TLDR FoundersOctober 1, 2025

TLDR FOUNDERS 2025-10-01

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01GENERAL

EXCLUSIVE LIVE EVENT!

Snowflake has long been an innovator and leader in pricing, and now it's adapting proven, usage-based pricing models for the age of AI and value monetization.

metronome.comSponsor

02HEADLINES & TRENDS

OPENAI LAUNCHES SORA 2 WITH NEW SOCIAL VIDEO APP

Sora 2 delivers more realistic, controllable videos with audio and a new TikTok-style app that lets users generate 10-second clips with consent-based cameo uploads. The system enforces guardrails—no public-figure use without permission, no explicit content, and shows notifications when your likeness is used. The app is invite-only in the US and Canada, but OpenAI plans further rollout and public access.

links.tldrnewsletter.com2 min read

VERCEL CLOSES SERIES F AT $9.3B VALUATION TO SCALE THE AI CLOUD

Vercel secured $300M in a Series F funding round, raising its valuation to $9.3B, led by Accel and GIC, with participation from existing and new investors like BlackRock and Khosla Ventures. Vercel's user base has doubled with notable clients like OpenAI and PayPal, and the company plans to launch v0 Mobile, enabling app development through voice and camera inputs.

businesswire.com4 min read

FORMER OPENAI AND DEEPMIND RESEARCHERS RAISE WHOPPING $300M SEED TO AUTOMATE SCIENCE

Periodic Labs has secured a $300M seed round from notable investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia, to automate scientific discovery through AI. Founded by former OpenAI and DeepMind researchers, the startup aims to create autonomous labs where AI scientists, aided by robots, discover new materials like superconductors. This approach seeks to generate novel data to advance AI further in material science, competing with other entities in the field.

techcrunch.com3 min read

03STRATEGIES & TACTICS

HOW DO GOOD PRODUCT METRICS LOOK LIKE IN 2025?

Your sales team and growth team are both optimizing for speed, yet you're still losing deals. New data shows why - top performers activate 69% of customers within one week because they ignore departmental boundaries. Most companies have sales perfecting their pitch while growth optimizes onboarding, but the fastest activation often requires mixing both. Maybe your differentiating feature works better as an interactive demo before the sales call, not during it. Maybe prospects need a brief demo, then product access, returning to sales only when ready.

leahtharin.com4 min read

GROWTH HACKING

Growth hacking, a term coined by Sean Ellis, focuses on driving rapid, measurable growth through data-driven experimentation and unconventional tactics. It emphasizes metrics like acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral, using the AARRR funnel to prioritize efforts. Successful examples include Airbnb's Craigslist integration and Dropbox's referral loop, highlighting creative strategies that scale effectively. Growth hacking tools like SEO, social media, and A/B testing are crucial, but must avoid over-optimization, vanity metrics, and neglecting retention for sustainable growth.

review.firstround.com6 min read

FROM MANAGING PEOPLE TO MANAGING AI: HOW THE SAME LEADERSHIP SKILLS APPLY IN THE AGE OF AI

Julie Zhuo emphasizes how AI turns everyone into managers, requiring traditional management skills to handle AI agents effectively. Her "diagnose with data, treat with design" framework highlights balancing intuition and data in product development. Despite AI-driven hypergrowth leading to poor data infrastructure, this isn't a significant obstacle, according to Zhuo.

lennysnewsletter.com4 min read

04TOOLS & RESOURCES

AIR WEAVE

An open-source tool that lets agents search any app or database.

airweave.aiTool

ATLAS

AI-generated pricing pages with market analysis and customer engagement tools.

runonatlas.comTool

MERLIO

Unified interface for using multiple AI models to generate text, images, and ideas.

merlio.appTool

05MISCELLANEOUS

HOW TO MAKE AI WRITE LESS LIKE AI

A copywriter outsourced 100 blog posts to look like an agency, got paid in full, and then a week later, the client demanded every dollar back. The posts were grammatically perfect but strategically worthless. That failure taught him what most founders miss about AI - prompts don't matter if you're feeding it nothing. The fix is context engineering. Before writing anything, gather customer interviews, support tickets, and competitor messaging. Distill those into strategy documents like positioning canvases and messaging frameworks. Only after loading those as context do you start prompting. This works beyond copywriting - a founder prepping for a board meeting shouldn't ask AI for a deck but should first load market research and competitive analysis, then let AI build the narrative.

every.to4 min read

THE BEAUTY OF CONSTRAINTS

Give your time unlimited time and resources and watch them build nothing useful. An engineering leader kept seeing projects die not from bad planning but from too much freedom - teams would list requirements, estimate timelines, then stumble along optimizing features that shouldn't exist. The counterintuitive fix is deliberately limiting scope, resources, and time.

theengineeringmanager.substack.com4 min read

ALL EYES ON INFLATION

xAI launched grok-code-fast-1, expanding its tech demand due to its quick, cost-effective coding model. Microsoft introduced MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview to develop proprietary AI models, showing advancements beyond OpenAI's tech influence. Intel faces financial strain with a $3.2 billion quarterly loss as it retains its foundry business under government pressure. Alibaba's Cloud Intelligence Group grew 26% in Q2, with AI-related revenues soaring. Fusion tech is gaining traction with Commonwealth's $863 million Series B2 funding, backed by notable investors like Google and Nvidia.

cautiousoptimism.news5 min read