Tom Markiewicz

It feels like there are two modalities of competition in Silicon Valley today. Both are valid and interesting and can lead to big outcomes. Modality 1: Work on something legible. Out execute everyone. --> This means that you are working on something that is future-facing but at this stage not a contrarian opinion --> You will likely have multiple competitors --> There will be an insane amount of noise in the ecosystem --> The path to victory here just means growing as fast as possible. --> This is a 100m dash.....for a long time. --> People will ask you about moats yada yada yada...and your answer should be: "Winning is the moat" A lot of successful AI companies (ala Luma, Gamma) are executing this playbook incredibly well. It's not for the faint hearted and requires peak-level performance for long periods of time. Modality 2: Work on something truly illegible and contrarian. --> It is CRITICAL that a lot of people laugh at your when you explain your idea (or at the very least, think your approach is dumb) --> You should not have many other people taking similar approaches --> You want to take your time in the early days and make sure you don't fall into the gravity well of Modality 1 Both of these modalities are valid approaches but you get into trouble when you fall in between. An issue I see often is when someone in Modality 1 but thinking they are in Modality 2. They are in a dogfight but don't realize it. They pay too much attention to the competition....get psyched out by funding rounds etc. If you are in this mode, the only thing to do is to put on blinders and work very very hard. Modality 2 is often more "fun".....but requires real creativity and being in the wilderness for a while. You must not care about a lot of the status games that Silicon Valley plays in the short run. Get in the Arena but make sure you know what game you are playing.

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"AI companies are really buoying the American economy right now, and it’s looking very bubble-shaped." Chatted with Michael Hiltzik over at the LA Times about GPT-5, AI hype, and the growing bubble. https://lnkd.in/gAhnNkzV

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MIT dropped a report that’s shook some enterprise AI folks…Forbes was hustling last night to cover it, and I shared as many thoughts as I could. Here’s what matters: We’ve been saying enterprise AI fails because it’s “confidently wrong”. Now MIT has the data to back it up: 95% of AI pilots deliver zero ROI. That stat validates what PromptQL has been solving for quietly and steadily over the last 2 years — the reliability gap in enterprise AI connected to data. The problem isn’t what most people think. And the solution isn’t what most companies are building. Here’s the real insight that didn’t make it into the article: Most enterprises are asking the wrong question. They ask “Is our AI smart enough?” when they should ask “Would our AI hold up under oath?” Because every AI answer is testimony. In finance, healthcare, and government, if your AI can’t show its sources and reasoning like evidence in court, it’s not enterprise-ready. It’s just an expensive demo. Full Forbes piece on PromptQL here: https://lnkd.in/ggjDJSzH

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The White House just endorsed Thunder Compute. Not literally, but the new AI Action Plan might as well have our business plan attached. The American AI Action Plan states: "Ensure access to large-scale computing power for startups and academics by improving the financial market for compute. Currently, a company seeking to use large-scale compute must often sign long-term contracts with hyperscalers—far beyond the budgetary reach of most academics and many startups." This is exactly what we've been building: better access to compute. When even federal policy is calling out Amazon Web Services (AWS) commitments, you know there's a problem.

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"Get out of the building" isn't just startup advice. It's essential for defense tech founders. Ian Tien learned this building Mattermost into a platform that serves government and defense organizations worldwide. His advice for defense tech startups cuts through the Silicon Valley mythology that government sales take years and aren't worth pursuing. Startup solutions can provide significant value in these environments. More insights from Ian Tien (CEO, Mattermost) on our latest Founders in Arms episode. Link in comments.

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We teamed up with The Product Folks on mosAIc 2025 - a virtual build a thon for AI builders. As part of the buildathon, there are several hands-on workshop that covers everything from evals, prompting, and agent design to security, infra, and shipping production-ready flows. This is what it actually takes to build a working agentic application. Alongside speakers such as Arvind, Ji Huang, Madhu, Akash, Rohit Khanna, Rahul, Vaibhavi, Eashan, I'll be doing a hands-on workshop as well, to answer questions like: → What truly goes into building an AI agent that can do real meaningful job - layers involved in building it → How do agents work securely on behalf of users and connect with external tools to get the job done. → How should builders think about auth where agents are the primary actors If you’re working on AI infra or products, this is probably the most useful 2 weeks you’ll spend this year. Last few spots left. Link in the comments.

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