In partnership with

GM! It’s Brett again. In 2016, I missed out on $100M+.

I was researching startups to join or invest in, and hopped on a call with a guy in YC building an “API for human labor.” Seemed cool, but he didn’t seem to know what he was doing - so I forgot about it.

That guy was Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI now valued at $29B.
His story’s a blueprint: stumble on an idea, launch on Product Hunt, raise, find the real use case, scale up.

Bottom line - tell the world what you're building, solve a problem in a tiny market at first, expand into larger markets & become a billionaire.

🏠 AI

Perplexity is the new HOT thing

Apple is internally discussing a possible acquisition of Perplexity, valued at about $14B - its biggest-ever acquisition, only if it happens.

Why Perplexity though?

It’s simple. Apple badly needs an AI search engine and a smarter Siri - especially as its cozy $20 billion/year search deal with Google faces major antitrust pressure.

Meta was already sniffing around Perplexity but settled instead on a massive $14.3B bet in Scale AI after negotiations stalled. And if you remember, Samsung is also closing in on a deep partnership with Perplexity.

Also, Perplexity positions itself as the new-gen search engine using AI to directly challenge Google's dominance. Selling out now could mean Perplexity risks losing that aggressive, "anti-Google" brand narrative they've carefully built.

The bigger picture - Selling to Apple could mean big money and reach, but Perplexity risks sacrificing its bold, disruptive narrative. Staying independent, or carefully choosing partnerships (like the Samsung’s deal), might better serve its original mission: reshaping how the world searches.

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🤝 THE LATEST IN…

TECH

• Meta announced Oakley smart glasses that shoot 3K video.

• Cursor released a $200/month tier for power users.

• AI avatars in China made $7.6M in 7-hour livestream session.

• Jony Ive’s deal removed from OpenAI site over trademark suit.

AI

• Sam says GPT-5 coming this summer.

• Midjourney launched their first video model V1 - turns image into 5sec clips.

• OpenAI launched Record Mode & killed every AI meeting notetaker tool.

• Google rolled out Search Live - now you can talk to search in real-time.

SCIENCE

• The breakthrough HIV prevention drug gets FDA approval.

• Cancer DNA is detectable in blood years before diagnosis.

• This breakthrough magnet design could transform MRI.

• AI detects Parkinson’s with 94% accuracy.

CRYPTO

• Self Chain ousts CEO after $50M OTC scam allegations.

• Coinbase secures MiCA license to expand Europe presence.

• Activity on Kraken's Ink Layer 2 rises ahead of token rollout.

• Circle's stock rises over 500%, 2 weeks after going public.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

Raise, Mergers & Acquisitions: 

• Just 2 months after a $5.3M seed round, Cluely has raised a $15M Series A led by a16z.

• 6-month-old, solo-owned vibe coder Base44 sells to Wix for $80M cash.

• General Catalyst backs Sword Health, the AI-powered digital health startup, again - leading a $40M round that takes its valuation to $4B.

• Polar, an open-source monetization platform, announced their $10M Seed Round led by Accel.

Stat: 83.3%. That’s the share of ChatGPT users who couldn’t recall quotes from essays they wrote just minutes earlier.

Rabbit Hole: Levered beta is all you need (Ethan Ding)

🛠️ FOUNDERS CORNER

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

🙋‍♂️ Genspark Super Agent is your all-in-one AI sidekick for your everyday tasks with 80+ tools, & rich data.

📑 MiniMax open-sources the world’s longest context window reasoning AI model called M1.

💯 YC shares how the top AI startups prompt LLMs.

⚡️ Why investing in growth-stage AI startups is getting riskier and more complicated?

🤑 24 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2025.

‼️ Founders and execs from Apple, Rippling, and Carta break down how to micromanage - the “right” way.

💸 VC Fund Performance Q1 2025 (Carta)

🔥 Monday Motivation: Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again)

😂 FROM THE FEED

🎯 THE 80 / 20

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

Sleep

Everyone’s chasing new tools and hacks to get more done. But the real productivity hack is good sleep. Everything else like focus, energy, decision-making runs on it.

Not the “I’ll catch up on the weekend” kind. I’m talking deep, high-quality, consistent sleep. Here’s the low-lift stack for that:

• Keep your room cold (60–67°F). Your body sleeps better when core temp drops.

• Block out light. Use blackout curtains or a sleep mask.

• Cut screens 1-2 hours before bed or wear blue light glasses.

• Go to bed and wake up at the same time - even on weekends.

• Avoid caffeine after 2PM.

Keep it simple. The less sleep debt you carry, the better you perform.

❓️ AI GENERATED OR NOT

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

🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️ Yeah (~54%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Nope (~46%)

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.

That said, Homescreen subscribers can cut the line - go to micro.so/waitlist, join the waitlist, and write in “Homescreen” for Other in the “How did you hear about us” question to get early access.

REACH 40K+ FOUNDERS, INVESTORS & OPERATORS

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