Brian Moran

Co-Founder & CEO

Your ad costs are not the problem.

If you're spending $50 to get a customer who spends $50, do NOT shut off your ads. 

Add one upsell and that $50 customer becomes a $70-85 customer on day one. 

You don’t need to be spending less on ads, just make each customer worth more.

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Founder of SamCart • Scaled to $300M. Acquired Typeset ($75M valuation). Watch me sell them for $1B.

Helping 100,000 creators sell $7B+ with SamCart. Focused on making it easier for creators to launch & grow.

If nobody has ever complained about your price, your price is too low.

Cheap pricing doesn't attract more customers, it attracts worse customers. The people who haggle over $50 are the same people who will drain your support team, leave bad reviews, and churn in 30 days.

Price with confidence or don't price at all.

Worst niches to print money 

- Gaming 
- General lifestyle 
- Travel guides
- Anything targeting 16-22 year olds (they’re broke)

Best niches to print money 

- Fitness (especially women's)
- Finance/Investing 
- Business Education
- Health & Wellness

Study what people with real disposable income buy, then build an offer around that.

6 marketing skills to scale past $10K/month...

1. MARKETING EMAILS

Email is still the most reliable lever in digital products. Period. 

Promotions, newsletters, nurture sequences. Even if you’re not actively posting, you can get repeat buyers without paying for every single click. Worst case, your audience trusts you more. 

Your email list is one of your greatest assets. 

2. DIGITAL ADS

This is how you buy attention, fast. 

You can run ads on websites, social platforms, or search to get in front of new people.

But the real value is the data. Reporting shows what creative works, who’s engaging, and when they convert.

Ads turn marketing into a scoreboard.

3. ORGANIC SOCIAL MEDIA AND BLOG POSTS

You can pay for attention (ads), or you can earn it by posting on social media. 

Social posts educate and build trust with your audience. You can launch a product and they’re already ready to buy. 

It’s time-consuming, but it’s an audience you own. 

4. BRAND WEBSITES

It doesn’t even need to be a full website.

Just one landing page that convinces strangers to buy from you. No “about us” page needed.

If you do it right, it will do all the selling while you sleep. 

5. GRAPHICS AND INFOGRAPHICS

People online like to skim. 

They decide to engage with content within less than a second. 

Great visuals convey ideas faster. 

You can turn abstract concepts into something that can be easily understood and shared without a single word. 

6. WHITE PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES

White papers let you educate and frame the problem. 

Case studies show your audience you know what you’re talking about. 

Both help justify the purchase, especially when your product is higher ticket. 

The best way to get people to buy is proof.

—

♻️ Repost if someone you know needs to learn these skills

Paid subscription communities are the biggest scam in the creator economy and nobody wants to say it.

Here's what actually happens when you launch one.

Month 1: 100 members, you feel like a genius.
Month 3: 65 active subscribers, you're on a hamster wheel trying to get back what you had constantly.

A recurring subscription is harder to sell than a high-ticket product because you're not asking for money once, you're asking someone to commit to paying you forever.

And when your community eventually dies (it will), everyone can see it. A dead Skool group is public and that kills your brand.

If you want to argue with me on this, please name one major entrepreneur who built their fortune on a paid recurring community. You can't.

Marie Forleo, Hormozi, Jeff Walker, Ryan Deiss, all of them made their money the exact same way: low ticket products on the front end, high ticket on the backend. One-time purchases.

We watched membership sites die in 2010 and we're watching the same thing happen with Skool in 2026.

The model is simple. 

Cheap product to build a buyer list, high ticket offers for the people who already like you.

The stuff that changed my life the most is stupid simple: 

> My dad always had a side-hustle but family came first no matter what. 
> Playing baseball taught me more about business than any book.
> Mastering self-talk has created every positive result I ever got. 
> Scaling SamCart from 0-$300M with my brother Scott. 
> Kids changed everything. My net worth 10X’d since having them.
> Lastly wife. Nothing else on this list comes close.

DUMBEST ways to use AI to PRINT $$$:

- Run 15 different SaaS tools 
- Code 15 apps in a weekend
- Act like every new feature is the next big thing 
- Spin up 14 businesses (stupidest thing in the world) 

BEST ways to use AI to PRINT $$$:

- Focus on one business (unless you’re Elon) 
- Speed up your workflows 
- Treat it like a crazy smart assistant to help your business.
- Use it for things that actually generate revenue: product, copy, content, etc. 

Keep falling into the AI influencer hype and you'll still be poor in two years.

How to 10x your team's output with AI (without hiring more people): 

1. Fire anyone against AI use
2. Use AI to remove roles from your hiring plan 
3. Cut workload first
4. Document everything
5. Plug into AI model of your choice
6. Have each member find 5 AI use-cases per role in 7 days

AI doesn’t magically make you more money.

It helps you generate revenue faster and more accurately.

Why I decided to build in public for SamCart:

1. Forces clarity on why we build 
2. Trust compounds faster than numbers
3. Keeps me showing up like day one
4. Gain more affiliate partners
5. Reach better customers 
6. Stronger brand moat
7. Attract more A+ players 
8. Reminds me why I started
9. Forces us to build better software
10. Get more introductions from the right people 
11. Helps me live with balance and work with purpose

You don't need a new job. You need a bigger game.

Two roles. One engineer, one marketer. Both AI-native.

The kind of opportunity that makes you quit something good for something great. SamCart. $30M+ ARR. Nearly $100M raised. $7B+ processed. We're building something brand new inside of SamCart. The next era of eCom. AI that doesn't assist. AI that builds your entire business for you. I need two people who want to be at the center of it.

AI Engineer You've built AI products real people use. Production, not demos. You think like a founder. You ship fast and own the outcome. If you haven't written 500K+ lines with Claude Code or Cursor, don't apply.

AI Growth You've been THE person behind the growth. Not part of a team. THE person. If you haven't had AI managing your ads, spinning up creative, running your blog, writing your emails, and building your funnels, don't apply.

This is NOT a title play, a management role, or a 9-to-5.
This IS founder-level impact, founder-level comp.

You'll work with me daily. Small team. Massive mission. Hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs are about to build businesses in a way that's never existed before. The hardest, most rewarding thing you've ever done.

Apply here → https://lnkd.in/g3MWDYk5 
60 seconds. No resume. Just proof.

Open article: My branded typeform by samcart.typeform.com

Me...

> Did the bare minimum in school
> Hated every job I ever had
> Took a paper shredding job for $15/hr & covered in dust 
> Living in a basement apartment
> Every waking moment I was trying to find a way out
> Studied online business relentlessly for a year
> Made my first sale
> By the end of the year I was doing $80k/month
> Didn’t quit my job because I was too scared it wouldn’t last
> Work found out and fired me on the spot
> Scaled to $100k-$150k/month fulltime 
> Got bored and had the idea for SamCart
> Dumped $1M of my savings into it
> Built SamCart to a $300M+ valuation 
> Building toward $1B exit

graphical user interface, text, application, email

20 y/o using AI:

- Actually uses it 
- Tries every tool out there
- Figures out what's possible in real time
- Spends 20 hrs/day learning thru YouTube

50 y/o using AI:

- “Too busy” to learn
- Barely understands it 
- Outsources it to low level employees
- Doesn’t watch YouTube/X so they stay ignorant

The people who dominate the future will treat AI like an advantage, not a passing trend.

Everyone’s asking me what to sell in 2026.

SamCart powered 75K+ businesses and processed $7B+ in digital product sales, so I never guess what's working or not. 

These 10 fitness digital products are printing money (they’re not slowing down):👇

1. 7-DAY MOMENTUM PLAN

People don’t need another pep talk. 

Build them a simple plan for the next 7 days: 

• Training
• Routine 
• Mindset 

They’ll stop starting over every Monday.

2. WEEKLY MEAL PLANNING SYSTEM

Healthy eating falls apart when it becomes a second job.

Makes eating clean easy with the right system: 

• Mealplans
• Grocery lists
• Macros/Calories 

Simple to deliver. Easy to recommend.

3. NO-GYM BODYWEIGHT PROGRAM

Convenience sells. 

Create step-by-step home workouts with beginner-intermediate progressions.

Zero equipment. Zero excuses.

4. PROGRESS TRACKER

Nothing kills progress faster than guessing. 

Create a central hub to track: 

• Workouts
• Habits
• Weight
• Measurements 

It turns “I feel stuck” into clear next steps.

5. AT-HOME STRENGTH SPLIT

Beginners quit when they’re forced to improvise.

A simple strength split with clear recordings will help people stick to their routine and use correct form. 

“Tell me what to do today” sells forever.

6. MONTHLY RECIPE PACK

A monthly drop of clean, repeatable recipes makes healthy eating easy to maintain.

Works great as a recurring offer without relying on group chat hype.

7. 5–7 DAY FITNESS EMAIL SERIES

Give them daily workouts and a simple nutrition plan.

If you get them a quick win, the next offer becomes an easy yes.

8. HOME GYM STARTER BLUEPRINT

People waste money buying random, overpriced equipment.

Tell them exactly what to buy and how to train with it.

Clear path, strong perceived value.

9. WORKOUT VAULT ACCESS

Build a library of: 

• Past routines
• Challenges
• Recordings 

Consistency is easier when you’ve already done the planning.

10. 30-DAY WELLNESS JOURNAL

Fitness is bigger than workouts.

A daily journal that tracks sleep, energy, food, workouts, and habits helps people connect inputs to outcomes.

Better feedback loop = better adherence.

—

People buy fitness products because they want to be told exactly what to do. 

Less thinking. More doing. Faster progress.

Package it like a system, not a pile of tips.

♻️ Repost if someone you know wants to print money in the fitness niche.

lies about internet money: 

- get-rich-quick coaches are grifters
- courses are pyramid schemes
- u need 10,000+ followers minimum 
- u need a perfect funnel before you can start

truths about internet money: 

- u only need 6 weeks if you execute
- outcomes & experience > information 
- it’s easier to sell to someone who bought
- human touch is MORE valuable than ever

Stop overthinking what to sell in 2026.

These 10 RELATIONSHIP digital products will print money:

(after processing $7B+ and powering 75K+ businesses with SamCart)

1. CONNECTION CARD DECK

Sometimes you’ve got nothing to talk about besides logistics.

Make a deck for couples, friends, or families:

• Light
• Deep
• The stuff people avoid

It turns, “so what’s new?” into actual conversation.

2. BOUNDARIES SCRIPT PLAYBOOK

People don’t struggle with having boundaries.

They struggle with setting them.

Give them a workbook that helps them:

• Name the line
• Say it clean
• Hold it when it gets uncomfortable

A great relationship starts with self-respect.

3. ATTACHMENT PATTERNS GUIDE

A lot of toxic relationships are the same fight on repeat.

Different person. Same pattern.

Teach the basics:
• How each style shows up
• Common triggers
• What to do instead

Help people label it so they can change it.

4. THE FIGHT FAIR CHEAT SHEET

Arguments go sideways when everyone’s improvising.

Create a one-pager for the moment things start heating up:

• De-escalation lines
• Reframes that work
• The next thing to say

Less fallout. Faster repair.

5. THE DATING PROFILE REWRITE KIT

Dating apps punish vagueness.

Build a fill-in guide that helps people:

• Write a bio that filters
• Pick prompts with intent
• Stop wasting time early

Better profile = better options.

6. LOVE LANGUAGE ACTION TRACKER

Knowing your love language is just trivia.

Doing it is the relationship.

Make a tracker that turns it into reps:

• What to do
• When to do it
• How often

Consistency beats intensity every time.

7. RELATIONSHIP RESET JOURNAL

If people don’t process after a breakup, they’re doomed to repeat it.

Build a guided journal that walks them through:

• What happened
• What they allowed
• What they’ll do differently next time

Help them stop dating the same person in a different body.

8. COUPLES ALIGNMENT WORKBOOK

Couples drift apart when there’s no shared vision.

Make a workbook that gets alignment on:

• Finances
• Travel
• Family
• The next 12 months

Do the talk now, not after arguing.

9. DEALBREAKER CLARITY WORKSHEET

Some people ignore dealbreakers.

Other people label everything a red flag and wonder why they’re still single.

Give them a worksheet to sort:

• Dealbreakers
• Growth areas
• Real examples

Better standards. Less chaos.

10. 7-DAY RECONNECT CHALLENGE

A lot of break ups don’t need to happen.

The relationship just needs a reset.

Create a 5 or 7-day challenge with daily actions:

• Connection
• Appreciation
• Quality time

Small moves are all you need to reignite that spark.

People buy relationship digital products because they want a plan they can follow.

Give them structure.
Give them prompts.
Give them reps.

That’s what they need.

♻️Repost the first post of this thread to help someone get rich in 2026

Most operators are losing 8-15% of top line revenue to random fees they don’t even know about. 

(Read this so you can save up to $240K-$450k/yr)

Your first sale is not revenue, it’s proof. 

Proof that someone in the real world will exchange their money for what you built. 

That changes everything because now the only question is how many. 

Not "will this work" but "how do I scale this." 

The problem is that people never make that first sale because they're still perfecting the thing instead of shipping it. 

Launch ugly, and just tweak it every single day based on DATA.

15 ways AI can save you hours every week (whether you run a business or not)

(P.S. Last tip will tell you how to make more money)

1️⃣ Run your calendar automatically
Schedules meetings, blocks focus time, detects conflicts.

2️⃣ Summarize long emails into 3 bullets
Key actions and decisions only. Reply in seconds.

3️⃣ Auto-generate meeting notes
AI joins calls, records decisions, sends summaries.

4️⃣ Build your to-do list from your inbox
Pulls tasks from emails, meetings, and notes. Updates as priorities shift.

5️⃣ Draft emails in seconds
"Follow up on the invoice" becomes a full email in your tone.

6️⃣ Generate personalized workout plans
Goals, schedule, fitness level. AI builds and adjusts the plan.

7️⃣ Track nutrition from a photo
Snap your lunch, get calories and macros instantly.

8️⃣ Brainstorm ideas on demand
Content, campaigns, product names. Creative partner in seconds.

9️⃣ Write reports in minutes
Tell AI the structure, give it data, edit instead of starting from scratch.

🔟 Research without reading 100 articles
Hours of research can be condensed into a clean summary.

1️⃣1️⃣ Get recipe ideas from your pantry
AI suggests meals from what you already have.

1️⃣2️⃣ Plan travel based on your preferences
Recommendations that match your style, adjusted in real time.

1️⃣3️⃣ Learn a new language with AI
Private tutor, real-time corrections, available 24/7.

1️⃣4️⃣ Detect suspicious financial activity
AI flags anomalies and learns your spending patterns.

1️⃣5️⃣ Build presentations without touching slides
Key points in, polished deck out.

And if you're a business owner or creator, AI goes even further.

At SamCart, AI creates your products, writes your copy, builds your site, and sets up your checkout. What used to take 40 people, AI handles for you now.

See what that could look like for your business 👇🏻
https://lnkd.in/gZijvnzW 

♻️ Repost if you're using AI for more than just ChatGPT prompts

samcart.com

Creator Revenue Calculator — How Much Could You Earn?

“My market can’t afford high-ticket” > no u just suck at selling
“Nobody understands the value of my product” > no u just suck at communicating 
“People’s attention spans are down” > no u just suck at holding attention
“My following just wants freebies” > no u just suck at getting them to buy 
“Nobody wants to read our landing page” > no u just suck at writing copy 
“Organic content is dead” > no u just suck at making organic content
“My customers don’t buy software” > no just suck at building software
“Facebook ads don’t work for me” > no u just suck at Facebook ads

I've watched THOUSANDS of digital creators sell $7B in digital products on SamCart. 

The ones doing $1M-$50M/year sell these 10 business digital products: 

1. THE LAUNCH RUNBOOK

Build a step-by-step timeline for before, during, and after: 

• Email schedules 
• Post templates 
• Day-by-day actions

The creators doing this consistently treat every launch like a repeatable system, not a one time event.

2. THE BUYER INTEL KIT

I've watched creators build products nobody asked for and wonder why they're not selling.

Build a kit with: 

• Survey templates 
• Interview questions 
• Frameworks

Find what people will actually pay for. Stop guessing.

3. THE CLIENT INTAKE PACKET

The first 48 hours of a client relationship sets the tone for everything after.

Bundle everything into one reusable packet: 

• Welcome docs 
• Intake forms 
• Kickoff emails 
• Expectation-setting templates

The best sellers treat their process like a product.

4. THE CONVERSION PAGE FRAME

A blank page is the reason most people never launch.

Give them a proven layout with: 

• Copy prompts 
• Section structure 
• Headline formulas

We've seen what converts across $7B in transactions. Structure wins every time.

5. THE EMAIL CAMPAIGN VAULT

The creators burning out before their launch even closes are usually writing emails from scratch every time.

Bundle the templates they need: 

• Welcome sequences 
• Launch emails 
• Cart close copy

Build it once so they can use it forever.

6. THE CONTENT PIPELINE CALENDAR

Build 30-90 days of content ideas with: 

• Hooks organized by content type 
• Topics mapped to the buyer journey 
• Enough variety to stay consistent

The ones posting every day aren't more creative. They're more organized.

7. THE DM CLOSING SCRIPTBOOK

Closing in DMs doesn't have to feel like being a used car salesman.

Build fill-in-the-blank scripts for: 

• Discovery conversations 
• Handling objections 
• Following up without being weird

The best closers have a repeatable process.

8. THE BRAND BUILDER PLAYBOOK

People make a decision before they read a single word of your copy.

• Colors and fonts 
• Tone and voice 
• Positioning that builds trust fast

The sellers who look like real businesses get treated like real businesses.

9. THE LOW-TICKET OFFER STARTER

Every creator I've talked to has knowledge worth $27-$97. 

They just don’t know how to package it.

Build a mini-course that covers: 

• How to pick the topic 
• How to structure it 
• How to price and launch it

The first product doesn't even need to be good. It just has to exist.

10. THE NICHE VALIDATION WORKSHEET

The most expensive mistake I see is someone building a product for a market that was never going to pay.

Build a guided workbook to: 

• Pick a profitable niche 
• Define the exact buyer 
• Validate demand before building anything

♻️Repost this to help someone make more money in 2026

Building in stealth (for now). If you want a peek behind the curtain, DM me and I’ll show you.

Blaine Davis

Just got back from South Africa. Still processing how incredible that trip was.

We started with a few days on safari, then explored Cape Town, and ended at the wedding of one of my best high school friends. (Joseph M. Shook, IV – congrats on getting married and thank you for inviting us! It was a beautiful wedding, and we had an amazing time.) 

The safari was unbelievable.

What I loved about it is the same thing I love about fishing – you can’t control it. You can’t schedule the moment you see something amazing. You just have to be present and pay attention.

It was summer there, the landscape was full of growth and cover, and a lot of the animals had just had babies. We got to see baby lions, baby elephants, herds moving through the brush.

Being out there immersed in nature forces you to slow down. There’s a stillness to it that’s hard to explain.

Cape Town is also one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to.

And the contrast across South Africa – the way different worlds exist side by side – was really cool to see up close.

This was a true bucket-list, once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Grateful I got to experience it.

Cold outbound is so cooked right now that people are putting “Your name is on the Epstein list” in the subject line just to get an open.

That’s where we are.

Reply rates on cold outbound used to be ~15% a decade ago.
Now they’re sub-1% in a lot of industries.

So naturally, people are escalating the shock value. 

But using something wildly insensitive as the Epstein list just to hijack attention isn’t creative. It’s lazy (and it burns trust before the conversation even starts).

That said… I do respect smart, timely creativity.

A friend of mine, Skyler Birk-Stachon, sent 100 cold emails to Canadian COOs the day after Canada lost gold to the U.S. in the Olympics.

Subject line: “gold medal workspace”

Email opened with:

“Hey there eh 🍁

So sorrey you got silver yesterday (again), but you were so close I wanted to give you a chance to get gold today!”

Then he tied it into improving their Notion workspace.

That’s actually funny – and it's relevant to the pitch.

Big difference.

If cold outbound is going to survive (which it probably won’t if we’re being honest), it can’t rely on shock value. Everyone’s numb to that now.

It has to feel human, observant, and at the very least *slightly* clever.

Otherwise you’re just another screenshot on Linkedin of “look how insane this sales email was.”

I laugh every time I see a new “company” that’s really just an AI wrapper.

But here’s the thing – just because a startup is technically a wrapper doesn’t mean it won’t win.

Not everyone is going to train foundation models. It’s insanely expensive, and most startups aren’t trying to compete with OpenAI.

There are absolutely companies that will build real value on top of existing models.

At the same time… some categories are getting ridiculous.

My favorite example are all these AI note takers.

Every Zoom call now has 2–3 random bots joining.

“Fathom joined.”
“Otter joined.”
“Some new AI assistant joined.”

It’s like a digital conference room full of interns silently recording everything.

One, it’s annoying as hell.

Two, I swear I see a new one launch every week.

That’s probably the cleanest example of the wrapper phenomenon – highly replicable, easy to spin up, differentiated mostly by branding and distribution.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Some of those companies will still do very well.

Because distribution, positioning, and trust matter just as much as raw technical innovation.

You don’t have to build the base model to build a business.

But if your only edge is “we also connect to GPT”… good luck.

There’s a Zen saying I’ve loved for a long time –  because it perfectly captures what discipline means to me:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

I first heard it years ago and then again when I was in Japan visiting a temple.

It stuck with me because it’s a reminder that no matter what level you reach – money, status, success – the work doesn’t go away.

You still chop wood.
You still carry water.

I think a lot of people believe that once you “make it,” things get easier.

They don’t.

The problems, the scale, and the pressure change. 

But the daily discipline? That stays the same.

The best founders I’ve seen understand this. Their level of discipline doesn’t drop as their level of success rises.

They’re steady.

Because discipline always matters.

And it doesn’t care how successful you are.

My first real swing at starting a company failed because of COVID – and it taught me a brutal lesson about timing. 

The idea was in sports tech. Think an early version of something like 5 Iron Golf: indoor simulators, a software layer, physical locations. We wanted to build both the tech and the spaces.

The thesis was solid, and the demand was there…

Then COVID hit.

Suddenly we’re trying to raise money for an in-person concept when the entire world is terrified of indoor activities. 

On paper, so many pieces were right.

But the timing was wrong – and we couldn’t raise what we needed.

It’s an uncomfortable realization as a founder. You want to believe that if you’re smart enough, scrappy enough, hardworking enough…you can make anything possible. 

Sometimes you just can’t. Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose.

Even exceptional founders get clipped by timing. 

But the lesson I took away from it wasn’t “don’t try.”

It was to respect timing just as much as you respect product, team, and execution.

When users start asking, “Can this just work inside what I already use?” that tells me two things are coming:

1) Consolidation.

Big platforms will keep absorbing smaller tools that primarily live on top of them. If your product’s main interface is Slack, Teams, or Gmail… don’t be surprised when those platforms decide to own that layer.

2) The bar for new software just went way up.

AI made building easier. That doesn’t mean adoption got easier. It means expectations exploded.

Consumers are exhausted. So if you’re asking someone to learn a brand new system, it better be exceptional.

From a VC lens, this shifts how I think about opportunity.

If you’re building:

– Either integrate into an interface people already live in
– Or build something so undeniably good that it earns the right to change behavior

There’s zero patience now for “nice to have.”

Meta just delayed its major AI model “Avocado” – and that tells you how brutal this race has become. 

Even a company as big as Meta is still playing catch-up in foundational models, and when the model isn’t strong enough versus what’s already out there, you don’t have many good options.

You either ship something weak and get penalized for quality…or delay and get penalized for momentum.

I think delaying was the right call.

Strategically, it’s better to take the hit now than launch a model that underdelivers and damages confidence. (In this market, people forgive delays faster than they forgive bad products.)

That said, this still doesn’t exactly bode well for Meta’s long-term positioning. 
If you keep getting cornered into admitting you’re “not quite ready,” that tells you how hard it is to lead in this category.

So to me, delaying Avocado was smart, but it also highlights just how far behind they are in this race. 

AI is moving so fast that even the giants don’t get a pass.

The DoD naming Anthropic a “supply-chain risk” is one of the more interesting AI policy moves we’ve seen in a while.

It’s also pretty extreme. 

Anthropic is one of the first U.S. companies to receive that designation. Historically, that label has been reserved for companies tied to adversarial governments like China or Russia – not major American AI labs.

My read on this:

1) This looks more like a power move than a policy move.

It’s a classic dealmaking tactic: the DoD is leveraging policy to apply pressure on a major AI company.

2) Anthropic and OpenAI are more similar than some people would like to admit.

The federal government clearly favors working with OpenAI over Anthropic. And I think Anthropic is acting like they’re “holier than thou” – even though they have a ton of similarities with OpenAI. That’s why the “good lab vs bad lab” framing feels performative IMO.

3) Anthropic’s concern about surveillance is valid.

If the default becomes broad surveillance of U.S. citizens without clear guardrails, that should concern everyone.

4) They will eventually come around to government work.

Most companies avoid government contracts for as long as possible until they see how large and long-lasting those deals can be, so I think Anthropic will eventually go for that. 

Personally, I agree with what Anthropic is standing for. 

Constant surveillance of US citizens shouldn’t become the default, and this DoD designation feels unprecedented and potentially overreaching.

The broader issue: 

We need clearer rules for how AI companies engage with national security – before case-by-case pressure tactics become the norm.

In the early days, I took Paul Graham’s “Do Things That Don’t Scale” literally – I processed every single customer payment by hand.  

We had a custom payments flow that didn’t exist yet.

So instead of building some big, beautiful infrastructure from day one, I processed every single payment manually.

Every. Single. One.

Bank transfers. Double-checking amounts. Making sure customers got paid correctly. Acting as the middleman between both sides.

It took an excruciating amount of time (probably a few hundred hours I’ll never get back).

But I needed to understand the flow:

– Where people got confused.
– What they expected to see.
– What felt clunky.
– Where trust mattered most.

If we had pre-built the full system upfront, we would’ve guessed at half of that.

A lot of founders overbuild too early. They architect for scale before they understand reality.

Doing it by hand forced me to learn the money movement inside and out.

Only after that did we build a more complex, proprietary system – and when we did, it was informed by real behavior, not assumptions.

It wasn’t glamorous, and it definitely didn’t “scale.” 

But it made the scalable version 10x better.

Robinhood’s startup fund dropping 16% on debut wasn’t shocking to me.

It raised real capital (~$658M, up to ~$706M with allotment), but the market still said:

“At this price? Not yet.”

My take is it was probably mispriced at launch.

The basket composition didn’t line up with what investors actually wanted (people were hoping for names like OpenAI/SpaceX, not a random-feeling mix). 

In this market, buyers are much more disciplined on valuation when the brand story isn’t strong enough.

And yes, macro matters too.
When there’s geopolitical uncertainty and broader market pressure, buyers get pickier.

What’s interesting, people say valuation doesn’t matter in AI.
But that’s only true for a small group of elite names.

For everything else, valuation still matters. A lot.

I do think this space works long term, but this debut was a reminder that demand for “startup exposure” and demand for “this exact package at this exact price” are two very different things.

Matt Shumer’s article hit 80 million views for a reason – but I do think it’s a lot of fear mongering dressed up as inevitability. 

That doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Some of it is undeniably true.

Shumer says two years ago in AI time is “ancient history.”
Frankly, two months ago feels ancient.

The models today are dramatically better than what most people tried in 2023. If your last experience with AI was early ChatGPT, you’re operating off outdated information.

Things are moving fast.

But here’s the part we need to zoom out on:

We live in a microcosm.

I saw a stat recently that only ~15% of people have meaningfully used AI. A much smaller percentage are paying for it or integrating it deeply into their workflow.

Meanwhile, if you’re on X or LinkedIn, it feels like the entire economy is about to evaporate.

Both things can be true:

Yes, entry-level white collar jobs will be impacted.
Yes, many roles will disappear.

But when the internet showed up, people didn’t “lose their jobs forever.” Capacity shifted. New roles emerged – and entire industries were created that nobody could’ve predicted in 1985.

This feels similar.

It’s not calm or slow by any means…but it’s also not extinction.

Things are going to look different. (That part feels undeniable.)

But I don’t think it’s a question of “are jobs disappearing?”

It’s: where is capacity shifting – and are you moving with it?

https://lnkd.in/ekx2XyFB

Open article: Something Big Is Happening by Matt Shumer • 21 min read

“AI for investing” is the latest trend in get-rich-quick schemes. 

I’ve been using AI to trade myself, and it’s actually pretty funny. I even have my Clawdbot trading prediction markets every day.

At first, it did really well.
Since then, it’s been more like: up a little, down a little, mostly average.

So no, I haven’t retired yet haha.

To me, this whole trend says a lot more about people than it does about the tech: everyone is looking for a get-rich-quick angle, and now AI is the latest version of that story.

You see it all over X – people running bots, trading prediction markets, trying to automate their way to easy money.

I get the excitement, I’ve tried it myself.
And I do think we’re getting closer to models that can be genuinely useful in investing workflows.

But right now, “AI for trading” is still mostly a reality check. Interesting edge in some cases…but not a magical money printing machine.

If it were, I’d be writing this from a tropical beach somewhere.

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Brian Moran's LinkedIn Performance

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