everyone believes. As you can read in the article, starting with our founders, throughout our leadership team, to Sales, CS, Product, Marketing, Support - everyone was bought-in on a partner first motion and dedicated to make it successful. Now it's time to expand the ecosystem to complimentary partners that bring our Akamai Technologies customer's real value, like Datazoom. The next stage of Hydrolix partnerships will be an exciting one. https://lnkd.in/gdtFT76D

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The latest crazy news about AI is this one: Turns out A.I. is figuring out how to alter human DNA. Do any of you besides me think this is the worst idea you've ever heard besides self-driving 18-wheelers and airplanes?

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🧩 One thing we've noticed with #VentureIQ technology is how well it can distill and communicate complex technical material 🧩 Whether it's a #deeptech venture, a novel #AI application, or even a patent submission, we can quickly distill the business and strategic implications for investors...and sometimes even the founders/PIs themselves! 🤯 Based on our work so far, the tech can handle a wide array of research areas and technological sectors -- anything from blockchain algorithms to vaccine development. It handles the nuance of the field, the specific terminology, and extracts the key concepts which matter for venture-building. 🤓 To demonstrate, I took a patent I helped write with Eric Laber on reinforcement learning. I ran it through #Ventureiq to build a commercial assessment (key differentiators, target markets). Then for fun I had #NotebookLM make a podcast out of it. I've uploaded the result it here (DM me if you'd like the actual report): https://lnkd.in/eiTejsny This is more than just automation or streamlining operations - it's about unlocking clarity and insight when it was previously unattainable, and the ability to do it over and over again no matter the sector or vertical. Interested in more info? DM me so we can chat.

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The harsh reality of CA politics -- the state government works for Big Tech, not the citizens. Some good quotes here. Newsom's stated goal about workable "guardrails" is nonsensical as it's currently physically impossible. That's a bit like saying they are pursuing a way to apply DDT safely to agriculture.... no such method existed. Newsom and CA have zero cred on anything relating to responsible or safe AI. The question is whether that extends to Harris. I honestly don't know, but her history in defending SV and conflicting relationships that include her brother-in-law suggests that it would be difficult for her to regulate Big Tech objectively. Trump is also a wild card. He's so unpredictable that one day he might attempt to order Zuch arrested and the next brag about the power of American Big Tech. The next four years will be interesting. I have much more confidence in SCOTUS.

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The fantastic BioGlyph product and the team of Fernando Garces, McClain Kressman, and Avi Peltz will enable Dotmatics Luma customers to create, enumerate, and assess of a whole host of antibody formats within a beautiful visual interface. This is a key part of the Lab-in-a-Loop concept: 1) computational simulation and ML models inform the selection of molecules, 2) those molecules are made via experiments in the wet lab, 3) results data from the wet lab are used to adapt ML models and optimize the overall process. Dotmatics Luma is at the center of this cycle, enabling scientists to orchestrate every piece while collecting all data in an open and harmonized way so it can accelerate decision-making for critical areas of research. Multispecific Antibodies (MsAbs) is one of the fastest growing of those areas. I'm very excited to see what our customers will achieve with this! https://lnkd.in/e9JpFna8

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🚨🚨 🚨 Unlocking Innovation: The Power of the Adjacent Possible Innovation programs can stall when the team tries to ideate way beyond their collective perspective and frame of reference. Like a software engineer brainstorming genetic modification of mycelia, or a senior executive ideating process improvements which they haven't been participated in for decades. It's challenging, exhausting, and ultimately self-defeating. Enter the concept of the "Adjacent Possible" - a game-changer for innovation. What is it? The Adjacent Possible, coined by Stuart Kauffman, represents the realm of new ideas within reach based on our current knowledge, resources, and capabilities. Why it matters: ➡️ Realistic Innovation: it focuses on achievable advancements, not far-fetched concepts. ➡️ Incremental Progress: each innovation opens doors to new possibilities. How to leverage it: • Constantly explore the boundaries of your adjacent possible. What's in your line of sight is what you know best. • Combine existing ideas in novel ways. Even small perturbations from status quo can generate large innovation leaps. • Stay curious about developments in adjacent industries. Cross-domain patterns create fresh sources of ideas, while also expanding the adjacent possible. Most of all, it takes the 'genius' pressure off the team. No one knows everything, but each one of us knows a lot about something, and we can all drive plenty of innovation potential by focusing on the spaces we know best. Are you exploring your Adjacent Possible? Share your thoughts below! 👇 #Innovation #innovationsystems #AdjacentPossible

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