Gm.  The existence of 10x engineers implies there are .1x engineers. Watch out. 👀

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers. 

TWITTER

Hotz To The Rescue

For Elon and Twitter, desperate times call for desperate measures. 

With staffing way down after Elon’s “work-hard or get out” ultimatum, Elon is bringing in some unlikely but supremely talented help.

That help is noted hacker and Elon frenemy, George Hotz.

Keep Your Friends Close…

Hotz and Elon go all the way back to 2015.

Back then, Hotz was a hot-shot hacker who claimed he could develop driver assistance software better than Tesla. Elon recognized his talent and was ready to bring him on to Tesla, but the deal fell through after Elon allegedly “kept changing the terms”. 

A big loss, but not one that Tesla found particularly devastating, as it was “extremely unlikely” that Hotz could beat out Tesla. To which Hotz said bet, watch me. 

Hotz went on to found Comma.ai, which brings Tesla Autopilot-like functionality to other cars for the small price of $1,999, because $2000 would’ve been too much. We don’t know if Commas superior to Tesla, but we do know that it’s doing really well. 

So well that Hotz now has some free time. Enough free time that he will spend the next 12 weeks working on fixing Twitter. According to his bio, he is now the most overqualified Twitter intern in history. Screw 10x engineers. He's an 1000x engineer.

Thank God, because the bird app has some bird flu right now.

Mission Twitter

Hotz is just one hire, but it’s a hire that offers a preview of Elon’s strategy. 

Elon says Twitter is officially done with layoffs and ready to hire again. Judging by the fact that he has severely cut down on Twitter’s workforce, it appears that he is going to prioritize quality hires over quantity.

While many are scared of Twitter's new hardcore work ethic, there's plenty of people out there looking for the challenge of a lifetime. 

FACEBOOK

Zuck is Resigning

Ok, the word is out that Zuck is resigning.

Meta, the once darling of Silicon Valley, is losing its fearless leader. 

Zuck led Meta into VR and the metaverse — despite everyone warning him not to and his shareholders writing an open letter asking him to allocate his budget elsewhere.

With rumors flying that Zuck is resigning, everyone's assuming it's because he's admitted defeat. We don't think so. 

7 Reasons Zuck is Resigning

1. He tried the Quest for the first time and realized he gets motion sickness in VR.

2. He made it to the hydrofoil championships. He pre-ordered 10 suntan lotion bottles.

3. He wants to spend time with his family. Tom Brady disapproves.

4. He met Balaji Srinivasan and was immediately crypto-pilled. Zuck is now joining Uniswap as an intern.

5. He smoked weed with Joe Rogan and is opening up a marijuana dispensary selling his custom strain of Zuckerkush.

6. He used TikTok and admitted defeat.

7. He's starting a podcast! Tune in every Tuesday for I Don't Give a Zuck.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Amazon’s Alexa is absolutely bleeding money, with $10 billion in losses in 2022. It’s a wonder why a popular and useful product is unable to make money, but that’s just how it is sometimes. 

Story we’re watching: Another black swan could soon be hitting crypto. Genesis, one of the largest crypto lending desks, is in deep trouble with a hole between $500 million and $1 billion. Bankruptcy is inevitable unless they raise new money. When it rains it pours. 

Rabbit hole: See when words were first published in print (Merriam Webster)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• It’s no secret that AI is better than us at games like Jeopardy and Chess. Whatever, at least we win games that require cooperation. Yeah…not anymore. Meta’s ‘Cicero’ AI is trouncing dudes at the game Diplomacy, which is lowkey scary.

• The new Avatar movie looks primed to be the most teched-up movie of all time. 

• NFT marketplace Magic Eden is integrating with layer-2 blockchain Polygon to grow blockchain gaming. For those not in crypto, these are two of the biggest names in the NFT/gaming spaces, so it will be exciting to see what this partnership produces.

• The $8 blue checkmark is on indefinite pause. It was fun while it lasted. 

THREE LIES AND A HEADLINE

News is so weird these days. Three of these headline are fake stories from The Onion while one is actually true. Can you spot the truth amongst the fakes? 

A. Elon Musk’s Rules of ‘Insane Productivity’ That Were Sent To All Twitter Employees

B. Love Comes and Goes, but a Screenshot Is Forever

C. Tiffany Trump Charged Full Venue Price For Mar-A-Lago Wedding

D. Rihanna Admits She Just Uses Whatever Makeup On Sale At Walgreens

FOUNDERS CORNER

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

📺 Contrary GP Will Robbins wrote about Sequoia's leaked memo about YouTube

📂 I found a business news aggregator called BizToc backed by Mark Cuban

✏️ Just found an app called Montaigne where you can publish a blog straight from your Apple Notes. If you like the simplistic 90s-style blogs, check it out.

THREE HEADLINES ANSWER

B