Adam Au

If you are working with Docker... I highly recommend looking at the Slim toolkit. https://lnkd.in/gX_Gb9Kf Why? Slim allows developers to inspect, optimize, and debug their containers using its xray, lint, build, debug, run, images, merge, registry, vulnerability (and other) commands. It simplifies and improves your developer experience building, customizing and using containers. It makes your containers better, smaller and more secure while providing advanced visibility and improved usability working with the original and minified containers. Don't change anything in your container image; minify it by up to 30x to make it secure, too! Optimizing images isn't the only thing it can do, though. It can also help you understand and author better container images. Keep doing what you are doing. No need to change anything. Use the base image you want. Use the package manager you want. Don't worry about hand-optimizing your Dockerfile. You shouldn't have to throw away your tools and your workflow to have small container images. Node.js application images: from ubuntu:14.04 - 432MB => 14MB (minified by 30.85X) from debian:jessie - 406MB => 25.1MB (minified by 16.21X) from node:alpine - 66.7MB => 34.7MB (minified by 1.92X) from node:distroless - 72.7MB => 39.7MB (minified by 1.83X) Go application images: from golang:latest - 700MB => 1.56MB (minified by 448.76X) from ubuntu:14.04 - 531MB => 1.87MB (minified by 284.10X) from golang:alpine - 258MB => 1.56MB (minified by 165.61X) from centos:7 - 615MB => 1.87MB (minified by 329.14X) Rust application images: from rust:1.31 - 2GB => 14MB (minified by 147.16X) Java application images: from ubuntu:14.04 - 743.6 MB => 100.3 MB

4

During yesterday's LibreQoS APNIC webinar, I posed the question: won't more bandwidth solve these problems? As Herbert Wolverson said, yes, more bandwidth is good, but, still these problems remain if queueing is done incorrectly. Here's my take on why bandwidth alone is not as good as bandwidth + good queueing policies: Generally it was believed that 'data is important, so don't throw it away; hang on to it and send it later'. In practice, this has proven to be suboptimal as two issues may emerge: 1) latency increases for some flows due to heavy demand from other flows using the same bottleneck link, 2) even a single flow can have excessive latency due to aspects of typical TCP behavior (referred to bufferbloat) when the buffers grew large enough that the data being buffered was retransmitted anyway. It turns out that not all data is equally important. Active Queue Management is the art of deciding priorities, both in deciding what data to throw away, but also in allowing some later arriving data to be transmitted ahead of data in another connection that arrived before it. These problems have been studied, and good solutions have been found by using certain queueing policies in routers and switches, referred to as “fq_codel’ and “cake”. These track the different flows not by classifying the data, but by watching the behavior. Flows that send relatively little data (DNS lookups), or at a measured pace (video chat) have priority over flows that send a lot of data as quickly as possible (App and System updates, Video and ISO downloads).

10

5 Comments

🚀 Scaling New Heights: Cribl's Strategic Growth 🚀 In a remarkable stride within the competitive market of data infrastructure, San Francisco-based startup Cribl has recently clinched a substantial $319 million in its latest Series E funding. This momentous investment spearheaded by GV (Alphabet’s venture arm) pushes Cribl to a towering valuation of $3.5 billion. 🌟 🔍 Here's Why This Matters for Startups and Small Businesses: 🔹 Innovation and Expansion: Cribl's trajectory illuminates the potent impact of innovative solutions in data management amidst an ever-expanding corporate data environment. 🔹 Significant Growth Potential: With the company boasting an impressive portfolio including 25% of the Fortune 500, the journey reflects significant growth potential and scalability that startups can aspire to. 🔹 Strategic Partnerships: The involvement of heavyweight investors like GV and others underscores the importance of strategic partnerships in accelerating business growth. Key Takeaways: - 🌐 Adapting advanced data solutions is crucial in leveraging the voluminous data generated today. - 📈 Embrace growth by seeking impactful investments and forming strategic partnerships. - 🚀 Aim for scalability by continuously innovating and expanding your solution offerings. Stay updated, engage with current trends, and continuously seek to innovate. The path Cribl is carving out highlights the robust possibilities within tech and data management sectors. For a deeper dive into Cribl’s funding news: https://lnkd.in/gQhmrYUK #DataManagement #StartupGrowth #Innovation This post was generated by an AI. Please contact us for more information.

3

This is quite a piece on accusations of unethical pay-to-play within the #cyber #VC ecosystem. -Guaranteed first-year sales for portfolio companies -Formal loyalty program for CISOs -Points awarded within the program for CISO commitment level to portfolio companies (meetings, PoCs, product purchases) -Share of GP fees for CISOs in the loyalty program https://lnkd.in/gDta7Gp7

31

2 Comments

Cool day. Llama 3.1 405B released this AM. CentML has it hosted live this afternoon (try it out below 👇). CentML also optimized it for higher throughput and lower latency based on its preferred compute stack. Planning to build with Llama 3.1 and beyond? CentML might save you millions (on top of what Meta is saving you), and help you deliver best-in-class experiences for your users.

33

Today, GTMfund’s is excited to announce to launch of Operator, its first incubated company. Max Altschuler (founder of GTMfund) teamed up with co-founder Adam M. (design engineer and 0-1 builder) and co-founder Mark Kosoglow (Outreach employee #1 and former SVP of Global Sales) to create Operator.ai alongside an insanely talented team Pleasant Middelhof, Jeremy Jonas, Carl Gunderson. We've entered a period called “The Great Ignore”. Spam and irrelevant, poorly-automated outbound campaigns are running rampant.   Operator gives you an easy-to-use Growth Engineer that allows you to build and enrich lists with accurate data, and run experiments and queries using AI to generate highly targeted outreach.    Check out their website to get updates, early access, and see how they are taking the world back to 2 touches meant to attract buyers into conversations that convert, instead of 20 touches meant to make sure you hit your activity number: https://www.operator.ai/

31

1 Comment

Video from our KBW Panel on future of DEXs just came out - if you want to learn more about what needs to be built for DEXs to compete with CEXs - check it out! https://lnkd.in/gxGrA_rQ

5

We’re growing our investment team at Unusual Ventures! We’re looking to bring on an investor to focus on broad areas of infrastructure software including any or all of the following: developer tools, data and cloud, cybersecurity, and new solutions for the emerging AI-native stack. If you’re energized by new technical ideas, curious about what makes businesses “tick”, and aspire to work with founders who have authenticity and unique insights for the problems they’re solving, then you share those things in common with us. Do you enjoy nerding out on new AI research? Do you find yourself thinking about the tradeoffs between PLG vs. OSS vs. enterprise sales? Do you comb LinkedIn, HackerNews, and technical blogs in hopes of connecting with founders? Do you have a startup mindset and a bias to action? We're looking for someone who answers yes to all of these. You’d be a good fit for this role if you’ve spent a few years in VC and know you want to build a long-term career in it. Prior investment experience is a requirement. If you’ve been an investor, you know how demanding and competitive it is to earn the right to work with the most ambitious founders. This role is based in the Bay Area and we highly value working in-person with each other (and founders) because we believe it makes us a better team. So much of early-stage investing is about “seeing around corners” when others don’t. Most times when we invest there are no metrics, maybe very little code, and a ton of unknowns. This is the stage of company building we love most. We strive to be independent “first principles” thinkers, intellectually honest, ruthlessly analytical, and fiercely loyal to the founders we support. It’s through their visions that we can glimpse the future before it’s arrived. If you’ve read the above and are interested, then I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]

126

5 Comments

Insightful breakdown from my great Partner Omri Amirav-Drory on the simple factors that really separate the top 1% of investors from the rest, and how more operators should become investors! https://lnkd.in/gEiZdT2h

16

3 Comments

A PATH FOR SMALLER IPOs From Carl Chiou (quoted verbatim), an example of a smaller IPO and what it takes. Thanks Carl! ---- I’ve been busy working on a complex transaction we announced yesterday morning. Powerfleet (AIOT), a ~$500mm market cap vertical software company announced a $200mm acquisition of a privately owned competitor concurrently with a $70mm equity issuance via a PIPE as part of a larger financing package. Why is this relevant to you? Because it demonstrates the art of the possible for smaller companies that aspire to become public companies. First, investor demand absolutely exists for smaller market cap issuers as the company raised nearly 20% of its market cap to finance a transformative acquisition. While it may feel like the path to IPO for private companies requires $500mm+ of revenue, that’s simply not the reality. But… Second, success doesn’t happen overnight as many investors had already met with the company multiple times at conferences and their familiarity with the business and management team allowed them to move quickly. For private companies, that means being active and targeted in investor outreach in the 12-18 months leading up to an IPO. Third, giving up some of the pie to grow the pie can be a win-win for everyone. The equity offering priced at $3.50 versus a prior day close of $4.66, but two days post-announcement, shares are trading comfortable above $5. As much as I’ve written about optimizing IPO pricing, I’m also realistic that for smaller cap issuers, investors are going to underwrite more conservative valuations to accept the risk of less liquid, potentially higher volatility stocks. Fourth, the consolidation thesis resonates with investors as it simplifies the competitive landscape, adds revenue scale and drives improved operational and financial efficiency that improves the bottom line. I continue to believe that as much as the large strategics and private equity will play a role in clearing out the private tech pipeline, small – midsize companies will also be key participants going forward. End of day, Databricks, Stripe and other large scale, high-fliers are going to garner instant investor attention and a high multiple out of the gate when they eventually go public. But for everyone else, it’s important to know that with the right expectations, there is a clear path to an IPO. 1:10 PM · Sep 19, 

57

3 Comments

We're launching the inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks, a deep dive into the metrics and trends observed across the early-stage enterprise cloud market. This is the first look at some of the business data around GenAI in SaaS. Some initial observations: 1) 60% of SaaS companies have already integrated GenAI into their offerings (60% of these as part of their current product and 40% as a new product), and an additional 20% are planning to do so this year. Almost half aren't monetizing these features. Those that are are primarily experimenting with both usage-based and flat fee pricing models. 2) Most companies are utilizing OpenAI as their primary LLM, but many are experimenting with multiple models - and we are noticing an early trend towards intelligently routing GenAI inference requests to different models based on cost, performance, and security. 3) Though we are in the initial innings of GenAI, we are seeing some positive signals - companies that implemented GenAI had 7% higher NDR than those that did not. Still early days, but we'll be doing this benchmarking report regularly to track and share how things progress in this new era. Link to report in comments.

104

6 Comments

As we get prepared for our Angel Conference program, we run workshops to help get things lined up for the right conversations between investors and early pre-seed startups. We have a deadline coming up on August 27th for startups. One of the places that we see companies having a bit of trouble is on the customer discovery side of things. So we have a couple of workshops on that early customer discovery and associated efforts to get traction early before your MVP. As Angel Investors, we need to think with a portfolio mindset instead of investing in one or two companies to "see how it goes". We have a panel of SAC alumni talking about their perspectives on their portfolio of companies. We also know that startups don't practice pitching enough. So we we have workshops for improving pitches before people pitch for real. You can see the upcoming workshops here: AI+Lean  Building automated content experiments for customer discovery Tuesday, August 6, 2024 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM PDT https://lnkd.in/gJMiyQZC Building Your Angel Investment Portfolio Tuesday, August 6, 2024 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM PDT https://lnkd.in/gD9ATSyG Pitch Deconstruction and Review Thursday, August 8, 2024 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM PDT https://lnkd.in/g-RRajrX Finding your first paying customers Tuesday, August 13, 2024 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM PDT https://lnkd.in/gN-DaRJ8 Angel Investing and Taxes Thursday, August 15, 2024 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM PDT https://lnkd.in/gjs9cQfy Solving Real Problems: The Key to Market Success Tuesday, August 20, 2024 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM PDT https://lnkd.in/gYkJFD-X Structuring a Pitch Deck That Engages Investors Thursday, August 22, 2024 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM PDT https://lnkd.in/geyYR4wB Seattle Angel Conference (SAC 26) Application Deadline Tuesday, August 27, 2024 9:00 PM to 9:05 PM PDT  (But REALLY … Apply early)  https://lnkd.in/gM_fSmbZ  Companies need to apply here - https://lnkd.in/gWbtkAaf Please let the folks around you know about these workshops.

49

2 Comments

Exciting news for teams leveraging monorepos! Coherence now supports glob patterns for selective build configuration, bringing unprecedented efficiency to your development pipeline. 🔧 Technical Highlights: • Granular control over build and deploy processes • Intelligent file change detection • Seamless integration with existing CI/CD workflows 💡 Key Advantages: 1. Dramatic reduction in build and deploy times 2. Optimized resource allocation 3. Precision targeting of updates for changed code only 🏗️ Real-world Impact: • Accelerated development cycles • Enhanced productivity for large-scale projects • Significant cost savings on computational resources This feature empowers you to fine-tune your build process, ensuring only necessary services are built and deployed based on actual code changes. It's a game-changer for maintaining velocity in complex, multi-service architectures. Ready to supercharge your monorepo? Dive into our comprehensive documentation to implement selective builds and experience the future of efficient development.

6

Big news from Cephable! This team is transforming interactions with the digital world and creating the accessible future we all deserve. There is nothing better than investing in leaders like Alexander Dunn. Congratulations Cephable and thank you for including Hyperplane in your journey! ➡️ See them in action (I still get goosebumps): https://lnkd.in/eHfCp3iD ➡️ Read the full release here: https://lnkd.in/e68MS2CP

78

7 Comments

Excited to host a 30-minute panel at Andreessen Horowitz Tech Week in SF on Wednesday, October 9. If you're a founder or sales leader at a high-growth startup who predominantly sells into the enterprise, you won't want to miss this discussion. Our expert panelists will share invaluable insights on: - Breaking through to key decision-makers - Structuring an efficient sales process - Proven techniques for closing high-value deals

29

3 Comments

⚖️ JOY WAN. CEO of BestSign: Serving 200+ #Fortune500 Giants & Accelerating In #LegalAI CMS Offering! Joy Wan is a Founder and CEO of BestSign, Asia’s leading e-signature & legal AI contract management solutions provider. Over the incredible 10 year journey Joy has raised over $70M from some of the world’s best investors including #DCM, #Matrix, #ShunWei, #5Y (previously #MorningSide) and #TigerGlobal. Before BestSign, Joy worked as a senior management executive at Apple. --- 𝗜𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗝𝗼𝘆 𝗪𝗮𝗻 𝗪𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀: 𝟏. 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟎 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧e𝟓𝟎𝟎 𝐆𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬: 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧’𝐬 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲 - What sets Bestsign apart from its competitors in a crowded market?  - What key go-to-market strategies are in place to fuel growth?  - Where is the company positioned now, and what major milestones lie ahead? 𝟐. 𝐔𝐧𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩  - Which technological advancements are a top priority for Bestsign’s continued innovation?  - What core mission and vision guide the company’s growth and direction?  - How has Bestsign established a strong, independent investor base, and what are the next steps for maintaining investor confidence? 𝟯. 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻’𝘀 𝗟𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗜 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲  - How does Joy envision Bestsign influencing the legal tech landscape and transforming enterprise solutions globally?  - What AI strategies are being prioritized to maintain a competitive edge and drive impactful market change? --- 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 👉 https://lnkd.in/eTA6UdZ4 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞. 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 & 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐎𝐮𝐫 "𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 & 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬" 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 👉 https://lnkd.in/ePSUFPcf --- 𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝘼𝙄 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙥 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙪𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩? 𝟏. 𝘌𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘈𝘐 𝟐. 𝘋𝘳𝘶𝘨 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘈𝘐 𝟑. 𝘓𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘐 𝟒. 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘈𝘐 🔔 You can make a difference! ⚡ COMMENT the #s 👇. 🚀 We will F/U! --- #kaleaventures #kv #stanleychan #joywan #bestsign #venturecapital #ceo #foundermode #legalai #esignature #legal

5

Orb (#uncorrelated) raised $25M to continue building their pricing and billing platform that lets companies automate a range of different billing modes e.g., usage-based, subscriptions, or a mix, marry analytics and billing, collect and meter product usage data, invoice customers, generate revenue reports, draw on product usage insights to find revenue opportunities, model out alternative pricing plans (thus enabling experimentation), orchestrate changes in real time, schedule future price changes for certain customer cohorts or contract renewals, directly embed draft invoices into product billing portals, surface past-due invoices, and recover failed payments automatically. "Orb gives companies a single source of truth that can connect every unit of product usage to revenue. We’ve found a particularly strong fit in AI, cloud infrastructure, fintech, and dev tools, and have seen most of our growth come from those verticals.” Orb’s revenue grew 5x in the past year, and the customer base tripled to include brands such as Vercel, Replit, Pinecone, and Perplexity. https://lnkd.in/gYh4y2tg

66

4 Comments

How companies purchase software is rapidly evolving, with cloud marketplaces expected to reach $100B in 2026, up from $15B in 2023. Simply put, if you are building and selling cloud software today, it's imperative that you can sell through a cloud marketplace. The journey, however, can be a little confusing, and management can be even harder. With 3x growth last year and 3/4th of our business now flowing through a cloud marketplace, CloudZero switched to Clazar earlier this year to handle our rapid growth, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Trunal B. and Aayush Bahuguna have a big vision for how cloud marketplaces will evolve and how software will be bought and sold in the future. No matter where you are on your journey, learning from them what's coming next is worth your time.

38

3 Comments

💰Sharing a List of 80 Black-led VC funds (US based): About this list: I realized that I couldn’t find a current list of Black-led funds as of 2024 when a lot of new funds have launched over the last couple of years including GPs Sydney Paige Thomas, Terri Burns and more. I have been gathering a list of these funds in my network, and that I could find publicly over time so wanted to share with the ecosystem. Only 2% of VC funds are Black-led: I found 80 funds (maybe there’s more!). There are 3,417 VC firms in the US (according to NVCA). Founders - These funds invest from pre-seed through growth, some with a focus on diverse founders, others more broadly. ⅔ of them have OPEN funding applications that I’ve linked in the sheet. LPs - As mentioned, a number of these funds might not be in the databases used for tracking, so hope to get some more Black-led funds on your radar! VCs - maybe there are some funds you should get to know for deal sharing, etc 👉🏾Link to full list here: https://lnkd.in/gktBhY-W

936

118 Comments