Venture Studio (Currently), Columnist (Space & Time) Past: Clover (acquired), Markov, Bix (acquired), eBay, Intuit, CSFB, and MIT. github.com/lrspeiser

Joined June 2008
177 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
Anti-Turing Test: To figure out if a company that claims it is using AI is actually using humans to do the job.
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
$SPCX is live! For US investors, SpaceX just listed on Nasdaq. For global investors, it's now available as a dShare™ via Dinari partners. Invest in the world's most anticipated IPO, 24/7. We’re bringing the biggest U.S. stocks onchain.
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Congratulations to @HenrySpeiser, Het, Maxwell and Filip on their Hackathon project.
My favorite: a @scratch interface for teaching people robotics! 🤩 Ideal state would be to have this in *all* high schools and colleges, both for simulations and real-world robots. Huge! And the demo gods were satiated, worked flawlessly:
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Non-stop launches from the Daffy crew
5 Nov 2025
At @DaffyGiving, we've learned something simple but powerful: giving is contagious, but it needs more voices. So this giving season, we’re seeing what happens when those voices come together to compete in the Voices for Good Challenge. 🎙️
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Why do LLMs love emojis so much?
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We need a name for when AI outputs get displayed by accident: - Explain that Powerwalls are not stocked directly in the warehouse. - Reassure him that there is an open ticket monitoring the delivery status. - Let him know you've personally actioned the ticket to get an update.
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Prompt Peep? Script Spill? Prompt Funk? Script Flip?
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
15 Sep 2025
Reimagine reality. reve.com
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Well, @Airport_FRA has now surpassed the Paris airport as the worst run. Passport control has no staff. No bins at xray. Stairs and buses to planes. Planes breaking down. Constant flight delays. Went through it two days in a row and can confirm it is consistently a problem.
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This order from China for parts shows the impact of tariffs on a student project. The sad part: This is still massively cheaper than any US manufacturer.
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
30 Jan 2025
Very excited to share the @DaffyGiving 2024 Year in Review 🎉 DAFs are growing fast. Over the last decade, donor-advised funds have grown at an annualized rate of over 23% per year. 🏎️💨 Last year Daffy grew 104%, 4.4x faster. 🚀
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
15 Nov 2024
Bummed to miss this week's podcast with @leonardspeiser and @rajatsuri, which covered Clover's journey from startup to processing $300B in payments, the unique challenges of building hardware, and Leonard's new venture studio model with enterprises like JLL and Prudential. Be sure to give it a listen. 👇
15 Nov 2024
You're probably underestimating how much money you'll need to start your hardware startup. This week on Founders in Arms, I sat down with @leonardspeiser, founder of Clover, to talk about why. Leonard shared valuable insights on the challenges of hardware, from the seasonal risks of consumer demand to the high costs of distribution. The reality? You likely need at least $5M to even attempt hardware today—and VCs are increasingly hesitant to invest. Our conversation covered Clover's journey from startup to processing $300B in payments, its unique deal structure with KKR/First Data, the evolution of hardware manufacturing in China, and strategies for startups to find their first customers without "wandering the desert." Leonard also shares his advice on making creative deals with large enterprises, a skill that has helped him maintain control over the things his companies do best while working with VC and corporate entities. Despite the challenges, Leonard remains optimistic that we might just be one platform or enabling technology away from unlocking a new wave of hardware innovation. We missed @immad this week, but this conversation is definitely worth a listen.
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
30 Jul 2024
Daffy launched with a very simple concept: Save. Invest. Give. @DaffyGiving gave members 15 pre-built portfolios to help grow their impact... but our members wanted more. So we are giving them more. Introducing 100 quintillion more ways to invest for charity. 🤯
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I like that I can have Claude analyze an entire court case immediately to get the details I can't find in the news. "the President plays no direct constitutional or statutory role" in counting electoral votes. VP's role is as Senate president, not executive.
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
7 May 2024
Today marks an exciting milestone for @DaffyGiving 🙏 After an incredible year of growth & feedback from our members, our team of talented designers decided to rethink our member experience from the ground up. We call it Daffy 2.0 🚀 daffy.org/resources/introduc…
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
24 Mar 2024
I've created a Meetup group so we can organize events. First one probably mid-April in Los Altos. Sign up here: meetup.com/san-francisco-sci…

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Had a blast working on the world's first completely AI influenced @spaceandtimemag issue. Every submission to this issue was touched by AI. Really creative people/machine collaborations. Special thanks to @jhong for his unique contribution. Buy: amazon.com/dp/1959048104
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Daffy team crushing it as always.
24 May 2023
🥳 Proud to share that today @DaffyGiving launched Daffy for Developers! Daffy now offers a set of APIs to make #charitablegiving part of every #fintech app, workplace platform, e-commerce site, marketplace, and more. 🤖 Check it out: daffy.org/developer
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Leonard Speiser retweeted
Announcing that Lambda has raised $44M to build the best cloud for training AI. (Lots of GPUs.) youtube.com/watch?v=zsfd-GHI… I'll be doing a Q&A on Twitter for the next hour. Just reply in this thread.

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