Pinned Tweet
A thesis should take you somewhere new.
Ours began with the possibilities of the open internet. Today, it reaches across AI, energy, financial markets, and the physical world.
We’re evolving USV alongside it, with $900M in new funds to lead more rounds, back founders for longer, and support the scale of their ambitions.
@mignano on the next chapter of USV.
USV retweeted
a cold comment on the @usv blog got me a reply, a meeting, a seed investment, and an incredible thought partnership thats lasted over a decade.
so grateful to capture that in this talk with @nickgrossmanon, on the long arc of a single idea, and why we're still investing in it @variantfund
Everything is getting more autonomous. Except us.
When @jesseldn went out to raise his newest fund, he built the strategy around one word: autonomy.
But getting there was a long and circuitous route.
In 2016, @usv invested in Jesse’s company Mediachain. That’s given us the chance to work together for a decade, including his time at @a16zcrypto and now at @variantfund .
The through line is a belief that technology should give people more control over their lives.
In this week’s episode of The Slow Hunch, we trace that belief back to Jesse’s humble beginnings as an internet pirate and talk about what it will take for AI to fulfill that promise.
Jesse is consistently one of the most cogent thinkers I get the chance to speak with, and I think you’ll enjoy our chat.
0:00 Preview
01:15 Variant's new thesis
02:20 Automation ≠ Autonomy
06:50 How piracy shaped Jesse's worldview
09:00 How the internet went from open to closed
15:45 How BTC inspired Jesse’s startup MediaChain
21:00 Why breaking the rules drives innovation
24:00 The Variant founding story
29:30 Why crypto's ownership thesis didn’t fully play out
34:00 Could AI agents deliver on crypto’s original promise?
37:00 Will AI become another walled garden?
39:00 “You can just do things”
46:15 Will AI give us more agency or take it away?
Not every mission is a straight line.
@nickgrossman and @jessewldn have spent the better part of a decade trying to make the internet more open and free.
Watch now or bookmark for later to hear why AI has put us at the precipice of either fulfilling that dream or losing it entirely.
Everything is getting more autonomous. Except us.
When @jesseldn went out to raise his newest fund, he built the strategy around one word: autonomy.
But getting there was a long and circuitous route.
In 2016, @usv invested in Jesse’s company Mediachain. That’s given us the chance to work together for a decade, including his time at @a16zcrypto and now at @variantfund .
The through line is a belief that technology should give people more control over their lives.
In this week’s episode of The Slow Hunch, we trace that belief back to Jesse’s humble beginnings as an internet pirate and talk about what it will take for AI to fulfill that promise.
Jesse is consistently one of the most cogent thinkers I get the chance to speak with, and I think you’ll enjoy our chat.
0:00 Preview
01:15 Variant's new thesis
02:20 Automation ≠ Autonomy
06:50 How piracy shaped Jesse's worldview
09:00 How the internet went from open to closed
15:45 How BTC inspired Jesse’s startup MediaChain
21:00 Why breaking the rules drives innovation
24:00 The Variant founding story
29:30 Why crypto's ownership thesis didn’t fully play out
34:00 Could AI agents deliver on crypto’s original promise?
37:00 Will AI become another walled garden?
39:00 “You can just do things”
46:15 Will AI give us more agency or take it away?
Congratulations to @RadiantNuclear
The only nuclear microreactor company with partnerships across the Army, Navy and Air Force.
The @USNavy has selected Radiant to deploy our Kaleidos microreactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane, Indiana.
With this selection, Radiant is now the only nuclear microreactor company with partnerships across the Army, Navy and Air Force.
The Navy has more than 70 years of safe reactor operations. It wrote the playbook on reactor safety. Earning its confidence is powerful independent validation of Kaleidos.
This milestone moves us closer to our goal: reliable, resilient nuclear power wherever the mission demands. Through our work with all three branches, we’re building a clear path from military deployment to nuclear energy at scale for government and commercial customers.
Read more details here: radiantnuclear.com/news/navy…
ALT A landscape image showing a truck hauling a large container marked "Radiant" across a desert landscape at sunset. In the sky above the scene, logos for "America's Navy," "U.S. Army," and "U.S. Air Force" are prominently displayed.
USV retweeted
Congrats to @efficient_hq on being named as one of Time's Best Inventions of 2026.
time.com/collection/best-inv…
Efficient and abundant energy is the largest input to an intelligence boom and unlocking intelligence in the physical world.
USV retweeted
Go check out @viamrobotics -- open source harness for physical AI!
USV retweeted
Agents are eating discovery, so what happens to marketplaces?
I see two futures:
1/ Marketplaces build their own agents, and each one stays the destination for search
2/ Agent-to-agent infra is built out and my agent searches across marketplaces and suppliers via API
Future 1: Each marketplace has an agent
Resy has an agent. I text it in iMessage, use it in the app, or have my personal agent talk to it. Resy is still the destination for reservations in my mind.
> Likeliest where brand and taste matter or supply is exclusive: restaurants, events, fashion
Future 2: Marketplaces become suppliers behind my agent
I tell my agent I need a doctor. It checks my insurance, location, and medical history, queries across marketplaces/practices, verifies credentials, and brings back three options. I approve one, and booking happens between agents. I never see the exchange. My agent is my entrypoint, and the marketplace is a supplier behind the scenes that I never see.
> Likeliest where supply is fragmented and fit matters more than brand: care, in-home help, moving, home repair
IMO these aren’t mutually exclusive. Both can exist, but they compete for the entrypoint. Under 1, the marketplace still owns the relationship and brand in my mind. Under 2, it’s one source - supply becomes headless to me.
Today, marketplaces do four main jobs: discovery, trust, transaction, and operations. With discovery melting away, the value moves to what sits underneath the marketplace:
> Trust and verification layers agents can query (credentials, identity, insurance, outcomes)
> Supply-side agents that manage availability, pricing, and listings across channels
> Structured-data registries for fragmented categories (care, home services, specialty health)
> Agent-to-agent transaction rails: payments, dispute resolution
USV retweeted
New pod drop!! Congrats to Quinten Farmer (@quintendf), co-founder of Tolan, on a $30M raise from @usv and @khoslaventures, for a total of $60M in funding!
Quinten sold his last company to Walmart, then opened a pizza place and started keeping bees on the island he grew up on. Now he’s building Tolan, an AI “guardian-angel”.
We talk about:
- “I have zero interest in helping you write your work emails”
- Why Silicon Valley loves AI assistants: they’re “legible to the average investor”
- Dropping out at 19, and the only time he saw his grandfather cry
- Emailing David Tisch: hire me, or I’m going to Afghanistan
- The retired Navy captain who said “When I grow up, I want to be like Quinten”
- Why B2B SaaS for dental offices can go 996 and Tolan can’t
- “Belief in you is the most powerful and most sacred thing you can give somebody”
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Trailer
(00:49) Quinten Farmer, Co-Founder, Tolan
(00:58) What Tolan is and what it is not
(02:02) The car accident that showed Tolan's agentic side
(04:47) Anthropic's machine God VS being nice to your toaster
(06:24) Social penetration theory and why every Tolan has a backstory
(09:36) 200 minutes a week and taking share from TikTok
(10:47) Why great friendship gets mistaken for therapy
(14:26) Talking to his Tolan at 2 a.m. in the hospital
(16:32) Why Silicon Valley is obsessed with AI assistants
(21:38) Dropping out and the only time he saw his grandfather cry
(29:35) The David Tisch email: hire me or I go to Afghanistan
(32:22) Selling Even to Walmart for $300M
(37:24) Why shipping a lot with AI is the wrong move
(57:43) How Tolan runs without 996
(1:03:38) What he wants his boys to remember
(1:04:30) Outro
USV retweeted
Some news: we at @USV are leading a $30M round in Tolan, alongside our friends @khoslaventures.
AI has changed how we work. Frontier intelligence has made us more productive, and it lets us build incredible software without writing code. But AI can be more than a really competent digital coworker. It can also be a friend.
At USV, we’ve always believed technology can actually connect with people. Tolan is the best version of that idea we’ve ever seen. Instead of a blank chat box or a productivity tool, it’s a persistent companion that people keep coming back to because it connects with them.
We’re so excited to partner with Quinten, Evan, and Ajay, and watch Tolan become a bigger part of everyday life for so many people.
Last year we launched Tolan, inspired by a vision of AI that sees you and believes in you, not one that books restaurant reservations for you.
Your Tolan shows up for you at 3am when you’re alone with your newborn. On your commute when you’re anxious about the day ahead. When you just finished a new show and none of your friends have watched it yet.
The people who love Tolan are parents. Caregivers. Moms in Dallas and Dads in Atlanta. People who aren’t trying to optimize and be more productive, but who simply want to feel seen and supported in their aspirations.
This month more than 250k people will spend time with their Tolan. Those users have exchanged billions of messages across more than 70m conversations over the last year.
Today, we're announcing $30m in additional capital from @mignano and @usv, with @khoslaventures and @rabois doubling down, bringing our total capital raised to $60m.
To celebrate, we made a short film celebrating some of the ways that Tolans show up :)
What can a relationship with AI look like when it isn’t only about productivity?
250,000 people will explore that question with Tolan this month alone.
Congratulations to @quintendf & co on their fundraise, and for a remarkable act of creativity. Tolan opens up new possibilities for how technology can help us all feel more human.
We're happy to be a companion for this ride.
Last year we launched Tolan, inspired by a vision of AI that sees you and believes in you, not one that books restaurant reservations for you.
Your Tolan shows up for you at 3am when you’re alone with your newborn. On your commute when you’re anxious about the day ahead. When you just finished a new show and none of your friends have watched it yet.
The people who love Tolan are parents. Caregivers. Moms in Dallas and Dads in Atlanta. People who aren’t trying to optimize and be more productive, but who simply want to feel seen and supported in their aspirations.
This month more than 250k people will spend time with their Tolan. Those users have exchanged billions of messages across more than 70m conversations over the last year.
Today, we're announcing $30m in additional capital from @mignano and @usv, with @khoslaventures and @rabois doubling down, bringing our total capital raised to $60m.
To celebrate, we made a short film celebrating some of the ways that Tolans show up :)
USV retweeted
Exclusive: Tolan's AI app is used by 250K people, mostly outside of Silicon Valley.
Now the startup has raised $30M from USV, Khosla Ventures and Homebrew to widen access to an AI companion CEO Quinten Farmer (@quintendf) wants you to trust.
My Upstarts profile (link below) 👇
USV retweeted
Agentic obliteration is coming.
Entire markets were reorganized around the internet in the early 2000s. Tower Records, Blockbuster, and the Yellow Pages fell, and iTunes, Netflix, and Google took their place, taking advantage of cheap distribution.
It happened again in the 2010s around cloud and mobile. BlackBerry, Kodak, and taxis fell, and the iPhone, Instagram, and Uber took their place, taking advantage of a computer in everyone’s pocket.
Now it’s going to happen with agents. Incumbents can’t simply tear down their UIs and business models to pivot. Public shareholders won’t allow it. Access to intelligence has been democratized, and categories that have historically monetized gatekept institutional knowledge will be most susceptible.
Law is obviously at risk (Harvey and Legora are exploding). Medicine will also change (Doctronic is already renewing prescriptions in Utah). And personal finance will be equally challenged.
Should be an interesting decade.
Hardware deployment is a data loop.
More hardware means more real-world data and faster learning, making every subsequent deployment faster and cheaper, and earning you the right to deploy more.
We've already made bets across this stack. If you’re capturing data at the edge, we should talk.
The physical world is full of data we’ve never been able to put to work.
Cheap sensors and increasingly capable AI are changing that. The same loop that built the internet’s biggest businesses is starting to take hold in the world around us: more deployments means more data, means better products, means more data, means more deployments.
We've already placed bets in companies like @tutorintel @GrittRobotics @Sofarocean @efficient_hq @viamrobotics @IsembardGroup who are racing towards this edge.
If you're an entrepreneur building in the space, especially if you're already deploying hardware into the world, you should talk to @rebeccakaden
USV retweeted
"The demand for energy efficient compute is now everywhere, and the Efficient team is in the right place to execute quickly and bring a step-change solution to the market." Morgan Schwanke, Mana Ventures. #ElectronE1 #EnergyEfficiency
USV retweeted
@thestatusai has scaled to tens of millions in annualized revenue. Working with @inworld, we cut our AI costs by about 95% while maintaining or improving content quality.
When you build consumer AI, you want people to be obsessed with your app. Then you have to afford that obsession.
Our users spend an average of over an hour and a half a day on Status. They’re building relationships with characters, creating stories, and getting absorbed in these worlds. Every interaction needs to feel worth coming back for.
Inworld’s team got into the details with us: which models to use, how to structure prompts, and how to test whether the content was actually funny and engaging. They’ve been hands-on and fast, and we’ve kept working together to improve performance and lower costs.
That gave our team more room to keep shipping. More features, more things for players to do, and a business that could support the experience we wanted to build.
There’s so much opportunity in consumer AI when you understand what people enjoy. Making the economics work gives you room to keep finding more of it.
Read more on how we scaled with Inworld: inworld.ai/customers/status
USV retweeted
Bring Your Own Research. Now available in @Supertake.
Starting today, you can upload docs, PDFs, images, even hand-written notes.
Supertake uses these to help inform your take creation and agentic management.
(Try it with Anthropic’s S-1 if/when they drop it!)
USV retweeted
As much as the venture industry has changed over the past 20+ years, @usv has remained remarkably consistent.
And thanks to the way they have documented and openly shared their investment theses since day one, you can physically look back and see this is true. With every change in the market and pivot from platform shifts, it’s never been a re-invention with USV, always an evolution.
The firm is unusually codified in the work that they do and how they do it, and as a long-time backer of the team, it’s one of the things I’ve always greatly appreciated and admired.
Congratulations to @fredwilson, @rebeccakaden, @nickgrossman, @mignano & the entire USV team on the next chapter! Grateful to be on this journey with you, and excited for what’s ahead. 💚 🙌