GREG ISENBERG

claude code will probably make 50,000 people millionaires if not more

Bill Gurley (@bgurley) CLEARLY outlines his AI thesis in 14 minutes to Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) 1. Every real tech shift that creates wealth also attracts speculation, and the two usually show up together 2. AI looks like an industrial wave where real companies and workflows get built, even while money moves too fast around it 3. Fast gains pull in people chasing exposure, which explains the rise of SPVs, loose deal structures, and crowded trades 4. Big companies take more risk when they feel like they’re winning, which is how all these circular AI deals start to appear 5. Private markets demand experience because outcomes swing hard and information stays messy 6. The biggest AI returns already happened early, which makes later bets harder and way more selective 7. Large model companies focus on core platforms, leaving plenty of room in specific industries and workflows 8. The strongest AI businesses live inside real day-to-day work, where systems get stitched together. 9. Becoming fluent with AI inside your own field is one of the smartest career moves right now. Its sound obvious but so true. 10. "I dont care what field you are in you should be playing with this AI stuff. Be the most AI-enabled version of yourself"

It feels pretty obvious at this point that someone’s going to make billions building a social app that’s just for friends, no AI slop, no brainrot, calm design, chronological feed and no concept of followers.

HOW TO WIN IN THE AI AGE You are competing against people who copy what exists and let AI remake it. Most design, writing and product work comes from AI copying existing references in generic mode, which is why the internet feels like an endless conveyor belt of bland. The moment you push past that baseline and force the model to do something uncomfortable, you separate yourself from the entire curve. Giving it original ideas + references outside your niche. The people who win are the ones who insist on originality in a world that keeps asking for “good enough.” The reason this matters is because default effort produces default outcomes, and default outcomes disappear instantly in a feed that never stops moving. I bet these default startups have more and more friction standing out going further as AI makes startup making more like a machine. People can FEEL the difference between something generated and something directed, between something assembled and something authored. AI will happily produce the average case forever, but it will never choose to take the creative risk that changes how something feels. And that's where the alpha is!!! Anyone can generate. Almost no one curates, edits, reworks, reshapes, interrogates, or pushes until the thing becomes unmistakably theirs. The edge is in the taste you bring to the model, the choices you make that the average user will never even see, and the willingness to throw away nine versions to get to the tenth that feels alive. In a world where everyone has access to the same tools, the only real advantage is the person who refuses to behave like a default setting.

dear founders, build like the clock’s running out. the window is open but it won’t stay. for the first time in history, you have free distribution from social platforms and infinite leverage from AI tools. you can reach millions without permission. the internet is handing out unfair advantages to anyone bold enough to use them so... ship before you understand it. clarity comes from commits. half your roadmap is ego, delete it. launch "ugly". talk to users every day. build what you wish existed. best ideas are the most obvious painful. go niche. no, go superniche. vertical is your moat. clarity comes from commits. half your roadmap might be ego, delete it. make ugly things until they work. share prototypes that break. kill what doesn’t grow. use AI as leverage, not decoration. test ten things before breakfast. delete your roadmap. double down on what works. design for clarity, not cleverness. brand before code. write daily. post your lessons. find your first hundred users manually. distribution is the new product. attention is the new funding. taste is the new code. build small cults. scale later. automate boring things. keep the human parts human. study why things spread. study why things die. pricing is positioning. aesthetics are trust. make people feel something. ignore haters. build in weird corners of the internet. break things publicly. pivot loudly. consistency compounds. only raise VC if you dream of going IPO one day. otherwise, cash-flow is your BFF. your network is distribution. your story is marketing. your design is psychology. ship like it’s day one. iterate like you’re behind. stay obsessed. learn faster. think longer. risk embarrassment. make noise. build the thing that keeps you up at night. money follows obsession. stay in motion. stay loud. stay building. distribution is an art form now. AI makes it easy to make things; the hard part is making things that matter. build like the world’s ending in a year but your idea has to outlive it we’re living in a window of maximum leverage and minimum permission im rooting for you. best, greg isenberg just another founder rooting for you

i think we're in a bubble of discussing if we're in an AI bubble or not

a huge number of “ai products” feel impressive for 72 hours and then quietly exit your life without friction, which is starting to look like the defining failure mode of this cycle

truth is you can tell a lot about a company based on how hard it is to cancel their product

the story of nikita bier (@nikitabier)

Apple JUST quietly announced something that’s a lot BIGGER than it looks: "the Mini Apps Partner Program" Apple is admitting that the future of software is embedded, lightweight, vertical mini-apps distributed inside bigger app For founders who want to make $$ building apps: 1. Apple just legitimized the “superapp” model for the West. China has WeChat mini-programs. India has PhonePe Switch. The West has… nothing. Apple just opened the door. You can now run HTML/JS mini-apps inside a native host and earn 85% on qualifying purchases. That’s Apple-sanctioned platform piggybacking. 2. Distribution arbitrage becomes real again. You don’t need to convince users to download your app. Just partner with a host app and drop in a mini-app. This is a cheat code for early traction. Think: travel apps hosting niche tools, fitness apps hosting mini workouts, marketplaces hosting micro-utilities. 3. Apple is creating a new economy layer: “embedded SaaS.” Imagine: CRM mini-apps inside vertical tools. Math solver mini-apps inside education apps. Calendar mini-apps inside productivity apps. The TAM for tools that don’t need standalone installs just went vertical. 4. Developers get an 85% revenue share. This is Apple basically saying: “We want this ecosystem to grow, and we’re willing to cut our take rate.” When Apple lowers its cut, I pay attention because they see a platform shift coming. 5. AI makes this 10× more important. LLM-powered micro-apps (calculators, planners, agents, coaches, niche utilities) are tiny by design. They’re perfect mini-apps. Apple just created infrastructure for AI-native micro utilities to live inside bigger apps with built-in commerce. 6. Host apps become new “distribution landlords.” If you own an app with traffic, you become a platform. You can host mini-apps, take a cut, and build a developer ecosystem around you. It’s a new monetization model for existing apps with audiences. 7. This unlocks a wave of second-order opportunities. - Agencies helping apps become mini-app hosts - Mini-app dev shops - “Shopify for mini-apps” toolkits - Mini-app marketplaces - Analytics for mini-app performance - Discovery engines for mini-apps - I'll be dropping mini app ideas on @ideabrowser and @startupideaspod TLDR; Apple just turned every high-traffic app into a potential superapp and every indie developer into a potential platform partner. The App Store is becoming modular, composable, and layered. The next decade of consumer apps will look less like standalone products and more like ecosystems stitched together with mini-apps. This is quietly one of the biggest distribution unlocks in years.

it’s not about how much MRR you have with your startup, it’s about how many HAPPY customers you have

"The quantity of AI-generated articles has surpassed the quantity of human-written articles being published on the internet"

2026 is the GREATEST time to build a startup in 30 years I’m 36. I’ve sold 3 startups, helped build companies that raised billions, and backed teams from seed to unicorn. 20 MEGA shifts that make this the BEST time to build in a GENERATION: 1. Hardware got smart. Download open-source AI models from HuggingFace to cheap robots and they're suddenly smart. Opens up tons of use-cases. 2. SaaS is imploding. AI can replicate $500K software for pennies. Enterprise software that took 30 engineers now requires 1 and a Claude Code subscription. Founders will go more niche and more custom and outprice incumbents. 3. Outcome-based pricing is eating subscriptions. With AI agents handling work automatically, founders can guarantee results instead of selling features. This creates a massive arbitrage opportunity to steal market share from rigid subscription models. 4. Vibe marketing is the new marketing. AI agents/tools like Lindy, Gemini and Claude Code Using agents to do personalized outreach, ads and content creation it’s getting good. This is like getting on social in 2005. 5. Social is FYP-ified. Distribution no longer requires massive followings, just content that hits. Founders can build audience from zero without ads and then convert them to owned media channels (text/email). 6. Interfaces are vanishing. Conversations are replacing dashboards across industries. This removes training barriers and means customers can use sophisticated products immediately. 7. Companies are obsessed with efficiency and cutting costs right now. Corporate budgets are getting reallocated to AI. Companies are cutting traditional software spend to make room for AI-powered alternatives. This creates fast-tracked approvals for startups delivering 10x efficiency. 8. 99% of MVPs won't need VC. Low-cost MVPs combined with creator partnerships and AI automation allow bootstrapped scaling. For most software businesses, outside funding is now unnecessary. 9. Global teams. You don’t need to hire in your own city anymore. Opens up tons of arbitrage opportunities and ways to create products unlike before. 10. Millions of creators want to get paid. If you have the right product, the right network of creators, you can hit scale insanely efficiently. Never before did this exist. Next gen founders are building startups community first, software second. 11. Prototyping is nearly instant. With Lovable, Rork etc, you can test ideas in days, not months. MVP speed is basically 1x/week. This creates room for multiple products from small companies (multipreneurship), helps get to PMF faster, 12. LLM APIs create building blocks weekly. I can’t even keep up with how many new APIs/tools coming out from LLMs weekly. Example: Nano Banana pro comes out, probably 1000 ideas built on top of that can be $5M/year businesses. 13. $1m+ revenue per employee. With the leverage of LLMs, community and agents, employees are way more efficient. It won’t be uncommon to generate $1m per employee. This will lead to a rise of "multipreneurship", small teams owning multiple products /businesses. Holding companies will be as common as startups. 14. Superniche is the new niche. Because costs to create software startups is 1/100th, you can service little niches (i call them superniches) and still have a life-changing business. 15. Mobile app ecosystem about to 10X. 2 reasons. First is, adding AI to apps make apps more useful. More useful apps, make more money. Second, 16. Compliance and boring workflows are suddenly buildable. Permits, audits, insurance, payroll edge cases, filings, RFPs. These were “too annoying” for startups before. Agents thrive on rules, checklists, and repetition. The least sexy problems now have the best unit economics. 17. Claude Code killed the “engineering bottleneck.” The constraint is no longer “can we build it,” it’s “do we understand the workflow deeply enough.” The winning founders are ex-operators who encode tribal knowledge into agents. Code is cheap. Taste + domain insight is scarce. 18. The long tail of software is now profitable. Niches that capped at $200k ARR can clear $5M with near-zero marginal cost. 19. Services are quietly becoming software. Manual agencies are one agent away from product margins. 20. if AI can replicate $500K software for $20/month, what’s your moat? distribution, customer service, brand, data etc. REALLY good time to be a world class designer/marketer. (and even more.... but this is getting long already!) We've entered the rarest of windows... when multiple technological shifts collide at once, creating a brief period where small teams can build things that were previously impossible. THE FUTURE OF BUILDING STARTUPS IS DIFFERENT. I know this... This unique moment won't last forever. Markets will adapt. Giants will respond. The window will close. But right now, a founder with clear vision and bias for action can build more in six months than was previously possible in years. (note: if you need an idea to get creative juices flowing, grab one at @ideabrowser) The next generation of great companies is being created right now, many by founders you've never heard of. Some by people who would never have had a shot in previous cycles. That's the beauty of these rare windows. The playing field briefly levels, and the future belongs to those who see it clearly and move first. It's a sacred time, don't bookmark/share this, build something in 2026, will ya? Happy building, my friends. 2026 is yours. Am I wrong?

This might be obvious but in a vibe coding world, where the amount of websites/apps is going to 100x, the value of a high quality dot com or dot ai goes way up

claude opus 4.5 is finally here, so we tested it against gemini 3 to see which one is the better at vibe coding we took a new startup idea and went from idea to landing page to prototype to ad creative in one sitting. you also see how @boringmarketer uses claude skills to get the most out of claude opus 4.5 (and how you can do the same). if you’re wondering whether opus 4.5 is worth using, this 1hr tutorial will help you decide and learn how to get the most from it.

30 ways to find your next $10K+ MRR idea for 2026: 1. Read GitHub issues and look for recurring pain points developers ignore. 2. Set Reddit alerts for “I wish someone would build…” and validate demand. 3. Build an agent around a single recurring vertical Upwork task that pays well. 4. Monitor API changelogs and build integrations the day they launch. 5. Summarize 1-star Chrome Store reviews with ChatGPT and fix the top three complaints. 6. Audit browser DevTools to see what power users still do manually. 7. Reverse-engineer topProduct Hunt hits, then apply AI to improve them. 8. Read YouTube tutorial comments to see what viewers still can’t figure out. 9. Watch Twitch streamers and note what workflows interrupt their flow. 10. Scan job listings for repeated “must-know” tools; build easier versions. 11. Dig through graveyard from companies like Google and ship the best abandoned projects. 12. Implement new AI research papers as usable web apps. 13. Explore niche subreddits and find problems that appear every week. 14. Review SaaS feature requests and build what the big players delay. 15. Connect open-source tools that don’t yet talk to each other. 16. Track “Chrome extension for X” search volume to spot new demand. 17. Feed GPT the top extension descriptions and ask for adjacent product ideas. 18. Use Perplexity Deep research etc to mine podcast transcripts on people's daily frustrations they’re telling you what to build. 19. Follow changelogs and tech-stack migrations of popular startups; build the missing glue. 20. Look at Zapier’s most-used zaps and each one could be an autonomous agent. 21. Track “AI for X” or “agent for X” search queries with SerpAPI. 22. Analyze public Notion templates and build vertical agents around them. 23. Browse LinkedIn for people describing manual data tasks and productize one. 24. Watch how startups use ChatGPT for customer support and make a vertical agent from it. 25. Rebuild niche directories (lawyers, therapists, realtors) as AI concierge services. 26. Create agents that plug into boring SaaS categories: procurement, compliance, HR ops. 27. Read changelogs from AI model providers; build tooling the day new capabilities appear. 28. Find spreadsheets that companies rely on and replace them with AI dashboards. 29. Identify agencies that charge per project and productize their work into recurring SaaS with agents. 30. I built a tool that automates a lot of this, http:// ideabrowser.com and we give away 1 free startup idea per day with paid plans for AI agents to help you. Maybe it'll get your creative juices flowing. I'm rooting for you. TLDR; – The next big idea is probably hidden in a comment thread. – Every complaint online is a free focus group. – Chase friction. every pain point is a map. find one, solve it, then look for the next one it connects to. keep solving until the solutions form a workflow people can’t live without. by owning the whole chain of pain you build defensibility. – Every repetitive task is a business model waiting for an agent. – The internet keeps leaving clues, just gotta listen

THIS IS WHAT'S KEEPING ME UP AT NIGHT: 1. AI will kill the concept of a 9–5 for millions. MANY get laid off, become freelancers, shift to portfolios of agent-assisted work. 2. livestreaming explodes 100×. it becomes the only way to prove you are real and not AI. Twitch will look like one of the greatest acquisitions of all time. 3. the creator economy is graduating into the founder economy. audiences are mobilizing into companies, funds, and franchises. MrBeast was just the prototype! 4. we’re entering the app recombination era. the biggest startups of 2026 will be built by remixing three or four existing AI tools into new vertical workflows. 5. agents will start talking to other agents, and you won’t be in the loop. every “human in the middle” job becomes an API call between two models. 6. AI is collapsing the value chain. agencies, recruiters, consultants, and project managers disappear while micro-operators running ten-agent stacks take their place. 7. distribution goes agentic. every AI company will run a thousand influencer agents testing titles, thumbnails, and CTAs nonstop. ad spend becomes a living organism. i hope you like testing. 8. personalization flips commerce. the same product sells for fifty prices through fifty custom funnels, each built by AI for that buyer. price discovery becomes dynamic. this is prob better for business owners and worse for consumers :( . 9. data privacy becomes the new luxury. entire brands form around “human-only,” “no-model,” or “offline verified.” authenticity becomes a trillion-dollar aesthetic. 10. creators will own AI studios instead of channels. one prompt becomes a short, an app, a brand, a product line. the boundary between content and company disappears. 11. the big social platforms fracture into signal markets. people will trade ideas, audience data, and prompt assets the way day-traders swap stocks. virality gets financialized. already happening. 12. energy becomes the next constraint. every AI boom ends in a power bottleneck. whoever solves cheap, local compute with solar or geothermal wins the century. 13. storytelling becomes an economic engine again. the only moats left are narrative, taste, and trust. 14. AI-native insurance becomes a massive opportunity. once agents handle billions of decisions, someone must underwrite the risk. 15. an AI glut means deflation everywhere except in ideas. when intelligence is free, originality becomes priceless. 16. governments create national models to protect sovereignty. data turns into a weapon and compute becomes foreign policy. 17. as agents handle logistics, humans move up the stack into aesthetics. art direction becomes a daily skill. everything becomes branding. 18. the next decade’s wealth comes not just from building AI but from deciding where not to use it. restraint will make fortunes. 19. AI compute arbitrage becomes a trillion-dollar trade. people buy cheap cloud in underdeveloped markets and rent it globally, like Airbnb for GPUs. 20. AI-native brands dominate e-commerce by owning micro-trends. they launch new products daily, test a thousand ad variants, and kill losers overnight. 21. the AI gold rush ends with a massive data rush. whoever owns or licenses niche, verified datasets controls the supply chain of the future. 22. the next $10 billion fund is hybrid: part VC, part compute allocator, part data warehouse. capital moves from money to intelligence. 23. once personal AGIs hit, subscription fatigue dies. consumers will want one AI that handles everything. the first “super-app for life” could be a trillion-dollar company. 24. most billion-dollar outcomes this decade come from repackaging existing industries through AI... the AI accountant, AI real-estate broker, AI logistics coordinator starting as highly vertical versions of familiar services. 25. mobile UI shifts from taps to chat + camera. the screen becomes a lens, the conversation becomes the interface. the app era quietly turns into the agent era. @meetLCA is a design agency i co-founded that is behind the biggest AI apps rn, seeing it play out now. 26. every industry is about to unbundle into interface companies. whoever owns the customer interface, not the backend or the model, controls the value chain. it’s Shopify vs AWS all over again. 27. vertical media merges with vertical SaaS. every niche publication births a product; every software company births a content arm. the media-product line disappears. 28. the internet used to reward consistency. the new internet rewards experimentation. the faster you test, the faster you compound. 29. AI blurs the line between work and art. products start to feel authored, like albums or films. founders become creative directors of automation. 30. AI regulation prob will look like climate policy... too slow, too messy, full of loopholes. innovation moves to places that treat compute like oil. 31. the internet fragments into private ecosystems. niche communities curated by AI become the real web. public feeds feel like Times Square; private groups feel like homes!! 32. the first fully autonomous startup launches within 3 years. no employees, no meetings, no deadlines, just connected agents generating profit. insanity. 33. we are living through the great compression. timelines that used to unfold over decades now happen in months. this is the closest thing to a gold rush most people will ever see. 34. people will look back on 2026–2029 the way we look at the early internet. the difference is you don’t need permission, capital, or credentials. you just need to build something people actually care about. 35. mobile consumer apps feel alive again. they talk back, remember you, and evolve with you. static interfaces begin to feel prehistoric. 36. the next decade of wealth will belong to people who understand three things: distribution is leverage, taste is strategy, and AI is infrastructure. im tired because i havent slept but wired because... THIS IS THE BEST TIME IN HISTORY TO BUILD. our future will look very different than our past/present. life as we know it changing. i hope you get some sleep.

tally’s growth chart might be the most important one in tech this year. one day in 2025, chatgpt started recommending them and their MRR shot up overnight. 800 million people now use chatgpt every week, asking questions and trusting the few answers it gives. the next generation of breakout companies will be built by founders who know exactly what question they want to be the answer to.