TLDR Founders 2025-11-03

Apply to the Render Startup Program for up to $100K in Cloud Credits (Sponsor)

In the AI era, the backend has taken the front seat: modern apps run on long-running, scalable compute. That's been Render's bread and butter since day one.

To support the next generation of builders, Render is offering up to $100K in credits, with tiers based on funding stage. Deploy in minutes, scale for years.

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Headlines & Trends

Jerome Powell says the AI hiring apocalypse is real: 'Job creation is pretty close to zero.' (4 minute read)

Jerome Powell warns that AI is significantly impacting job creation, with hiring near zero and major companies citing AI for layoffs. The Fed cut interest rates to address employment risks amid persistent inflation, as AI-driven investments and productivity gains benefit higher-income groups while leaving the broader labor market strained. This poses a complex policy dilemma for the Fed, balancing between employment support and controlling inflation.

Ilya Sutskever's deposition in Musk vs. Altman (50 minute read)

This transcript features portions of a videotaped deposition from October 1 involving Ilya Sutskever in a case titled Musk v. Altman et al. The testimony centers on Sutskever's involvement in the removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI, including his concerns about Altman's alleged pattern of dishonesty and undermining executives, which he documented in a memo for independent board members.

Mercor quintuples valuation to $10B with $350M Series C (2 minute read)

Mercor secured $350 million in Series C funding, boosting its valuation to $10 billion. Felicis Ventures led this round with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures. The company, which specializes in providing specialized experts for AI model training, now plans to expand its talent network, refine its contractor-client matching systems, and develop new automation products.

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Strategies & Tactics

The Board Meeting Blueprint (4 minute read)

Your first board meeting decides whether you lead or get managed. This playbook turns updates into operating sessions. Send a tight board pack 72 hours ahead, frame decisions up front, and run a clear agenda that separates performance review from real strategy.

How Founders Can Navigate Today's Interest Rate Landscape (6 minute read)

Interest rate hikes have shifted VC focus from rapid growth to demands for profitability and cash flow. Founders should build resilience, diversify funding sources, and communicate how they're adapting to these financial conditions. Understanding economic cycles and timing fundraising can help navigate the current high-cost capital landscape.

How to Evaluate a Founding Team (4 minute read)

Investors assess founding teams by evaluating backgrounds for industry experience, complementary skills, and past achievements. They look for team dynamics that balance technical, operational, and commercial expertise. Strong teams show execution capability, adaptability to pivot, and the ability to recruit and retain talent.

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Tools & Resources

A handful of TLDR founders will get $1,000 off a Wing Assistant (Sponsor)

Exclusive: $1000 off Executive Assistants for TLDR founders! Wing Assistants take marketing, sales, and tedious admin off your plate so you can reclaim 30–80h each week for higher-value work. 10K+ founders are already relying on Wing's Top 0.1% talent across 22+ service areas. Claim your credit before it's gone

Aside (Tool)

Aside helps you to answer technical questions during a sales call by showing real-time suggestions from your docs.

Fastshot (Tool)

Create mobile apps with no code using AI.

Moss (Tool)

Real-time Semantic Search for Conversational AI.

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Miscellaneous

Traffic is no longer a reliable growth metric (4 minute read)

Webflow is treating AI discovery like the new homepage, and the numbers hit hard. 10% of signups now come from LLMs, 91% from ChatGPT, and those visitors convert at 24%, which is six times Google. Rankings reshuffle daily so they measure visibility, comprehension, and conversion while refreshing content fast, mining Reddit, and structuring FAQs.

ServiceNow's ugly UI keeps winning and that's the tell (4 minute read)

Clunky screens keep winning because the real product lives underneath it. Years of ticket flows, approvals, SLAs, and audit trails are welded into one place. That weld traps data and habits. Forward deployed engineers keep closing the last mile customers cannot. Control Tower grows because nothing in enterprise AI ships without guardrails. If you try to attack this, do not chase the whole suite. Take one workflow where value is obvious in weeks, wire into their records, prove fewer escalations or faster MTTR, then expand sideways.

A Strange Delight (7 minute read)

Anthropic built its AI coding tool with white text on black background, arrow key navigation, and zero mouse support. Snowflake spent years perfecting animated menus that slide and unfurl. Everyone gravitates to the primitive one. The command line puts you close enough to feel the machine working - watching it tick through tasks, seeing its relentless speed without JavaScript bloat. dbt probably succeeded because it started this way too. Thousands of analysts got their first glimpse into computational power through printed logs instead of buttons. Comfort rarely creates emotional experiences. The internet doesn't need more polished minimalism, it needs tools that remind us computers are physical things we can actually feel.

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Quick Links

Right-Sizing Your Startup Vision (3 minute read)

Founders should start with a tightly scoped problem that matches their team's resources instead of pursuing overly ambitious "maximum viable products."

The Piano and the DJ Set (3 minute read)

Building software was once akin to playing the piano—every note deliberate, every line of code your own.

Alphabet's GV backs Synthesia in $200M round at $4B valuation to power the next wave of AI video (2 minute read)

Alphabet's GV led a $200 million funding round for Synthesia, valuing the AI video startup at $4 billion.

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Thanks for reading,
Andrew Tan & Kevin Wu

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