A few years ago, getting a VC check was the ultimate shortcut. The fastest way to scale. The signal that you'd "made it." But with AI is a little bit different.
Global VC funding declined 30% in Q1 2024. One of the lowest quarters since 2018. And bootstrapped startups are quietly catching up. Recent data shows bootstrapped businesses are growing as fast as VC-backed startups, while spending only about one-quarter as much on customer acquisition.
Last week Garry Tan (CEO of Y Combinator) shared his entire Claude Code setup on GitHub and called it "god mode."
He's sleeping 4 hours a night. Running 10 AI workers across 3 projects simultaneously. And openly saying he rebuilt a startup that once took $10M and 10 people. Alone, with agents.
The calmer, clearer, more focused way to run remote teams.
An opinionated, open-source book for founders and leaders building remote-first companies. 36 principles across 9 sections, covering trust, async communication, hiring, tools, connection, and scaling.
No hedging. No "it depends." Just what works after 20 years of building distributed teams across continents.
Free to read online. Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0.
Five painfully honest AI tools for founders and tech workers. Idea Funeral kills bad ideas with dignity. Corporate Translator decodes jargon into human language. Startup Therapist gives clarity, not comfort. Pitch Without Slides scores your idea without the deck. Build or Die scopes your MVP in 30 days or tells you to quit.
No signup required. No comfort guaranteed. Same brutal feedback for everyone, paying users just get higher throughput and spicier output. Self-hosted AI.
