In partnership with

GM! It’s Brett again. Marc Andreessen of a16z (one of our investors) says, “Companies are going to sweep through and build AI-first versions of everything,” and calls out email as one of the biggest, most obvious opportunities.

I always knew email needed to change, but there was no real way to do it - until LLM progress started going exponential. We’ve been blocked by decades of entrenched behaviors and technological limitations. But no more.

With a shift this massive, you can’t just add an AI button to your product. You have to shut down your company and start over. Which is literally what I did.

For the first time in 20 years, you can reimagine the core applications people use - and actually win.

🏠 AI

Destroying the consulting industry

OpenAI had a packed week, dropping 2 major releases that got the tech world talking.

First was o3-mini - a lighter, more efficient version of their upcoming o3 model. The tests show it's 24% faster than o1-mini while matching o1's performance on math, coding, and science tasks. It's available in ChatGPT and the APIs.

Then they dropped their bigger play: "deep research" - an AI agent that conducts web research and writes detailed reports. OpenAI claims it can accomplish in minutes what takes humans up to 30 days.

The agent searches the web, analyzes sources including PDFs and images, and provides full citations for its findings.

The agent can produce comprehensive competitive analysis reports in minutes to an hour - work that typically requires teams of analysts or consultants. It's a clear signal of how AI is starting to automate high-skilled analytical jobs, notably the kind of work fresh MBAs traditionally handle at consulting firms.

Access is starting with Pro users ($200/month), capped at 100 queries monthly. Plus and Team users will get access later.

The timing feels deliberate. With DeepSeek making moves, OpenAI's picking up the pace.

On benchmark tests, deep research scored 26.6% on "Humanity's Last Exam" - significantly outperforming other models like Gemini Thinking (6.2%), Grok-2 (3.8%), and DeepSeek's R1 (9.4%).

The bigger picture - OpenAI describes deep research as a significant step toward their goal of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), following their first AI agent Operator released last month. It shows their vision of AI evolving from chat-based assistance to autonomous task completion.

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.

Sign up to start learning.

🤝 THE LATEST IN…

TECH

• Stripe is laying off 300 people.

• Zuck teases a 2025 return to ‘OG Facebook’.

• Perplexity submits a new bid for TikTok - gives the US government 50% ownership.

• Elon admits that Tesla will have to replace its HW3 self-driving computers.

AI

• OpenAI launched ChatGPT Gov for US Government agencies.

• Google now lets you call businesses on your behalf.

• Sensitive DeepSeek data exposed to web.

• OpenAI is in talks to raise up to $40B.

SCIENCE

• A lucky lab accident produces Spider-Man-like silk.

• Reid Hoffman raised $25M to take on cancer with AI.

• A faster method predicts how a DNA sequence arranges in the nucleus in minutes.

CRYPTO

• Coinbase acquires Spindl - a web3 adtech platform.

• US Bitcoin ETFs had over $5B in net inflows in January.

• South Korea’s bitcoin 'kimchi premium' hits 10-month high.

• Russia to create mandatory registry for crypto mining equipment.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

Raise: Raise: Helion, a fusion energy startup, raised $425M in a Series F round to accelerate the development of its fusion power plant for Microsoft.

Stat: 72%. That’s how much weekly crypto fund inflows dropped as Trump’s trade tariffs and DeepSeek turmoil hit investor sentiment.

Rabbit Hole: Early Work (Paul Graham)

🤩 MONDAY MOTIVATION

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

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

🕵️ DryMerge connects to business apps and uses AI to automate repetitive tasks.

⚙️ Reachy.ai is your LinkedIn outreach agent to find leads.

✅ Overstand converts your customer conversations into actionable tasks.

🎯 The 80 / 20

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

Simplify Your Lunch: The Sunday Meal Prep

I eat the same thing every day - grilled chicken and broccoli. Not because I'm boring, but because I'm optimizing for performance. You can't crush long hours running on DoorDash and junk.

Here's the hack: 60-minute Sunday meal prep. Five containers. One protein (I do chicken), one veggie. Season well, grill or bake in batches, divide it up. Done.

No more decision fatigue. No more "forgot to eat" or expensive takeout runs. Your body gets clean fuel consistently, and your brain gets to focus on what matters.

Start basic. Perfect it. Then level up if you want variety.

❓️ AI GENERATED OR NOT

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

🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️ Yeah (~53%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Nope (~47%)

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.

REACH 40K+ FOUNDERS, INVESTORS & OPERATORS

If you’re interested in advertising with us, send an email over to [email protected] with the subject “Homescreen Ads”