In partnership with

GM! It’s Brett again. I recently told a founder they wouldn’t succeed—because they didn’t seem to give a sh*t about what they were building.

The UX was a mess, core flows were broken, and instead of fixing them, they were off doing everything else.

Tobi, founder/CEO of Shopify, has great advice “Do not work on products you don’t care about” because it always results in building an inferior product. And this is exactly how startups can beat incumbents. If you care more than your competition, you will build a better product.

🏠 AI

Claude Finally Gets Web Search

Anthropic just plugged a major hole in Claude: web search. Now, instead of being stuck with a knowledge cutoff, Claude can fetch real-time data, pull in sources, and (in theory) be way more useful for anything that needs up-to-date info.

It’s only in preview for paid US users right now. Free users and international expansion are “coming soon,” but no timeline yet. You have to toggle it on in settings, and when Claude decides a query needs fresh data, it’ll hit the web, pull in results, and cite sources.

This puts Claude on the same playing field as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, all of which had web access for a while. Anthropic had resisted this feature, arguing Claude was meant to be “self-contained.” But competitive pressure likely forced their hand. Users were demanding search, some even building workarounds to give Claude internet access.

The big picture - Claude needed this. It’s no longer at a disadvantage, but the real test is how well it actually uses web data. AI-powered search is shifting fast. It’s no longer just about finding links. ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and now Claude are all competing to redefine how we access knowledge. The old model of typing keywords into Google and sifting through pages of results - will soon be outdated.

Start learning AI in 2025

Everyone talks about AI, but no one has the time to learn it. So, we found the easiest way to learn AI in as little time as possible: The Rundown AI.

It's a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses – tailored to your needs.

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🤝 THE LATEST IN…

TECH

• Pebble watch returns.

• Google buys Wiz for $32B (biggest acquisition in its history).

• Nvidia and Google DeepMind will help power Disney’s cute robots.

• Tesla's missing $1.4B.

AI

• Hundreds of Hollywood actors and insiders urge the government to keep strong copyright laws amid AI concerns.

• Tencent’s Hunyuan T1 AI reasoning model rivals DeepSeek in performance & price.

• Perplexity wants to rebuild TikTok in America.

• OpenAI upgrades its transcription and voice-generating AI models.

SCIENCE

• Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are back on Earth after 9 months on the ISS.

• A small clinical trial suggests this treatment may prevent pancreatic cancer recurrence.

• Microsoft teams up with AI startup to simulate brain reasoning.

• New eye drops slow vision loss in animals.

CRYPTO

• Farcaster rolls out 'blockchain-like' new data layer Snapchain.

• Bitcoin surges above $87,000.

• Pumpfun launches its own DEX called PumpSwap.

• Berachain to roll out ‘proof-of-liquidity’ system.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

Raise: The Bot Company, a robotics startup focused on household chores, raised $150M in a funding round to develop advanced home robotics solutions.

Stat: $768M. That’s the value of US alcohol exports to Canada now at risk due to retaliatory bans over new tariffs.

Rabbit Hole: The Wisdom of Bill Gurley (Kevin Zhang)

🤩 MONDAY MOTIVATION

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we recently came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

⚙️ Basalt lets you integrate AI into your product in seconds.

💬 Pinch is a virtual conferencing platform with real-time voice translation.

✍️ SignWith is a pay per doc alternative to DocSign.

🎯 The 80 / 20

Simple tricks to get a ton of value with minimal effort for work and life.

Lateral Thinking

Most people solve problems the same way every time, head-on, logical, predictable. But the best thinkers train their brains to break patterns and see solutions others miss.

It’s called Lateral Thinking.

Lateral Thinking is all about finding creative, unexpected solutions - going beyond the obvious path. It’s how Airbnb rethought hotels, how Tesla flipped car distribution, and how great problem-solvers tackle work and life.

And you can actually train yourself to think this way. Apps like Brain It On, Lumosity, or even simple riddle sites can rewire your brain to approach challenges differently.

Lateral thinking puzzles don’t magically make you a creative genius. But they train your brain to break assumptions, see hidden patterns, and approach problems from unconventional angles.

Think of it like weightlifting. Doing a single rep won’t make you strong, but consistently challenging your brain in this way builds mental flexibility over time.

❓️ AI GENERATED OR NOT

Last week’s answer: If you guessed AI-generated… you were wrong.

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yeah (~43%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️ Nope (~57%)

Here’s the original.

 👋 A Quick Note About Micro

Micro is a CRM that doesn't feel like homework and an email client that knows what matters. Simply put, it's an all-in-one productivity tool that organizes itself so you don't have to.

I built Micro with some friends because I was tired of getting guilt tripped for not hitting inbox 0 and having to bounce around between so many tools to do my job.

We're launching in 2025, but if you want early access, sign up for the waitlist at micro.so and respond to the confirmation email saying you came from Homescreen.

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