The Learning Corner by Precursor

Is AI venture living through its biggest bubble yet, or its biggest winner-take-all cycle ever? Charles and Mia break down Samir Kaji's read on the duality driving valuations to record highs. They also dig into a Stanford field experiment proving cold pitches to investors work far more often than founders think, and challenge Tomasz Tunguz's take on why most startups don't actually have a real moa...

This week we dig into a piece from Halle Tecco exploring how healthcare VCs are splitting into two camps on ownership discipline as AI drives valuations to decade highs. We also break down Sam Lessin's argument that the SpaceX IPO signals the end of the DCF as the only globally scalable story of value, and what it means that minority belief systems can now pool conviction at trillion-dollar scale....

This week we featured Tony Fadell's interview with Lenny Rachitsky, covering how great products are built with pain at the center and why fast software is the new fast fashion. We also dig into Hunter Walk's practical framework for how early-stage VCs should communicate SAFE note markups to their LPs. And we close out with Reuters' reporting on Kirkland and Ellis committing $500 million to build a...

This week on The Learning Corner, economist Alex Imas makes a counterintuitive case that AI will not eliminate human labor but instead relocate scarcity toward a "relational sector" of nurses, teachers, craftspeople, and care workers where human presence is the product itself. Lisa Kostova shares one of the most honest accounts of vibe coding gone wrong, arriving at a major conference with 40 read...

This week on The Learning Corner, we dig into Rachel Karten's viral piece on AI-obsessed leadership and what happens when organizations adopt AI without any real strategy. We then discuss Karan Dhir's framework for career bets that actually compound versus the ones that just look like progress, including a debate on whether the AI era has quietly rehabilitated the generalist. We close with Charlie...

This week on The Learning Corner, Charles and Mia discuss a good read explaining why the quiet builder playbook is no longer enough and why founders must now own their narrative to win. They dive into a provocative take on the job market arguing the signal collapsed, not the opportunities, and what that means for the next generation of candidates. They also explore the rise of the High-Impact Indi...

This week on The Learning Corner, we open with an argument on why traditional networking culture is mostly negative selection and why broadcasting your work publicly is the stronger play. We then dig into why AI is making the "what" of your work more important than the "how," and which skills actually become load-bearing in that world. We close on a sobering piece about AI psychosis spreading thro...

This week on The Learning Corner, Charles and Mia dig into who actually owns the AI agents you build at work and whether you can take them with you when you leave. They unpack what happens to a founder's standing inside a VC firm when their partner walks out the door, and why that moment is really the start of a new fundraise. They close with a sharp framework for separating companies that are tru...

This week on The Learning Corner, Charles and Mia dig into Lucas Vaz's viral thread arguing that the era of easy, low-priced, diversified venture investing is over and that seed fund math is fundamentally broken. They also break down Garry Tan and YC's official guidance on why founders need to stop conflating LOIs, GMV, and ARR before it costs them investor trust. The episode closes on China's dec...

This week on The Learning Corner, Manny Medina, co-founder of Outreach, shares his biggest regret as a founder and why he believes killing your competition is the actual job description of a VC-backed founder. Samir Kaji breaks down his fundamental truths in venture capital today, touching on the widening barbell between large and small firms, ARR reporting concerns, and honest uncertainty around...

This week we are diving into whether domain expertise is becoming more important in Vertical AI, not less, breaking down new data from The Euclid Ventures team that challenges the narrative that youth and technical ability are all you need to build a winning company. We then get into Micah Rosenbloom's breakdown of seed valuation inflation and what it means for early stage return math in today's m...

This week on The Learning Corner, Mia and Charles dig into a piece by Ashley Smith of Vermilion Cliffs Ventures on why seed round names have become essentially meaningless, with YC Demo Day valuations hitting $40M post for companies with eight weeks of runway. They then unpack Auren Hoffman's sharp and practical breakdown of how to actually ask for advice without wasting people's time, and why clo...

This week on The Learning Corner, Ashley Mayer makes the case that tech's biggest players have forfeited the narrative and it is now up to startup founders to give people a reason to root for the future. Pavel Prata at Murph Capital argues that the value-add model that transformed venture is now playing out one layer up at the LP level, and most allocators haven't caught up yet. We also dig into J...

This week we cover the explosive whistleblower exposé on Delve, a YC-backed compliance startup accused of fabricating audit evidence and leaving hundreds of clients unknowingly exposed to legal liability. We then dig into Jerry Neumann's "We Have Learned Nothing," a data-backed argument that decades of startup frameworks have produced no measurable improvement in whether companies actually succeed...

This week on The Learning Corner, Om Malik makes the case that reputation and perceived authority now convert faster than financial capital, and that the tech ecosystem has fully internalized that game. We then dig into a provocative LinkedIn post from CRV's Reid Christian, where CEOs are starting to build token output per month into formal performance reviews as a core KPI. We close with a though...

This week on The Learning Corner, Micah Rosenbloom from Founder Collective challenges the viral narrative that VC returns suck and asks whether we are all just spinning data to fit our own models. Jeff Weinstein draws a striking parallel between today's AI funding frenzy and the Nifty Fifty stocks of the 1970s, arguing that being right about a company has never been enough if you are wrong about t...

This week on The Learning Corner, Mia and Charles unpack the resignation letter of an Anthropic safety researcher who walked away from one of the most valuable companies in the world, alongside Anthropic quietly walking back its flagship safety commitment. They then dig into Jack Dorsey's decision to cut Block's workforce nearly in half, not because the business is struggling, but because he belie...

This week we dig into the viral Citrini Research "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" memo, a scenario written from the future that rattled public markets and sparked a real conversation about what happens when AI works exactly as promised. We also highlight a great StrictlyVC Download episode with Stacy Brown-Philpot, founder of Cherryrock Capital, on what it takes to win at Series A in today's mark...

This week we're joined by a special guest, Ariana Ferwerda, CEO and co-founder of Halfdays, a women's ski and outdoor wear brand, to discuss her piece on why her team will always be in the office and the inflection points that brought them from remote to fully in-person. Then, Charles and Mia dig into Kanyi Maqubela's "Bubbles and Balloons," which argues the 2021 market wasn't a bubble but a slow...

This week on The Learning Corner, Mia and Charles unpack why AI is making engineers more productive but more exhausted, exploring the hidden cost of constant tool evaluation and "thinking atrophy." They then dig into a provocative argument that venture capital's traditional model is fundamentally breaking down and why the future looks more like permanent capital than ten year fund structures. Fina...

This week features Beezer Clarkson from Sapphire Partners discussing her analysis on venture's first substantial firm contraction in 20+ years, with fewer than half of existing VC firms actively investing. We examine Om Malik's critique of access journalism dominating tech media, where velocity trumps substance. Finally, Michael Dempsey's essay argues that VC-backed startups have undergone the sam...

This week we discuss Jason Lemkin's analysis of Brex's $5.15B exit and how hubristic fundraising creates impossible success benchmarks, Auren Hoffman's controversial claim that VCs overpromise their ability to help with hiring in today's AI talent war, and Saanya Ojha's defense of SaaS business models against claims of obsolescence. We explore why massive valuations attract mercenaries over missio...

This week we discuss Sequoia's groundbreaking decision to invest in Anthropic despite existing stakes in OpenAI and xAI, challenging traditional VC taboos around backing competitors. We explore why pre-seed fundraising has fundamentally changed, with most founders now needing $300K ARR just to get meetings. Finally, we examine a candid reflection from an ex-Amazon employee who regretted leaving FA...

This week we explore David Haber's framework on why most investors run funds but few build lasting firms, and what it takes to create a defensible moat in venture capital. Sarah Guo reminds us that relevance decays without constant market engagement, especially in the compressed timelines of AI companies where first principles thinking matters more than inherited pattern matching. We close with Mi...

This week we unpack the viral AI food delivery hoax that fooled thousands on Reddit and what it reveals about misinformation in 2026. We discuss the crisis of career fulfillment in tech as layoffs continue while startups struggle to find talent. Finally, Roger Ehrenberg shares an honest take on the insecurities every venture investor faces and why playing your own game matters more than ever.