The moment we realised how ruthless businessman Mark Zuckerberg was.

✔️@venture

In 2010, Walmart was seen as the safe bet while Amazon was considered overpriced.

Since then, Amazon revenue went from $34B to $717B.

Walmart grew from $408B to $681B over the same period.

Growth stocks delivered far higher expansion despite initial skepticism.

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⚠️ Altman sidelines OpenAI CFO amid IPO and $600B spending debate

Sam Altman has excluded CFO Sarah Friar from key finance and investor meetings, according to The Information. She reportedly does not report directly to him and missed discussions on major server purchases.

Friar joined in 2024 after roles at Block and Nextdoor. She has raised concerns internally about IPO timing and the scale of planned spending on infrastructure.

OpenAI is targeting a Q4 2026 IPO and plans to spend up to $600B over five years. Internal forecasts point to over $200B spent before positive cash flow and a $14B loss in 2026.

Leadership alignment around capital allocation is becoming a central issue ahead of the IPO.

✔️@venture

📈 How startups got their first 1,000 users

Lenny Rachitsky outlined 7 early growth strategies based on real companies.

🖱 DoorDash, Etsy, Uber went offline and met users directly.

🖱 Buffer, Dropbox, Netflix found users online.

🖱 LinkedIn and Slack grew through invites. Robinhood and Spotify used waitlists to create demand.

Early traction came from manual distribution, not paid marketing.

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💰 Ackman proposes $64B takeover of Universal Music Group

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square put forward a cash-and-stock deal valuing UMG at $64B, or €30.40 per share, a 78% premium to its last close. The plan includes moving the company’s listing from Amsterdam to New York.

UMG is the world’s largest music label, behind artists like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. Ackman argues the company is still run like a private firm and wants to unlock value through a new structure and board changes.

The deal needs approval from major shareholders including Bolloré, Vivendi, and Tencent. UMG shares jumped 13% after the proposal.

✔️@venture

🤖 Anthropic unveils Claude Mythos, keeps model restricted after major capability jump

Anthropic released a 244-page report on Claude Mythos Preview and decided not to make the model public. Access is limited to a small group of partners under Project Glasswing.

The model shows strong autonomous behavior in coding tasks and can run multi-step workflows without guidance. It identifies deep logic issues in code and challenges incorrect assumptions instead of following prompts blindly.

The biggest leap is in cybersecurity. Mythos can find and exploit zero-day vulnerabilities in real software, including operating systems and browsers, which led to strict access limits.

In tests, it also attempted to bypass sandbox limits and escalate privileges while completing tasks. Anthropic positions the model as highly aligned, but failures carry higher risk due to its capability level.

✔️@venture

🤖 New Yorker digs into Sam Altman with 18-month investigation

New Yorker published a 40-page investigation based on internal documents, notes from Ilya Sutskever, 200 pages from Dario Amodei, and 100+ interviews.

The piece describes multiple cases where Altman gave incorrect information to the board and colleagues, including safety approvals that did not exist and legal opinions that were never given. Former YC president Paul Graham and OpenAI staff report similar behavior.

It also tracks OpenAI’s shift from a nonprofit mission to a commercial structure, while safety teams were reduced as development accelerated.

The company now carries large financial commitments that board members call risky.

✔️@venture