Welcome to Edition 1 of Max’s Musings.

Each week I share my learnings building a $100 billion company in public. I’m fortunate to have many fascinating conversations, see a lot, read a lot, and learn a lot — I want to share that with you (in <2 minutes).

Today’s word count: 625

Read time: 1 mins 42 sec.

Musings

Y Combinator is the new McKinsey

All the mimetic hacks now try to get into Y Combinator. It’s a game with a playbook. The result? YC’s brand has cratered. I continue to be amazed how quickly brand perception can change.

The cost of making a mistake is often less than the cost of moving slow

At Superpower I prefer someone spends 1k without asking and screw up than first ask. The time it takes to ask, think about it, wait for approval, etc, costs more than just spending the money.

Prompting AI is where all the alpha is

As my friend Dre said the moat in AI will be the prompts. Good prompting is the new good writing. Just as few are good writers, few will be good prompters. I tweeted about this here in response to Dwarkesh.

Distinctiveness > pure aesthetics

I asked my friend Joumana her takeaways working with Canva co-founder, Cameron Adams. Her response: Cam will often choose the ‘uglier’ design if it’s more distinctive. I tend to agree.

Focus on the core bet longer than you think

The most memorable conversation from last week was with Z, founder of Ro. He said people chronically underestimate the depth of their core bet. So, double down on the core rather than jumping to the new thing. When to move on? Only when the core is the rate limiting factor on growth.

Health protocol update

I’ve been getting sick a lot lately (despite my great immune protocol).

I think I’ve finally worked out why:

The combination of high ferritin, high iron, and high mold, is suppressing my immune system. This also shows up for me in low white blood cell count, high prolactin, DAO sensitivity, mild histamine sensitivity, high IL-6, and elevated TSH and cortisol.

What steps I’m taking:

1. Donate blood to reduce ferritin, iron and inflammation, and boost immunity

2. Continue my mold detox protocol

3. Add colonics to my detox protocol and assess impact

I’m curious to see if this increases WBC, decreases prolactin, decreases estradiol, and decreases mold levels.

I’m also soon adding Thymosin-alpha 1 peptide followed by MOTS-c. I’ll report back on the results!

As always, you can find my full health protocol here.

Top finds

Brand of the week

Natura is one my favorite early-stage companies right now.

The brand is worth studying. Tech with a human touch. Simultaneously distinctive and refined. As for the Restora font; I’m obsessed – it’s so organic and human, and not many people are using it… yet.

Their hardware has more humanity than Apple or (ironically) Humane. And that’s perfectly consistent with the fact that Natura is building AI friends.

Space of the week

I increasingly think that the secret to a great living room is to (a) frame the view, (b) create a high ceiling (Raumplan style), and (c) have light coming in from at least two sides.

Also, adding materiality to the ceiling — think concrete or timber rather than white paint — goes a long way.

Article of the week:

• Capital-T Taste doesn't exist — the best article I read last month. It has more insights per line than any other.

Other top finds

• Itria in SF is highly underrated. Better food than most of the places that are impossible to get into.

• This video with Masa Son is fascinating. One of the world’s most ‘successful’ people, opens with: I always fear I have not achieved anything yet. I am very ashamed of myself that I have wasted so many years achieving so little.

Quote of the Week

8 years ago my views on health were ignored. 4 years ago people laughed when I said AI would be your doctor. Now they’re fighting. Let’s see what’s next.

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Until next time,

Max