So excited to share the first episode of The Upstarts Podcast! I spoke to Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, who went from Upstart in Australia to running the world's most valuable woman-led startup. Melanie's ambition: “build one of the world’s most valuable companies, and do the most good we can do.”

whoever named airport WiFi this was spot on

News: Upstarts is launching our flagship podcast 🚀 Behind every world-changing business, there's an Upstart -- a founder who took on the status quo to achieve big impact. On The Upstarts Podcast, I'll chat with a startup leader each week about their 'Upstart Moment', from the tech to the tactics 💪

When a PR fixer turned VC introduced a startup founder to Jeffrey Epstein... what a lede from @iainmartin.bsky.social 🫠 www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...

Exclusive: startup Day AI raised $20M in a Series A led by Sequoia to build the ‘Cursor for CRM’ CEO Christopher O’Donnell, ex HubSpot, tells @upstarts.bsky.social: “Salesforce as we think of it today is not going to exist in 2 or 3 years. I don’t know if it’ll be us, but I really hope it’s us.”

Ah, the age-old dilemma: honor the social commitments I made, or keep sitting next to my dog

Exclusive: startup Flight Science is building tech to take some of the turbulence out of air travel ✈️ Led by an industry veteran (and recreational pilot) with Google and Apple experience, the startup has raised $7M to build apps for dispatchers and pilots next. Read the story here, fully free 👇

We could’ve avoided so much drama by just giving Trump a cameo in Mighty Ducks 2

Last week, an @upstarts.bsky.social reader sent me an eye-catching job listing from Anthropic: “Policy Manager, Chemical Weapons and High Yield Explosives” Then I found a similar open role at OpenAI (paying more) 👀 What gives? I asked around to find out👇

If you’re already in line to wish me a happy birthday, STAY IN LINE

It's healthcare's big week, and Anthropic and OpenAI showed up with big dueling announcements about pushing deeper into health AI. I spoke to them and some founders and investors to break down what it means for the wider startup ecosystem for today's birthday edition of @upstarts.bsky.social.

I wrote about Boardy, the “AI super connector” that promises to help founders close funding rounds faster, and other automated startup-VC matching tools popping up 👀 www.upstartsmedia.com/p/would-you-...

This has been the craziest, hardest and most rewarding year of my career in founding @upstarts.bsky.social. I spent the past couple of days reflecting on what worked, what didn't, and setting 6 resolutions for Upstarts to grow in 2026. Thanks so much for reading, and Happy New Year🙏

Does this count as touching grass

the one time I get to pick on family movie night

the one time I get to pick on family movie night

My college paper alumni listserv casually raising my anxiety to end the year

DEEP DIVE: VC firms are building their own AI tools to compete for the best startup deals. And for founders, that's changing the relationships game. Here's what the AI-ification of venture capital means for startups, in my new @upstarts.bsky.social feature. www.upstartsmedia.com/p/deep-dive-...

Publishing a deep dive later today on a topic that I spent way too much time nerding out on: how VC firms are adopting AI tools internally, and what it means for founders. If you’re not subscribed to Upstarts yet, sign up for a free reader trial to get it first 👇 upstartsmedia.com/readertrial

“There is no way you are better than the collective.” I spoke to Lyft CEO David Risher about the “dark side” of ‘Founder Mode’, and why he embraces an approach called ‘Falcon Mode’. We also talked turnarounds, why he’s excited about Waymo, and the value of storytelling in motivating teams.

An Upstarts reader exclusive tip: Forbes' Under 30 party is apparently tonight, but some founders are too young to be able to attend, as the venue is 21+

Exclusive: OpenAI alum Angela Jiang has launched a new startup, Worktrace AI, with $9M in funding from top VCs and OpenAI itself. I spoke to her and cofounder Deepak Vasisht about how their workflow automation agent could help to bridge the AI value gap. www.upstartsmedia.com/p/worktrace-...

Went to a dinner in Meatpacking and got on the wrong train, toward where I lived in my 20s, through muscle memory 💀

Founders: keep in mind the fund dynamics of VC firms you meet 👀 Funds raised in '21 and '22 are more likely to be limping to the finish -- meaning a potentially harder, slower yes. 2024 funds, meanwhile, invest fast 💸 Our @upstarts.bsky.social analysis 👇 www.upstartsmedia.com/p/carta-data...

When you sign up but don’t go to the event

“Our mission is to program biology, to steer it using AI to cure disease." Startup founder Ali Madani is training his own AI models to fight disease at Profluent, using what he says is the world's largest protein dataset. Now he's raised $106M to scale. Our @upstarts.bsky.social interview 👇

Target partnering with OpenAI is smart, but doesn't go far enough. The people obviously want in-store promotions on Nvidia Blackwell GPUs

The temptation to skip the work drinks and just hang out inside the Lego Store

Exclusive: Span, a startup building a new-look 'developer intelligence' platform for the AI code era, has raised $25M. Led by Lattice's former head of product J Zac Stein, Span already helps companies like Braze, Intercom, Ramp, Vanta and Writer keep track of their engineering and AI tool usage.

“Now the object is to accumulate Cones. Or Cones Wins. But, in order to get a Cone, you have to build a civilization… Are the Cones a metaphor? Well, yes and no.”

someday i will be able to say or write the phrase "my wife" without a little voice shouting it in my head today is not that day though

We are so cooked

Our CEO spent too long at a VC dinner tonight (we’re not even raising!) so the @upstarts.bsky.social social media manager decided to learn a new skill.

One benefit of OpenAI going public would be more transparency around its revenue and inference spend. If numbers shared by @edzitron.com this AM are legit, there's a disconnect between what's widely reported and what can be reproduced from its Microsoft deal $ sums. www.wheresyoured.at/oai_docs/

Just caught up with @alexrkonrad.bsky.social, founder of Upstarts Media, which launched earlier this year and has built a big fan base among tech industry insiders. Terrific follow if you want the inside scoop on trends, personalities, and innovation in the tech ecosystem bsky.app/profile/alex...

Exclusive: SuperMe, a startup building a new-look AI expert network, has launched with $6.8M in funding and 3K profiles onboard. CEO Casey Winters says they're tackling a simple problem: “How do you share the knowledge sitting in the heads of top 1% people?” www.upstartsmedia.com/p/superme-la...

"People thought it was insane." Now women's health startup Gameto has helped with 9 healthy births and raised $127M to date. CEO Dina Radenkovic Turner spoke with @upstarts.bsky.social about her startup's plans to take on menopause and ovarian health next. www.upstartsmedia.com/p/exclusive-...

Of the age now where I got a good back crack getting out of bed, and I’ll now be thinking about it all day

Would you trust a drone security system at your business if it cost one-tenth the price of a guard? Sunflower Labs seems smart for big footprint worksites — but it’s the startup’s turnaround from near-death that made me interested in covering its new round led by Sequoia in @upstarts.bsky.social.

My trusty wooden umbrella of the past 16 years did not survive today's windy rain in NYC 😭 Farewell, umbrella friend, you made it through 2 years of college, being momentarily forgotten at countless parties and dive bars, and at least 4 apartment moves. Stay dry in the sky 🫡

Many startups have tried and failed to solve the "tar pit" of a personal CRM for better keeping in touch with contacts. So I'm genuinely excited to try Goodword, a new app that launched today. It uses AI to better track connections, but requires a human touch. www.upstartsmedia.com/p/goodword-a...

My TikTok book is out in stores today! Why should you read it? Because 1 in 5 Americans now get their news from this thing. We should all understand how it works. It was inevitable that strongmen would seek to control a tool this powerful. The book is the story of what happened when they did.

Really enjoyed this chat with the great @hunterwalk.com about what we're building at @upstarts.bsky.social as we approach our 6 month mark. Feedback includes: "You are SUCH a nerd my god" 🤓 and "You really nailed the balance of promo + substance here!" 😂

When I still worked at Forbes, I'd annoy our IT helpdesk by filing tickets to update Signal and WhatsApp seemingly every week. One-year-old startup Console, which just raised $23M, uses AI agents to automate away basic IT requests like that. www.upstartsmedia.com/p/console-ai...

When Margot was a puppy, she tried to say hi to a skunk and got sprayed pretty bad. Years later, she still freaks out when she sees black and white dogs. Which raises an important question: does she think the dogs are skunks, or that skunks are just a spooky kind of dog 🤔

— Scene: outside a fancy new Brooklyn high rise, 1pm — Broker [suit, clipboard in hand]: sir, do you have an appointment? Me [gym clothes, stomping on 50 spotted lanternflies]: no, just getting my steps in!

Chatted with Klarna's CEO from NYSE during their IPO week. We talked about what he learned from IKEA and Walmart, Klarna's evolving mission, his stance on crypto, personally vibe coding fixes for bad customer text messages, handling CEO pressure and much more. www.upstartsmedia.com/p/klarna-ceo...

Tech legend Jack Dangermond founded Esri in 1969. Now 80 years young and with a net worth of $10B+, he's still "all in" on his company and global mission. @upstarts.bsky.social spent an hour with Jack this week for one of our best interviews yet, full of lessons on startup-building and life.

Intel has been touting partnerships with sanctioned Chinese surveillance firms as Trump announces that the USG is taking a stake in the company: www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...