Michelle Fradin
@michelle_fradin
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@OpenAI . Angel investor. Previously @Sequoia . @Lawrencetheband fan.
Joined January 2010
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Crypto founders: if you’re staring at a lot of red right now and wondering what to do about it, here are some thoughts from Sequoia's 50 years of experience, adapted for crypto 👇
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I deeply respect people publicly changing their minds even when it’s hard.
I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.
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I’m excited to share I’ve joined
@OpenAI
. I’ll help lead our data efforts as we build ever more useful models.
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everyone wants to join a rocket ship until they remember they’re bumpy and on fire. buckle up y’all, only way to space.
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The language model adoption tidal wave is creating a new tech stack in its wake. We spoke with dozens of companies across the
@Sequoia
network about how they’re bringing AI applications to life. Our findings are here and 👇:
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I now prefer self-driving Waymos over Ubers in SF. I actually feel safer. Technology is amazing. Congrats
@Waymo
team. What an achievement.
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❤️
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First, embrace reality. We’ve never been here before. Crypto has survived plenty of winters, but it’s never been through a global macro storm yet. Bitcoin was launched in the last global financial crisis of 2008. Crypto has mostly existed in a ~0% US interest rate environment.
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2021 was a banner year for crypto. Millions of new users jumped in. But, we still have billions to go.
To that end, we wanted to share a piece we wrote earlier this year that gives a broad overview of why crypto/web3 is happening & why it matters👩🚀
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4: Ask hard and painful questions: First, do we actually have product-market fit? Many founders are product people, so asking this question is particularly painful. Emission-incentivized usage or grant-incentivized development masks product-market fit.
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8: Hire a great CFO. CFO is perhaps the most under-appreciated role in crypto. Honestly, I don't know why. A good CFO does not sit around and tell you not to spend money, they help you invest wisely. Get a great CFO ASAP.
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7: Keep your foot on the accelerator in core R&D. This was one of Sequoia’s most important learnings from '08 - trim elsewhere but double down on product. Put distance between you and your competitors. When you reach the other side, be the strongest positioned.
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2: Recognize the funding environment has changed. VC funding is no longer on tap. Control expenses accordingly. Several big crypto funds were just raised, so it’s possible crypto does better than tech, but it's also possible it doesn't. It’s not your fault, but it is your problem
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1: Don’t panic, but do plan. This is the time for diamond hands, not necessarily on your personal portfolio, but of your company/protocol/team. You need thoughtful, decisive action this month, not this minute. Stay the course, but plan for choppier waters.
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Over the last 14 years, crypto has grown tremendously. In prior cycles, it didn’t have nearly the level of complexity or variety of market players (individual & institutional) we do today. We've never had so much attention from users, developers, or regulators as we do now.
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So the fact is: We have never been here before. Yes, crypto has survived many winters and bear markets. Yes, this bear market will be similar, but it will also be different in some important ways.
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5: Second, ask: do we have a sustainable business? "Token go up" is not a business model. Native coins for L1s/L2s to secure a network are a different story. But if you're an application and you've only funded your business through VC $ and tokens, you have planning to do.
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3: Talk to people who have actually made it through a trough and come out stronger on the other side. They may be boomers! :) Most crypto cap tables are utterly devoid of anyone with first-hand experience navigating this type of environment. Ignore the investors who get jumpy.
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10: Seize the opportunity. Times of turmoil separate the wheat from the chaff. The strongest companies get stronger. As the weak collapse around them, the strong poach their best people, win over their users and acquire their IP & licenses.
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This is a time to extend your advantage and cement market leadership, but you need to survive long enough to have that chance.
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.
@Sequoia
's mission is to help the daring build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond. Today, we announced a big step towards making the "and beyond" part of our partnerships even more impactful for our founders and LPs.
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This doesn't mean turning on fees overnight, especially for network effect businesses or if you have plenty of runway. But you need to look at your runway and have a plan. Crypto/web3 is about better aligning incentives & rewarding users/creators - not denying the laws of physics
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Perhaps you're a founder with a token down 80% LTM, or a last round post you fear you can’t clear, or months of runway left, or you’re wondering what may happen to your customer base… More doom & gloom is not helpful. But neither is hopium. What should you do actually about it?
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9: Chart a path towards sustainability. You need a path to a sustainable business without VC infusions or retail propping up your token. Look honestly at the time you think it will take you to get there. It may be >2 years. If you only have 12 months of runway, you need to cut.
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❤️
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JICYW
@MattHuang
is as good a person as he is an investor: excellent.
He’s taken the time to talk with me about crypto and include me—a young woman at the beginning of my investing career—in some great conversations and opportunities. 🙏
A gentleman and a scholar, ser.
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6: Invest wisely. There is almost always 10-20% of spend in S&M and G&A that can be cut. When it is, you end up more, not less, efficient. Most crypto teams are lean, but there is still likely excess spend or initiatives. Focus precious calories on the most important things.
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So proud of this incredible team & can’t wait to see what creators make
Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions.
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy
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@ryanzarick
and
@PrimordialAA
lent me a new 'fit
i am my pengu and my pengu is me
feels good
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👑
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@gaby_goldberg
Devocion
Cafe Mogador Williamsburg
Cafe Collette Williamsburg
Freehold
St Mazies Supper Club
Lobby of Bowery Hotel
Three Lives & Company
NY Public Library in Bryant Park
La Mercerie
L’Artusi
The Little Owl
The Met
The Guggenheim (& cafe)
Van Cortlandt Park Bronx
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These lessons are from people who actually have operated & invested through several market cycles
@roelofbotha
,
@Alfred_Lin
,
@carl_eschenbach
,
@dougleone
, & the wise advice of
@shaunmmaguire
,
@GuptaRK22
,
@gradypb
, (**corrected**),
@andrew__reed
& more. All credit goes to them.
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I hate to admit it but
@DoorDash
is essential to my work output. I am definitely in that long tail of sticky whale customers and can’t pretend it’s a pandemic thing… 🥡🐳
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I’ll continue backing founders and investing as an angel. Thank you
@sequoia
for lifelong friendships and for your ongoing support. Looking forward to this next chapter.
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5/ Today, the LLM API stack and custom model training stack can feel separate, but these are blending together over time.
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It's great to get back to building and to work on this important technology with such talented teammates.
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Congrats
@leanthebean
and
@ironfishcrypto
team! Your commitment to realizing your vision is inspiring.
1/ Iron Fish mainnet is live today, April 20th (4/20)!
#IronFish
is a new PoW L1. Our goal is to make web3 safe—enabling financial privacy while deterring bad actors.
*Every* transaction on Iron Fish is fully encrypted with ZKPs for validation.
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Thanks for having me
@YahooFinance
. Great to speak with you
"I think sometimes there's a misconception that crypto companies only have crypto challenges,"
@Sequoia
Partner
@MichelleBailhe
says, "when in fact every company I work with... their challenges include... hiring... product strategy, [and] entering new markets."
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@_TamaraWinter
I completely agree 💯 I’ve always wanted to retire in NY. Walkability, subways, free libraries, arts, parks, & vibrant community.
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Excited to help
@_n_x_y_z_
help the devs do something!
But really,
@RamaswmySridhar
has unsurprisingly built one of the craziest teams going after a critical problem in crypto: data & infra.
Since I worked at Google, he’s been an absolute legend and hero of mine.
LFG
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@zoink
It may be a tad more strategic for a collaboration software company to work remotely than for a company that makes physical cars. But I vibe with your spiceyness nontheless
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We are honored to partner with
@FireblocksHQ
and visionary Founder/CEO Michael Shaulov as they build the leading back-end infrastructure for crypto and digital asset products. To Fireblocks: Ravi Gupta, myself and all of Team Sequoia work for you now!
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Whenever you’re going through sh*t in life, remember that sh*t is fertilizer.
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when ur allowed 1 page of notes in the final so you teach yourself to write in 4pt font
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@JoshuaKushner
@sama
@gdb
Thank you
@JoshuaKushner
and
@ThriveCapital
team for your unwavering support.
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Thanks for having me
@emilychangtv
and Bloomberg
@technology
!
How Sequoia's new crypto fund will be different than any of the VC investments it's made before. Sequoia partner Michelle Bailhe tells
@emilychangtv
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either the 49ers or Taylor Swift win today so I can’t lose
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everyone cheering their wires across the interwebs rn
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1/ Nearly every company in the Sequoia network is building language models into their products - from code and data science copilots, to chatbots for customers, developers, employees and pure entertainment. Many are reimagining entire workflows with an AI-first lens.
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chatgpt, what's the best TV show of all time?
"preferences vary widely, but... The Sopranos"
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4/ There are three main ways to customize today: training a model from scratch (highest degree of difficulty, data and resource intensive), fine-tuning a model (medium difficulty), or leveraging a pre-trained model augmented with retrieval (lowest degree of difficulty).
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revealed: hacker news is just a live stream of
@shaunmmaguire
's thoughts
✅ counter strike
✅ physics to save the planet
✅ math with missiles
✅ open source
✅ AI chips
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Thank you to my partner
@laurenmhreeder
for working on this together, every
@Sequoia
founder and builder who participated, as well as
@CharlieCurnin
,
@gradypb
,
@andrew__reed
,
@sonyatweetybird
,
@BillCoughran
, and friends
@OpenAI
for their input and review.
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6/ The stack is becoming increasingly developer-friendly. One of the most powerful things language model APIs did is put ready-made models in the hands of the average developer, not just machine learning teams.
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7/ Language model applications will become increasingly multi-modal. Companies are already combining generative text, voice, image, and video in creative ways.
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@zoink
excuse me ser, some of us recently learned how to also ask “how to make (burn) number go down?” ok so maybe holster that broad digital paintbrush
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@ljin18
@AtelierVentures
@variantfund
Leaner & meaner than the Delta variant is the Atelier Variant ;) congrats again! Such an exciting vision.
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3/ Companies want to customize language models to their unique context. General models are powerful, but not differentiating or sufficient for many use cases.
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2/ The new stack for these applications centers on language model APIs, retrieval, and orchestration. Open source usage is also growing.
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Doug is a GOAT and a wonderful person and leader. 10/10 would recommend.
🚨 New 20VC Ep w/
@dougleone
🚨
I had wanted to do this ever since I started 7 years ago. An immensely special one for me w/ Doug on:
Building a generational defining firm
@sequoia
Why when you lose pre-seed you become PE?
When & how to expand?
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Thank you
@gradypb
. There aren't enough looms in the world for me to explain all the lessons I’ve learned from you, but chief among them would be building up your team every chance you get. This is one of the reasons you are a leader I and so many others would walk thru walls for
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Inspiring to see the energy at Fireblocks’ first user conference. Thanks for having us Michael and to my fellow panelists
Kicked off
#FireblocksSPARK
Day 2 chatting with a few of our VCs
@RibbitCapital
@sequoia
@SCB10X_OFFICIAL
@paradigm
on the new pockets of innovation happening in the crypto space. Thanks for sharing the stage with us this morning
@zackrosen_
@michellebailhe
@arjunblj
@TaiPanich_
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8/ It’s early. We're just at the beginning of a highly dynamic space. It's thrilling to see every company from our earliest Arc investment to Zoom all focused on the same thing: delighting users with AI.
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@jbrowder1
@lpolovets
Thx for this. I’m biased, but our many internal analyses have all agreed with you. Having a top investor at seed significantly increases odds of success. Rumors of “signal risk” if a top investor leads your seed and then doesn’t lead your next round are also proven overblown.
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“I want to spend my weekend doing more bookkeeping and taxes” said no one ever.
@PilotHQ
is building the smarter back office for every startup & SMB, thanks to the world-class team led by
@waseem
@jessicamckellar
@jeffarnold
. We are honored to be partners
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could someone who built FAISS please tell us all how to pronounce it? (face? fass?)
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@karaswisher
@mmitchell_ai
@inafried
@miramurati
Just for the record, Mira was more than consulted. She helped lead negotiations and led the company through this entire episode.
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@cdixon
Pretty surprised by TradGaming reactions tbh (this, STEAM ban, etc.) as gaming has typically had a rich history of adopting new technologies & business models instead of clinging desperately to familiar ones.
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@mcmiller00
, I and all of Team
@sequoia
are excited to work with the
@_hex_tech
band of rebels to give data work more 'soul' -- in the words of co-founder/CEO
@barrald
.
If you haven't yet tried their delightful product & AI Magic feature, this is your sign✨
The modern data stack is giving us better information than ever—but actually using it is still a challenge.
@barrald
,
@crcolgrove
and
@glen_taka
are solving that problem with
@_hex_tech
, and we are thrilled to partner with them.
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@saranormous
@nvidia
@NoPriorsPod
Pumped! His philosophy on 1:1s, which 12 of his 42(?) direct reports he knows and why, and how he envisions all pixels wil be generated and not rendered in the future
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@gmail
if you can hear us: we love you, but we would love you even more if we could (-) someone to bcc as easily as we (+) someone into a thread
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@PrimordialAA
Foreign Cinema, Nopa, SPQR, Als Place, Spruce (can walk in / sit at bar & order burger), Burma Love, Penny Roma, The Tailors Son, Chez Maman, A16. Text me for more. Hope it’s fun!!
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It barely scratches the surface, but hopefully, it's a helpful starting point for anyone whose new year resolution is learning more about crypto/web3.
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@drfeifei
reminded us
@Stanford
's great
@indexingai
report came out this morning. A few snippets:
1/ AI builds better AI
@nvidia
used AI RL to design better AI chips
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The first of more to come. Would love to hear your thoughts!✨
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@tarunchitra
wow wait, worlds colliding,
@tarunchitra
do u know
@katie_cusumano
? we went to college together + she is a v talented writer. (hi katie!!)
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