everything to read instead of doomscroll this week by @stephthefounder (March 2)

Mar 02, 2026

The best succinct + fun weekly newsletter to learn about all the best things you need to know across tech, startups, VC, AI, etc, sent out every Monday. (and at the minimum, it will include the links I post about every week on instagram!). Feedback? Things I should add? Respond back here or comment below x

the power of consumers (both spend and attention) is real!! i wish more of us took this seriously, and this last week’s anthropic v US government debacle is the perfect example.

i will save the issue’s specifics to others who’ve covered it in detail for now (although a deeper dive, topics-with-nuance video coming on this this week!) but one of the most underrated parts of this story is the fact that ever since the Pentagon feud has started, claude has shot up to #1 (ahead of chatgpt, gemini, etc) and consumer interest in it has never been higher.

claude’s rise was already trending for the last few weeks (as someone deeply immersed in the tech bubble, it’s funny to even see an uptick in “switch from chatgpt to claude” videos trending on IG among people outside the tech bubble, where chatgpt has historically dominated consumer mindshare). however, regardless of how you feel about the pentagon feud (and for the record, i think a lot of nuance is missing in the conversation besides “anthropic is good” and “chatgpt is evil”) this data still deserves to be highlighted.

you as a consumer are powerful and can choose where to spend your $ and your attention (arguably even more valuable to companies)!! be and give attention to the change you wish to see in the world 🤪

(more links on the anthropic / pentagon feud below)

💰 Companies that will make you a millionaire

Every week I highlight a few of my favorite startups that I personally think are really promising. They’ve typically received funding that week + are hiring, and occasionally I’ll include some special bonus ones.

And now you can easily earn some cold hard cash 💰: you can now use PINpoint (a fun product my company has been building) to earn $$ (anywhere from $5K to $30K) for successfully referring people to top startups. The brilliant part about this is:

you don’t even need to know the person who’s ultimately hired - if you post a link on LinkedIn and the algorithm shows it to someone who ultimately clicks the link and is hired, you get the $$$ 😏
all of these companies are great and highly respected, so your friend (or random person who saw your post) will also thank you 😉 win win

(PS are you a founder or do you work at a cool startup that’s hiring? reply back with the name so we can give you guys a shout!)

No “the next uber” this week (i was sick and the trailing loss of voice has been a wild inconvenience 🫠) but here are some great co’s that were funded (and hiring):

World Labs (AI-generated 3D worlds) 🌍 → $1B raise (Job openings here)
Korsana Biosciences (neurodegenerative therapies) 🧬 → $175M seed (Job openings here)
Heron Power (solid-state transformers) ⚡ → $140M Series B (Job openings here)
Onodrim Industries (defense systems & sensing) 🛡️ → $47.3M seed (Job openings here)
Cogent Security (AI vulnerability automation) 🔐 → $42M Series A (Job openings here)
Kana (AI marketing agents) 📣 → $15M seed (Job openings here)

🤓 Best things to read instead of doomscrolling

The best things I’ve read every week, listed and summarized here:

Your Goal Isn’t Really to Get a Job by Matt Beard: a thoughtful, non-cliche piece on careers that’s both insightful and practical. it’s not about getting a specific job (common mistake - one that i’ve made especially right out of school). it’s about building skills to solve problems you meaningfully care about about and becoming really really good at those things (which in turn, will get you really cool jobs)
Navigating a Paradigm Shift by Alfred Lin: on this Ai-driven paradigm shift and the importance of navigating it through (challenging the status quo, being curious about dissonance, embracing uncertainty)
The Adolescence of Technology by Dario Amodei (founder of Anthropic): if you’ve been following the anthropic v pentagon ~drama~ and curious to learn more about anthropic’s pov, this is a (long but) interesting essay where dario talks about the imminence of AGI, the importance of making sure technologists and policymakers work together to avoid a worst case scenario, etc etc
Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution by Meaningness (h/t@mattprusak): a well articulated theory on why every niche that becomes mainstream (NFTs, crypto, AI, anyone? 🤪) seemingly becomes insufferable (due to mops and sociopaths) and what you can do to protect your niche passions from the same fate
a fun lil bonus: radio garden aka one of my favorite hidden gems of the web

Other links mentioned in my stories this week:

The Breaking-Bad Effect, Suicidal Tortoises, and the Genetics of Intelligence in Dogs by Steve Stewart-Williams: a collection of interesting links/studies including that politics heavily influences interpretation of the same data + female tortoises rather risking death than be harassed by male tortoises 💀
Man accidentally gains control of 7,000 robot vacuums by Mack DeGeurin: between this and the Google listening people via phones lawsuit I’m spooked 🫠🫣

📱 Everything you may have missed in tech/startup news

All the most important things that happened last week, from intellectual to guilty pleasure and optimistic to cringe:

By now you’ve heard about Anthropic’s talks with the U.S. Department of Defense collapsing over AI guardrails, while OpenAI secured its own Pentagon deal.
- Other interesting links on this topic:
  - Semafor’s Palantir partnership is at the heart….
  - Stratechery’s Anthropic and Alignment
  - Sam Altman’s AMA on Twitter
OpenAI secures $110 B from Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank: one of the largest private fundraising rounds in history. compare this to the largest IPO in history (aramco, ~$29.5B raised). absolutely wild (and another data point illustrating the times of companies staying private more and more).
Block cuts 4,000 jobs: some people say it’s AI efficiency (Jack Dorsey alludes to that in his statement) but others are saying it’s just a correction from Block’s over-hiring during COVID (and that revenue/employee aligns with peers post-layoff).
Underrated (and inspiring) story: MyFitnessPal acquires CAL-AI, a fully bootstrapped, early AI fitness company co-founded by literal teenagers (started when the co-founders were 17yo)

🤝 Cool things from this community

[new experiment!] every week I want to highlight cool projects, opportunities, fundings, etc from this community! these are free and are curated for things that are the most helpful/inspiring/interesting for other members of this group. for more context and to submit any cool projects etc, please see here! (they’ll be reviewed on a rolling basis every Sunday(ish))

(Please note a feature here is not an explicit endorsement unless specifically stated — I do light diligence but given time/resource constraints, am not doing rigorous diligence (so please do your own research before spending lots of time and money, etc.)

Spenser (part of my startup’s team!) created The Final Editor, a cool tool for having your manuscript edited

🤪 Just because / for fun

aka random things that I found interesting enough to screenshot or take a picture of last week

i haven’t been this excited about a tv show coming back since severance and the premise is so so good 😭 (if you haven’t seen s1 yet, this is your sign!!)

i love these (1, 2) and would like to start a petition to make the internet fun again 😭

accidentally took an illegal and terrible photo of myself but WORTH IT as a reminder that the NYPL is a beautiful work spot with fast wifi (and they take it seriously - you have to show that you have a laptop / work before you walk into the reading room 💀 kudos)
a major major highlight (of this week and month and year!) is seeing two of my most favorite people getting married 🥲

did i cry off all my makeup before the ceremony even started?? (yes - see below - the bride hadn’t even walked down to where i was sitting yet 😭 sorry)