“Why not give the kids an experience they’ll remember for a lifetime?” @spurs Forward, Julian Champagnie shares why taking time to interact with young fans during pregame shootaround can make a lasting impact!

Today we're pleased to share that Sygaldry has raised $139M to build quantum-accelerated AI servers for AI data centers, delivering more compute per watt. We're hiring brilliant, curious, kind, and collaborative scientists, engineers, and more. bit.ly/48KBufk

New York is about to make a massive mistake. The NY State Senate is advancing a proposal to decouple from federal QSBS (Section 1202) — the tax provision that lets startup founders exclude gains on qualifying exits. If this passes, founders would owe 10-13% in combined state and city tax on exits that are tax-free at the federal level and in nearly every other major tech state. Even worse: it's retroactive to January 1, 2025. This comes right as the federal government just expanded QSBS benefits and New Jersey moved to full conformity. New York wants to go in the opposite direction. As a seed investor in NYC who has backed hundreds of companies, I can tell you: founders are mobile. If New York becomes one of the most punitive states for startup exits, the best founders will simply build somewhere else — and the jobs, tax revenue, and innovation will follow. NYC has built something special over the last two decades. This proposal puts it all at risk for a short-sighted revenue grab. If you're a founder, investor, or anyone who cares about the NYC tech ecosystem — please sign the TechNYC open letter before Monday below 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾 Keep building, NYC 🗽

Some prediction market deal news: Fantasy sports company Underdog has acquired Aristotle’s CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse licenses. Aristotle will continue to operate PredictIt, one of the OG political betting markets. More on @TheTerminal

I love these sorts of posts because I had always hoped as a younger man that I could find some secret, shared trait common amongst the world's most wealthy but the only thing I found that came close in reality was prodigious Diet Coke consumption.

I had coffee with a founder who sends every churned customer a $50 Amex gift card and a handwritten note. The note says: "Thanks for giving us a shot. Would you be willing to spend 15 minutes telling us what we got wrong?" 68% of churned customers take the call (they get the gift card whether they take the call or not) More than 2/3 of the customers who left his product voluntarily get on the phone to explain why... pretty crazy when you think about it. He records every call (with permission) and tags the reasons into a database. After two years, the he used that data to completely change the business and reduce his churn by 20%. The top reason for churn wasn't what he expected either. It was "we couldn't get our team to use it." An adoption problem, not a product problem. So he rebuilt onboarding from scratch. Added a mandatory training session. Built an adoption dashboard that flags accounts where usage drops below a threshold within the first 60 days. Churn dropped by 40%! The $50 gift card costs him ~$6,600/year but the are worth exponentially more to him long term. Most companies survey churned customers with an automated email that gets a 4% response rate and congratulate themselves like they did a good job. This founder treats every lost customer like a consulting engagement. The difference in data quality is unbelievable.

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The National Weather Service has issued an Extreme Cold Watch for NYC from 6pm on Saturday through Sunday afternoon. Dangerously cold wind chills below -15° F are expected during this time period.

What US city has the largest gap between national perception and reality? My answer: Detroit Everyone seems to think it’s a run down hell hole w nothing but boarded up buildings. In reality: > Completely rejuvenated downtown w businesses, residential, restaurants, & nice sports venues – Ford Field (Lions), Comerica Park (Tigers), Little Caesars Arena (Pistons & Red Wings) > One of the best airports in the country – Delta hub w direct flights all over the world > Tons of history, culture, and classic architecture > Diversifying economy beyond auto into tech, medical, etc. > People are genuinely nice but also super tough & resilient Of course it’s not all unicorns and rainbows. While some parts of the city are making a comeback, others are being left behind. There’s crime, traffic and all the other things most big cities battle. But if Detroit has a national reputation of 1/10, in actuality I think it’s more like 7/10.