11 Quotes From Founders Week We Can’t Stop Thinking About
Just over a week ago, we held our AGM and Founders Week in Brooklyn. Some of us caught an insane Manhattan skyline sunset after Chip Hazard’s fireside chat with Andy Hock, CSO of Cerebras Systems, while some of our founders got fundraising and M&A tips at the Capital Summit after a night that may have included a round of padel and the Wu-Tang Clan.
This is our favorite week of the year because it’s the one time our founders, co-investors, LPs, and friends of the firm are all in the same room and the conversations that start there carry us for months.
Over a few days, we had a packed agenda, with leaders from across our portfolio joined by experts from Clay, Harvey, Legora, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Cognition, Merit Systems, and OpenRouter, to talk honestly about what it takes to build right now.
Here are the ideas we still can’t stop thinking about:
1. Climb Cringe Mountain
The phrase every founder leaning into their personal brand should think about before hesitating to post on LinkedIn or X.
Every influential person you follow has posted into the void and gotten no likes, and the only way over that mountain is to keep going. Brett's starting move is to pick the people you want to know and leave warm replies on their posts for a few weeks until they, and the algorithm, start to recognize you.
Brett Goldstein, founder of Micro, on the Brand in the Age of AI panel
2. Spend more time writing documents than your audience will spend reading them
On fighting cognitive surrender and fostering intellectual respect within your organization
Clay's internal AI writing policy went viral this year on two rules: stand behind every word you send, and put more effort into a document than your reader will spend reading it. AI turns one sentence into five paragraphs, and the cost quietly moves to the person on the other end.
Jeff Barg, Head of AI at Clay, in conversation with Jeff Bussgang
3. Hire the profile before the playbook
On why the right rep matters more than the perfect process
Topline Pro learned the hard way that a great playbook can’t save the wrong hire, and the right hire can help you build the playbook. Their interview now includes a pitch case study over three rounds with feedback in between, and candidates who visibly get better from one round to the next pass even if they aren’t strong sellers yet. The approach has helped their best reps close more than 60 deals a month.
Nick Ornitz, CEO of Topline Pro, on the Building a Repeatable Engine in the Time of AI panel
4. Make your buyer look good
On understanding buyer psychology in your GTM motion
As an intern in the Colorado governor's office, Andre was told his job was always to make the governor look good, and he says selling to government comes down to the same thing. The person who buys from you has to defend that decision to someone else.
Andre McGregor, founder of ForceMetrics, on the Building in Regulated Industries panel
5. Pass the yoga studio test
On being true to your culture and making it clear to talent prospects
If nothing in your recruiting materials would make a reasonable person decide this place isn't for them, you could be describing any yoga studio in the world.
Katie Burke, COO of Harvey, opening the Capital Summit
6. Don't offer what you haven't earned
On getting real with employee benefits
Dave launched Teal with 16 weeks of parental leave because of who he is as a parent, then realized a company that could barely stay alive hadn't earned the right to offer it. The perks you offer decide who you attract, so they have to match the company you actually are today.
Dave Fano, founder of Teal, on The Talent Game panel
7. Own what can't be scraped
On differentiation against foundational AI models
Not long ago the internet was sure Cursor was doomed for reselling OpenAI and Anthropic tokens, yet its own model handled less than 5% of its traffic and distribution carried it anyway. A real moat is something that can't be trained into the next agent or scraped from the open internet.
Waleed Atallah, founder of Makora, on the What You Own vs. Rent panel
8. Cheaper tokens mean more tokens
On the beauty and "curse" of token optimization
One OpenRouter workflow went from about $1,600 a day on frontier models to about $80 a day after a month of prompt refinement and a move to an open model, with the same output. Savings like that don't shrink usage; they multiply it, which is how OpenRouter got past 100 trillion tokens a week.
Louis Vichy, co-founder of OpenRouter, closing Day 2 with Jesse Middleton
9. Bet on the specialist
On why specialist robots beat humanoids in the real world
Tim calls the human body the pinnacle of a compromise, which is why purpose-built machines beat humanoids at almost any single job. Eliot expects roughly a billion physical AI deployments in the next decade, in every shape except the one in the movies.
Tim Lucchini, founder of Intramotev, and Eliot Horowitz, founder of Viam, on the physical AI panel
10. Plan for the day after the sale
On the part of an exit nobody prepares you for
Roy expected catharsis after selling and found something closer to grief, because a bigger bank account doesn't replace the identity you built. Ali offered the other side: the day you tell your team what the deal means for them financially ranks among the best days of her life.
Roy Ackerman, founder of Resonate (now part of Silverfort), and Ali Forsyth, founder of Alloy Enterprises, on the M&A panel
11. Compete on judgment, not agents
On where the advantage moves when anyone can launch a thousand agents
When anyone can launch a thousand agents, Daniel told our LPs, the agent itself stops being the advantage, and the judgment directing it becomes what matters. It's the principle behind the AI system we use to run our own firm, and the line our team keeps quoting back to each other.
Daniel Porras-Reyes, Flybridge, at our AGM
Thank you
Thank you to every speaker who brought their honesty to our stage, to Thomas Porricelli and Citrin Cooperman for supporting this community all year, to Stifel for their partnership on the Capital Summit, and to We The Roses, who help make Flybridge Founders Week possible (if you're thinking about hosting large events, hit them up!).
