Cat Chen

The newest issue of The Pragmatic Engineer found a surprise uptick in eng hiring in the typically slow summer season - I'm curious to see how the macro environment impacts this uptick as we head into the fall, but I remain hopeful. I asked Gemini to give me the tldr of the article to share with my team (sorry, Gergely Orosz) and found it missed one of the most interesting pieces of the article. Gemini's highlights - Unexpected surge: Tech recruitment has seen an unusual spike in June and July, contrary to typical trends. Increased demand: Startups, especially AI-focused ones, are driving the hiring uptick. Global phenomenon: This trend isn't just limited to the US; Europe is also experiencing increased recruitment activity. Reasons for hiring: Companies are backfilling positions, investing in growth due to improved financials, and responding to increased VC funding. Challenges remain: While the job market is improving, finding qualified candidates and offering competitive compensation remains difficult for many companies. What I found most interesting - The nature of the backfills: the article finds that a lot of new headcount are actually backfills of folks that were "over-slashed" during rounds of layoffs. Not entirely surprising with the "trim the fat" and "rebuild lean" mentality, but interesting nonetheless. Either way, the uptick is encouraging (and don't always rely on Gemini's tldrs). #hiring #startups #VCbacked #softwareengineering

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Join us tomorrow to hear Lisa Orr talk about navigating your next career move as a senior product manager, and me talking about the "mirage" of AI hallucinations. When artificial intelligence (AI) outputs don’t match our shared reality, people have been saying it’s "hallucinating." But hallucination makes it sound like AI is conscious and distracts from the part we humans play in generating synthetic meaning. Do words matter? Learn why we should all change how we talk about AI to promote better understanding in a future world with the ✨sparkling intelligence✨ of AI.

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Check out three M13 portfolio companies currently hiring - Bento (gobento.com) & Lifeforce are making strides in the future of health, while the team at Rho is building the future of fintech. Scroll through to learn more about each and how you can fuel their missions 🚀 #hiring #brightertogether #m13 #bento #lifeforce

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Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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Make something people want. This phrase is repeated over and over in YC circles. You can even get t-shirts and swag with it printed right on it in bright orange & white colors. But don't founders get it by now? Do they really need a sign to remind them? They definitely don't get it, and they do need reminders. Myself included. Soooo many people want to tell you what you should be thinking about and how you should execute. They mean well, but it's honestly exhausting at times. Even more exhausting, it's very easy to convince yourself what you think you should be building. After two years of building Depot, I can clearly say what our "product strategy" is... Build the things people want. Period. If you opened our product roadmap today, you would find nothing that doesn't directly relate to what Depot fans are asking for or needing.

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Some context from the #Founder perspective. As liberal as Seattle is as a city with policy and politics, it's incredibly conservative from an investment standpoint. One of the reasons you may not hear big "home-run" type pitches or pitches with sizzle, is simply because investors in Seattle don't like those types of pitches and Founders have been ingrained to not present in that manner. They may say they do, but ask any Founder and they'll tell you how they have been told to size down their pitch or talk about MVPs, first customer, first revenue, etc. or how what matters more is what you can do first couple years rather than the home run. Those early metrics are important by the way, but different from the big home run. Do you know who is receptive to homerun pitches? Investors in the Bay, NYC, Miami, Hong Kong. Seattle is not great for early-stage Founders with many prioritizing raising outside the city. We will be raising capital in the fall and as of now, have no plans of reaching out to Seattle-based VCs. I should also add that our company has a blockchain component and sadly Seattle VCs have not embraced crypto or blockchain. Welcome to #Seattle, Kyle Lui! Hopefully, you can help change the narrative! GeekWire

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📈 Curious about the startup scene in Massachusetts? Explore our detailed funding list featuring startup names, HQ locations, and investor info. Perfect for investors and entrepreneurs alike! Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dAp3xj-Q #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #managementconsulting

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Let's talk about data and dbt at Foundations on Nov 7th!

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If you're thinking of submitting your YC application or are in the midst of the application process, check out this video by Dalton Caldwell. It covers everything that YC looks for in an application and was a great resource for me during my own journey. Take a look! #YC #startup #entrepreneurship

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Looking to take your product design to the next level? Now’s your chance to register for a Mentoring Session with Karri Saarinen on May 29. Ask your burning questions about his experiences as Co-founder and CEO of Linear, Principal Designer at Airbnb, and the founding designer at Coinbase. He’ll break down why great design makes for great business, and how to get it right in building a product. How to register if you’re not a part of Node? 1. Sign in to the Slush Platform (link in the comments) 2. Create a company profile 3. Click “Join Node” 4. Your application is approved within 24 hours 5. You’ll get an email from us when the application is approved 6. Once you have an account, the you can register with the link in the comments P.S. We have two other upcoming events: 1. May 23: Mentoring Session on Navigating Go-to-market in Deep Tech with Jan Goetz, Co-founder and Co-CEO of IQM Quantum Computers. 2. June 29: Matchmaking Sprint where you can meet investors in virtual 1-on-1 meetings, pitch your company, and get funding.

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Our Kids & Tech Guidebook launched today! If you have a kid in elementary school this book is for you. It lays out 10 practical steps to help you navigate tech choices for your kids. You can download the FREE guidebook at the link below in my comments. Super easy. Check it out!

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It was great hearing from Tony Xu, 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 & 𝗖𝗘𝗢 𝗼𝗳 DoorDash, speak at our weekly YC dinner. Here are my main takeaways: 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁: Tony shared a story where one of the restaurants they were onboarding was short-staffed because the salad chef didn't show up. He personally stepped in as the salad chef for the day, going above and beyond to help. This act built a lot of trust with the restaurant. 𝗡𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁/𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: It was surprising to hear that Tony and his team still do deliveries personally at least once a quarter. They believe in staying connected with the customer experience. Check it out - https://lnkd.in/dan3RNXx 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗸𝗲𝘆: With four founders, they made sure each person had a specific area of responsibility. This clear division helped avoid disagreements and allowed each founder to execute their role effectively. 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿-𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹: Tony believes one reason for their success is that the founders deeply cared about solving the problem, which resulted in a great founder-market fit. #YC #entrepreneur #startups #founderlessons

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So excited for Jiaona Zhang (JZ) to join us on Sauce's next AI for Product. "The best product leaders are chameleons. They lean into different functions to build the best product. They are able to wear different hats & act as a glue. They spot what needs work & go fill that hole." We'll unpack the spiciest 'AI for Product' Qs and what it's like to scale impactful products as CPO Linktree, SVP Product at Webflow and Head of Product at Airbnb. Got questions for JZ?

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My service in the IDF taught me almost everything I know about building startups. (Keep reading so you can skip the army part, lol) I spent 4 years as a combat officer, leading a team of 40+ amazing people. Along the way, I picked up some serious skills in leadership, team building, and figuring out how to get things done. Here are the 3 biggest lessons I learned: 1/ Mission first, always 2/ Make your people the best they can be 3/ There’s literally NOTHING you can’t do These lessons have shaped who I am and how I run my company every single day. ◆ Focusing on the mission keeps me dialed in on the big picture, even when things get tough. It also makes daily tasks easier. Being mission-driven means your tasks get done by the end of the day—if they’re not, then it’s not the end of the day! ◆ Sure, we all want A-Players on our team, but even A-Players need fine-tuning. Helping them grow = helping your company grow. Simple as that. (How do you grow the people around you? That’s a great question for another post!) ◆ Believing anything’s possible if you put in the work? Total game-changer. When you truly believe in yourself, things start to click. Sounds cliché? It’s a mindset. I know I could learn how to play the cello tomorrow morning or be an astronaut—it’s all about how much effort I’m willing to put into it. Military service was hands-down one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was also the most rewarding. Honestly, I have no idea where Windmill Growth would be without it! 😂

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Our story began with a simple idea: to help developers grow. Over the years, this idea evolved into something bigger. We believe location shouldn't be a barrier. Back in 2014, we built Codementor to give developers 1:1 mentorship. We moved from Taiwan to Seattle to join Techstars and bring our vision to life. This was just the beginning. Here's what happened next: → 2017: Codementor grew into a marketplace for freelance developers. → 2019: We created Arc to help developers land full-time remote jobs. → 2023: We introduced HireAI to make hiring developers easier. → 2024: We added designers and marketers to Arc by popular demand. Helping people build careers from anywhere drives us. From a small mentorship platform for developers to a big marketplace now supporting other tech roles, our journey shows what can happen when you care deeply about something. Changing people's lives. We're excited to keep going and see what's next.

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In this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with notable X personality Trung Phan about the evolving social media landscape, and how to tame the mayhem and pandemonium of X. https://lnkd.in/dVHMzbui

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Temporal Technologies has been one of the coolest pieces of infra tech I've used. In this webinar next Tuesday, I'll be doing a deep dive of how we've used Temporal to build out Ampersand's integration engine. Link to register is below.

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