These are my favorite conditions.

The richest guy on Earth SHOULD be the guy making cutting edge cars and rockets instead of dudes who sell purses and perfumes or dudes who run investment firms or dudes who made Facebook.

In awe of SpaceX and its story - past, present and the future. You can think about it in 10 different ways and continue re-blowing your mind in circles. Huge congrats to the team! 🚀

I’m gonna toss out the hypothesis that there may be reluctance in some quarters to praise Musk’s business accomplishments because of some of his political activities.

The leading funder of lawfare and dirty tricks against President Trump wants you to know that “Anthropic is one of the good guys.” Thanks for clarifying that. All we needed to know.

Distribution is not a moat.

We should approach the modern era with constant awe and gratitude. We are so fortunate. We are safe. We are well fed. We have the breadth and depth of human history in our pocket. We are going to live for a long time in good health. We are going to work on fun cool projects. We can create almost anything simply by speaking it into existence. Life is good, people.

Sam Harris has written the best thing you’ll read today. open.substack.com/pub/samhar…

Stories about mean VCs might feel good but let’s be real. It’s the most generous open-hearted asset class in history. They give kids money and near complete autonomy and mostly just cross their fingers. Its existence feels nearly illogical. We are truly blessed to have venture capital.

DHLTFM Dems. Have. Lost. Their. Fucking. Minds.

This is one of the most jaw-dropping, chilling interviews I have seen. Watch this Rabbi from London, respond to question about the terror stabbing in Golders Green!

Team Elon

Nepo baby @Casablancas_J of @thestrokes says that American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people but talk like they are Black people during slavery. A horrid take from someone who truly gets the benefits of white privilege - and uses it to sh*t on Jews.

"We need to be an AI-first organization." You've read this in CEO letters. You've heard it in all-hands meetings. And it's absurd. Because the next sentence is almost always: "I can't tell you what that means or how to implement it, but goddamn, you need to figure it out." That's not leadership. That's a mandate without a map. Jordan Crawford said it best to Asad on Topline this week: You can't delegate AI strategy to RevOps if you don't know what's possible. Here's the problem: RevOps can use AI to do their existing job faster. But they're not going to reinvent your strategy. That's not their job. That's yours. And you can't set a different strategy if you've never been in the tools. You won't know to ask: "Can we identify every single user of our competitor's software?" Because Jordan did exactly that. Overnight. 103,000 users. Segmented by tier. You wouldn't even know that question exists unless you've gone down the rabbit hole yourself. The CRO can't be a yellow belt at AI. You need to be a real thought partner to RevOps. Not just someone who says "make it more AI" and waits for a dashboard. The best go-to-market leaders right now? They're working bottoms-up. Starting from the capabilities of the tools. Using that to inform the strategy. Not the other way around. If you want to lead in this era, you need to use the tools. Not just talk about them.

The zero CAC CEO isn't enough anymore. Great network. Every CRO takes the call. Gets you in the door. But it won't keep the share you win. Cassie Young (Primary Ventures): the technical co-founder question is now table stakes. The question at every finish line: would we bet against this person? New Top Line: youtu.be/vPU6PFij5vI

Cassie Young predicted the gross retention apocalypse last fall. Kyle Poyar's data just validated it. AI-native SaaS has structurally lower GRR than legacy counterparts. Her words: "I still very much live in fear of this." It's not just a startup problem. It's a terminal value problem. Her answer: the customer success renaissance. Agentic, proactive, not reactive. New Topline with Cassie Young: open.spotify.com/episode/1fR…

Here’s a big red flag I look for in executives: A person that is a self-described “contrarian” on your leadership team. Someone who proudly talks about how much they publicly disagree either with you directly or with the leadership team in general. These people have lost the thread and inevitably end up being toxic. We don’t need “contrarians.” We don’t need “disagreement” for its own sake. This is not personal. Defining yourself as someone who is simply in default opposition, regardless of the issue, makes you a narcissist. You’re making it about you. It’s not about you. We’re trying to get to the best possible answer for the customer and business. - That will often take debate - That will often take data - That will often take judgment But we’re not specifically *against* anything. We’re not looking for a fight. We’re looking for the answer.

$3.8B in tender offer volume in 2023. $16.5B in 2025. 57% of those deals had an investor selling too. The tender offer is how late-stage equity math gets fixed now. topline.beehiiv.com/p/3-8b-t…