🏄VC 23 IPOs🤠 Zoom 1st Seed; Formative catalyst @BitfuryGroup @Canva; seed @AlgenBiotech @Tweetdeck🌱 Founding Chair @Hut8corp @IPInfusion @TreasureData
United States
Joined March 2007
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Bill Tai retweeted
The research team has done it again just a week later. Meet Canva Brush 🖌️
Brush is a vision-language model, meaning it sees designs the way you do and can make edits across your design, and it’s live now for Canva Pro users, right inside Canva AI.
Bill Tai retweeted
Piper Sandler picks $HUT as highest upside HPC/Bitcoin miner:
HUT 8 likely offers highest upside from here. HUT's deals encompassing 949 MW Critical IT across its Beacon Point (704 MW with Nvidia) and River Bend (245 MW with Fluidstack/Anthropic/Google) campuses are proof points of the company's ability to execute. The contracted MWs come with expected annualized NOI of over $1.75B as HUT continues to secure the most favorable economics on its deals amongst its peers. With the company currently trading at an implied >9% cap rate on contracted power, we believe the company is undervalued. The quality & pace of HUT’s tenant wins strengthen our conviction that HUT is well positioned to secure future leasing commitments.
Cold calls sometimes work!
Just after the launch of @OpenAI ‘s ChatGPT , I sat down with @edwardjhu , an ex @Microsoft researcher who had joined @openai.
The two of us (this was 3.5 years ago!) made a list of “5 things that would emerge off the AI wave” That might become areas to build and invest in”.
Among them was an “AI companion that really understood your needs” to help make decisions.
Months later, I received a cold call note from Neuroscientist Dr @iamjennyshao
with an idea to build something in this segment. Despite not having a coder : tech background; it looked to me like she might have an edge in understanding the use case and science behind “AI Understanding”.
I put her through hoops.
Opened doors and put her through hoops; I asked her to pitch to friends with high bars for recognizing talent and grit. Among them was @larsras , creator of Google Maps , and through @edwardjhu ‘s network @ChrSzegedy a renowned AI scientist. Not an easy gauntlet.
But she made it through and we jointly seeded her to build a team. Through some iterations and innovations in “AI Memory” she’s off and running with Robyn ( @meetrobyn ) !! Check it out!
she left @harvard surgery to build AI. she was told silicon valley would never accept her, that she would die under a bridge.
so she cold-messaged @KiteVC on linkedin because he backed canva early. he replied the next day and sent her to @SanghaCapital. one 90-minute call later, they were her first investors.
@larsras, co-founder of google maps, came in next. @amandaterry of @ACTAIVentures backed her at pre-seed. then @M13Company and @latifperacha led a $5M seed, with xAI co-founder @ChrSzegedy.
@heyrobynai just launched and ran out of invites on day one.
now her dad thinks they'll IPO in three years.
@iamjennyshao on nontechnical, episode 5.
00:00 she left her harvard surgical residency for a startup
00:46 "leave what? leave surgery? leave harvard?"
01:14 "you're gonna die under a bridge"
03:18 how do you walk away from yourself
05:03 now her dad thinks they'll IPO in three years
06:10 why melanie perkins and canva
07:02 the cold linkedin message to bill tai
07:49 one 90-minute call, then the round
08:32 why people are scared of AI
13:13 "decide who owns the complexity"
16:19 everyone gets their own jarvis
17:37 what if AI takes every job?
19:06 robyn, as in robin to your batman
19:52 "help my dog live longer"
28:45 "as a founder, no one's dying"
30:37 530 builds in one year
32:37 three kinds of surgeons
36:52 why AI forgets everything about you
37:30 three years with nobel laureate eric kandel
40:45 "it's like 50 first dates"
44:11 can AI just order my pizza?
45:19 would you give AI your credit card?
47:59 "jenny, I just need more tokens"
49:50 brian chesky lived with his users. she texts hers.
Bill Tai retweeted
she left @harvard surgery to build AI. she was told silicon valley would never accept her, that she would die under a bridge.
so she cold-messaged @KiteVC on linkedin because he backed canva early. he replied the next day and sent her to @SanghaCapital. one 90-minute call later, they were her first investors.
@larsras, co-founder of google maps, came in next. @amandaterry of @ACTAIVentures backed her at pre-seed. then @M13Company and @latifperacha led a $5M seed, with xAI co-founder @ChrSzegedy.
@heyrobynai just launched and ran out of invites on day one.
now her dad thinks they'll IPO in three years.
@iamjennyshao on nontechnical, episode 5.
00:00 she left her harvard surgical residency for a startup
00:46 "leave what? leave surgery? leave harvard?"
01:14 "you're gonna die under a bridge"
03:18 how do you walk away from yourself
05:03 now her dad thinks they'll IPO in three years
06:10 why melanie perkins and canva
07:02 the cold linkedin message to bill tai
07:49 one 90-minute call, then the round
08:32 why people are scared of AI
13:13 "decide who owns the complexity"
16:19 everyone gets their own jarvis
17:37 what if AI takes every job?
19:06 robyn, as in robin to your batman
19:52 "help my dog live longer"
28:45 "as a founder, no one's dying"
30:37 530 builds in one year
32:37 three kinds of surgeons
36:52 why AI forgets everything about you
37:30 three years with nobel laureate eric kandel
40:45 "it's like 50 first dates"
44:11 can AI just order my pizza?
45:19 would you give AI your credit card?
47:59 "jenny, I just need more tokens"
49:50 brian chesky lived with his users. she texts hers.
Bill Tai retweeted
California public schools lost 382,000 students in eight years and added 41,000 staff who don’t even teach.
Lower enrollment, lower scores, more overhead. Not exactly a winning formula. Sick of administrative bloat? Join us: garryslist.org/join
Bill Tai retweeted
Canva Brush is here!
For years, we’ve been working to make AI feel like a true design partner inside Canva, not something that takes over your work.
The first time I used Brush, it finally clicked: super fast, understood what I wanted to change, and kept what I loved intact.
We can't wait to see what you'll create with it!
Bill Tai retweeted
The best AI companies aren't just using models, they're building the ones their product depends on.
Canva just did it TWICE in TWO WEEKS. Craft for image generation and now Brush, a vision-language model made only for design editing.
As someone who lives in design tools, editing is the most time-consuming. Nice to see a model focused on the part where most of my hours are spent.
Exactly!
Anyone who has used AI for design knows the struggle: the first draft looks great, then you ask for one small change and it redraws everything.
That's what Canva built Brush for: it's their own vision-language model for design editing. It reads how the elements fit together and plans the changes before making them.
Last week Canva released Craft, which makes the images. Now Brush, to handle everything after🌸
EVERY iteration of @canva ‘s new foundational models is a ↗️ step function UP in quality of output and innovation. The layering gives designers a level of granular control no other LLM can match.
This team has a winning culture and just keeps powering up Canva customers..
“Canva Brush” is already AWESOME but there’s more coming!! 👁️
Bill Tai retweeted
Everyone try our Robyn! (DM me for invite)
Meet Robyn, the personal agentic platform built around your life and work.
- Tell her what you need in one sentence. No setup, ever.
- Spin up a fleet of agents preloaded with your context that work while you sleep.
- Access it on the web or just text it.
- 20hrs/week saved per user.
I’m Jenny, and I spent 3 years working with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, who mapped out memory in the human brain.
We built all of that into Robyn, making it the first AI capable of taking intelligent action.
Invite only access opens today. We’re giving out 1000 invite codes. Link in first comment. Comment "Robyn" for 100 free credits.
Robyn has context! Smooth operator, with memory that enables better agentic decisions.
Meet Robyn, the personal agentic platform built around your life and work.
- Tell her what you need in one sentence. No setup, ever.
- Spin up a fleet of agents preloaded with your context that work while you sleep.
- Access it on the web or just text it.
- 20hrs/week saved per user.
I’m Jenny, and I spent 3 years working with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, who mapped out memory in the human brain.
We built all of that into Robyn, making it the first AI capable of taking intelligent action.
Invite only access opens today. We’re giving out 1000 invite codes. Link in first comment. Comment "Robyn" for 100 free credits.
Bill Tai retweeted
Meet Robyn, the personal agentic platform built around your life and work.
- Tell her what you need in one sentence. No setup, ever.
- Spin up a fleet of agents preloaded with your context that work while you sleep.
- Access it on the web or just text it.
- 20hrs/week saved per user.
I’m Jenny, and I spent 3 years working with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, who mapped out memory in the human brain.
We built all of that into Robyn, making it the first AI capable of taking intelligent action.
Invite only access opens today. We’re giving out 1000 invite codes. Link in first comment. Comment "Robyn" for 100 free credits.
Bill Tai retweeted
At the Securities Transfer Association gathering w @huuep! 🎉
As @Equiniti CEO Dan Kramer shared on @TechTalksDaily with @NeilCHughes, issuers don’t want separate registries for traditional and tokenized securities.
They want one unified shareholder register spanning tokenized, off-chain, certificated, and digital shares.
At @Metagood_com, we partner with transfer agents to bring securities on-chain while preserving their central role in issuer relationships and the official shareholder record.
Tokenization is now a boardroom decision. Let’s connect! 🤝🙌
Fantastic product implementation @iamjennyshao ! Congrats to you and Robyn! Using the product now!
Meet Robyn, the personal agentic platform built around your life and work.
- Tell her what you need in one sentence. No setup, ever.
- Spin up a fleet of agents preloaded with your context that work while you sleep.
- Access it on the web or just text it.
- 20hrs/week saved per user.
I’m Jenny, and I spent 3 years working with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, who mapped out memory in the human brain.
We built all of that into Robyn, making it the first AI capable of taking intelligent action.
Invite only access opens today. We’re giving out 1000 invite codes. Link in first comment. Comment "Robyn" for 100 free credits.
Bill Tai retweeted
6.192% FIXED. MATURITY IN 2042.
Those are the disclosed coupon and maturity on $HUT's $3.25B River Bend project notes.
The debt finances a 245 MW IT facility and substation, is scheduled to fully amortize, and is disclosed as nonrecourse to Hut 8.
Not every AI campus is funded with short-dated, double-digit-cost bridge debt.
That's a meaningful bullish signal for bankability—not proof construction or collections are risk-free.
Are investors valuing the financing structure, or just the headline megawatts?
ephesusresearch.com/research…
Bill Tai retweeted
Canva has just launched its first AI image generation model, and it's already ranked #4 globally on DesignArena, making Canva Research the world's second-highest-ranked AI lab for image generation.
Built specifically for design, Canva Craft generates images at up to 2K resolution, with precise control over composition, typography, and individual elements that can be edited through Magic Layers.
For @canva's 250M+ users, this means greater creative flexibility, while its public API opens up new possibilities for developers building AI-powered design tools.
This is a compelling example of how frontier AI research can translate into practical creative tools, putting sophisticated design capabilities in the hands of millions.
Try Canva Craft: canva.com/dream-lab
Read more here: canva.com/newsroom/news/canv…
@christine_tsai @TonyW @vishalharnal @khailee @dfect @atxfrench @leoclee
Bill Tai retweeted
One day. Many perspectives. A future still unfolding.
A heartfelt thank you to every speaker, moderator, and guest who made FARR possible.
On October 5, FARR brought together voices across Frontier AI, Autonomy, Research, and Robotics, exploring questions that reach far beyond any single discipline.
To our speakers and moderators: thank you, truly. Thank you for your time, your candor, and your willingness to bring open questions instead of easy answers. You gave the room its spark, and so many of the conversations you started are still going.
With deep gratitude to:
Speakers
@ramin_m_h · Lindsey Irvine · @chloe_ma · @BartonBetsy5 · @RisaWechsler · @eshear · @steipete · @sam_debrouwer · Killian Murphy · @AzadehYazdan · @aparnacd · Mikayel Khachatryan · @RajeevRonanki · @touraj · @ChrisCassotis · Justine Kasznica · @KiteVC · @mmoazami · @loublanks
Moderators
@JoshConstine · @bilawalsidhu · @marilynika · @thebenbergman
A special thank you to @ivanlinn_ for the music and @austinnasso for the laughs.
And to everyone in the FARR community who joined us in the room: thank you for the ideas, the unexpected connections, and the conversations worth continuing.
The summit may be over. The questions aren't.
With gratitude,
The FARR Team
FARR is the force behind consequential people and ideas.
farrsummit.com
#FARRSummit #FrontierAI #Robotics #AIResearch #SFTechWeek
Bill Tai retweeted
Canva Craft debuted as the world's 4th most advanced image generation model on @DesignArena with an Elo score of 1340.
It delivers exceptional visual quality and state-of-the-art text rendering, outperforming some of the world's leading frontier models.
