#venture-capital

#venture-capital

The regional economy expanded 38 percent over the past decade, clearly surpassing growth recorded in California and across the United States. Venture capital investment climbed to $92 billion while local creators filed more than 23,000 patents in one year alone. Productivity has reached $336,515 per worker, standing 75 percent above the national average.

Rub the Wall Street bull's balls. The tradition started as a joke, but the belief that something might bring you luck is powerful. Güven wanted to pay homage to this very shiny symbol of ambition as her company, Kalder, took on the world of corporate rewards points. Belief fuels execution.

Curry's activism has rarely strayed beyond consensus liberalism. When the United States fractures, he offers a milquetoast quote. During the Minneapolis protests, he called the turnout "beautiful," saying it "speaks to how important people felt it was to have their voice heard." He funds literacy and nutrition programs in Oakland through the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation.

First Musk balked at following through on a pledged $1 billion for OpenAI, insisting on control and effectively holding Altman and his team "hostage." So Altman went looking for a white knight. Khosla calls Musk a "great entrepreneur" but recalls that, "it seems like he wanted it like a private fiefdom with him in charge."

Tell me about your father. Zeplain surprised Cardenas by opening their first meeting with this personal question rather than inquiries about revenue, margins, and market share. Cardenas provided Zeplain a list of everyone close to him—his wife, coworkers, and childhood best friends—and Zeplain called them all. The deal ultimately closed at a $250 million post-money valuation.

Awards may be encouraging and occasionally useful for visibility, but they are weak indicators of validation and poor predictors of long-term success. In the longevity and healthspan industry, where timelines are long and claims are easy to overstate, venture capital ultimately follows alignment and evidence, not applause received at glitzy industry events.

Lots of people say: 'With the policy so messed up in Washington right now, why in the world do you spend so much time thinking about it?' he told Fortune. 'It's because I have a great belief that... the only way to get to large scale is good policy. I see the power of things like the Medicare Modernization Act, which introduced prescription drugs. Believe it or not, before that, prescription drugs weren't part of Medicare at all.'

Just one month after raising $11.75 million in a round led by Joe Lonsdale's 8VC, African defensetech Terra Industries announced that it's raised an additional $22 million in funding, led by Lux Capital. Nathan Nwachuku, 22, and Maxwell Maduka, 24, launched Terra Industries in 2024 to design infrastructure and autonomous systems to help African nations monitor and respond to threats.

Molly O'Shea is a name-dropper. There's good reason for that. I count 29 big names in tech mentioned over our hourlong call. She told me about recently moderating a panel with Kalshi cofounders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara. Ken Griffin took the stage after her. O'Shea breezily referenced talking about the state of new media with the TBPN bros in Peter Thiel's house.

When Obvious Ventures launched 12 years ago with a focus on "world positive" companies, the idea was a contrarian bet: that startups tackling climate, health, and economic resilience could deliver big returns, not just feel-good impact. Founded by Twitter cofounder Ev Williams and others, the firm backed companies like Beyond Meat, the AI drug discovery company Recursion Pharmaceuticals, and Diamond Foundry, which makes sustainable lab-grown diamonds.