Cofounder/CEO @HiHello 👋 Cofounder @CartaInc 🥧 Chief Firestarter @K9Ventures 🦮 OG Pre-Seed Investor @lyft @twilio @auth0 @lucidchart @everlaw @forethought_ai
Palo Alto, CA
Joined April 2008
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Almost every meaningful event that occurs in the world has happened because humans connected. In an unromantic sense, the progress of humanity has been built on real human relationships. Is this all about to change because of AI?
Using AI to enhance your own thinking is awesome, using AI to think for you is stupid. In the former case you get a more deeply considered outcome, in the latter you get slop.
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
There’s a world of difference between user-authorized agents (Muse, Instinct, Grokbot, etc.) and true unauthorized/rogue agents that could constitute cyberattacks.
Most of the activity described in the Axios story appears to be the former: customers sharing credentials with agents so they can take actions on their behalf. This may violate bank terms requiring humans to log in themselves, but these are in no way cyberattacks.
The direction banks should go is to support user-directed agents. For example, Amex is an authorized connection in Muse, making it easy for users to grant, limit, and revoke access.
Read-only permission levels are a sensible interim step. Several banks already support or are moving toward them. Full write access (with user credentials) is a different risk category and should be approached carefully.
Frightening the public by blurring the line between user-authorized agentic behavior and cyberattacks is irresponsible.
SCOOP: Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts, including some attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources told Axios.
The findings have alarmed banking executives, who are racing to restrict access to their systems as AI moves at a velocity faster than financial institutions can respond, multiple industry and bank executives told Axios.
Several banks are now preparing for worst-case and even “day after” scenarios, including how to rapidly secure or restore customer accounts if things go wrong, the people said.
Several bank executives told Axios they're struggling to distinguish between human users and AI agents. One executive said banks also struggle to determine whether agents are authorized by customers or potentially operating without their permission, more akin to rogue agent behavior.
Read my latest for Axios here: axios.com/2026/10/22/ai-agen…
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
Disaster for pre-IPO founders in California.
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
I absolutely cannot afford to stay, given that you and your corrupt union overlords are planning another "one-time" tax in two years. This is not a 5% tax, it's a full confiscation of all my liquid assets. It's going to bankrupt founders without full liquidity.
California voters approved a $33 billion bullet train from LA to San Francisco in 2008. The estimate is now $126 billion, with a high end of $231 billion, and after 18 years and $15 billion spent, not a single mile of track has been laid.
WSJ's breakdown of how it got here is worth 13 minutes:
- The state rushed into construction to grab 2009 stimulus money before it owned the land. The 119-mile Central Valley stretch alone needed more than 2,288 parcels.
- The project has to coordinate with 80 separate entities, from utilities to freight railroads, and has paid more than $6.5 billion in change orders.
- The mountain tunnels, the hardest part, are still ahead and will eat nearly half the Phase 1 budget.
- Washington pulled $4 billion, and without new money the Authority could run dry by December 2027.
The line that stuck with me came from Lou Thompson, who chaired the project's peer review group: "completing the original Phase 1 would now cost 231 billion dollars."
Startups die when they run out of money. Government projects just get a new estimate.
youtu.be/zPiJKJuQ7i0
Dear @GEICO, I've been a customer for over 20 years, but you're about to lose me as a customer given how bad your website and mobile app are and how you don't let me configure the quote easily enough.
Current policy period shows documents for future policy period. It's bonkers.
@GEICO you used to have a great web/mobile app. But I think it's time for you to fire some people on your tech team!
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
Effective Immediately, all organizations using PHP for their systems are advised to be prepared for an update addressing two critical vulnerabilities. PHP is widely used for web applications. These vulnerabilities often provide a direct path to the server's file system or database. If an immediate update is not feasible, it is recommend that organizations take the system offline until it can be fully mitigated. NSA will follow up shortly with more specific guidance.
Sometimes startups are like Churchill's supposed line about Americans: you can always count on them to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else.
I am not the fastest reader. I hear the words as I read them, and that slows me down. So I learned how to skim and connect the dots between concepts as I skim.
With AI, being able to read fast has become a superpower. My son has this superpower, and I always marvel at the pace at which he can read.
Now when I see a long-form article, I keep wishing there was a way to just download it into my brain (high bandwidth) rather than feeding it word by word through my eyes (low bandwidth).
We'll get there too.
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
Lots of VCs kindof sound like this: "Your basketball team doesn't have a moat, any healthy human can throw the ball into the basket thingy. "
People who have not run companies before don't understand how much the team matters more than some imagined structural moat.
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
About pre-seed/seed
Real Madrid can buy almost any established star in the world. That doesn’t mean they are automatically the best academy for discovering a 15-year-old before anyone knows his name. Those are different muscles.
Pre-seed and seed aren’t Series A with smaller checks.
But calling ourselves specialists isn’t enough. Only the best will survive!
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
Categorically vote No on every new city and state tax on the ballot in California.
There is no funding shortage. It’s just fraud.
California is losing at least $50 billion a year to fraud, so even under the most optimistic assumptions, the “wealth tax” will only collect enough to pay California’s fraud budget for 7 months.
I didn't know it was International Sloth Day until a sloth showed up in my own email signature, warning me not to let my follow-up move like one. Marketing updated the banner once, and now it's on every email everyone at HiHello sends. Speed to lead matters. 🦥
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
Saved you some time!
Here's how I filled out my 2026 California General Election ballot:
Governor: Steve Hilton
Lieutenant Governor: Gloria Romero
Secretary of State: Don Wagner
Controller: Herb Morgan
Treasurer: Jennifer Hawks
Attorney General: Michael Gates
Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Sonja Shaw
Prop 1 ❌
Prop 2 ❌
Prop 3 ❌
Prop 4 ❌
Prop 5 ❌
Prop 37 ❌
Prop 38 ✅
Prop 39 ✅
Prop 40 ❌
Prop 41 ✅
Prop 42 ✅
Prop 43 ✅
Prop 44 ❌
Don’t wait for Election Day! Drop off your ballot NOW and spend the next two weeks getting everyone you know to do the same.
Dr. Manu Kumar 👋🏽 retweeted
I was born in Paris. And it pains me to see how decades of delusional policies and tragically upside-down incentive systems rewarding losers instead of good people are now resulting in what can only be seen as the fall of the Republic.
