This chart explains a lot of founder behavior
Founder flavors: spicy, steady, or slightly unhinged
This week, we’re talking:
VCs say they want originality, then back the same founder archetype 50 times. This is a taxonomy for everyone else — spicy, steady, and slightly unhinged. 🧬💼🔥
How AI is revolutionizing market research by providing affordable, simulated customer insights. 🤖📊
Databricks buys Neon so AI agents can build and run their own backends. The future of AI isn’t sexy—it’s systems engineering. 🔧🤖📦
The radiologist apocalypse that wasn’t — why Geoffrey Hinton’s A.I. job extinction prophecy flopped, and what it reveals about hype, humans, and the quiet power of augmentation over automation. 🧠 📸 🤖
Global leaders see a once-in-a-century shot to poach U.S. talent — and they’re not being subtle about it. Europe’s got grants. Canada’s got deadlines. Denmark’s got Springsteen. 🎓🌐🇺🇸
A fragile peace, a looming deadline, and a trade deal stuck in a geopolitical tug-of-war. India eyes the prize, but America keeps nudging the chessboard. 🌍 💼 🇮🇳
My Take:
There’s a popular belief that successful entrepreneurs are all cut from the same cloth -- it's why VCs pattern-match into oblivion. But let’s be real, founders come in a wide variety of flavors. Some spicy. Some reserved. Some a little reckless. Some downright self-sabotaging.
After I put out my taxonomy of VCs, a few of them came up, proudly declaring, “I’m high skill, high chill.” I got a kick out of it.
But nearly every one of them followed it up with: “You know this matrix exists for entrepreneurs too, right?”
Yes I do.
So I started mapping founders and executives across the same axes. It was the start of something, but the picture was incomplete. There was a missing piece—a third dimension I’ve come to call Shot Taker.
It's about an entrepreneur’s willingness to suspend disbelief, slide the chips to red, and chase something big, even if nobody else gets it yet. Think of it like a spectrum: chip shot, fairway finder, moonshot.
At least, shot taker is what I call it when I'm being diplomatic. With a martini in hand, I call it what it is: high. As in when you’re passing a fatass blunt around and you tell your homie to hit dat shit. You’re not going to colonize space without being a little high—but being high can just as easily mean you’re delusional and heading for a spectacular crash.
By Chill, I refer to the ability to self-regulate and manage your own psychology. High-chill entrepreneurs feel things deeply but throw fewer chairs and have fewer meltdowns than their low-chill counterparts.
Skill is self-explanatory.
Where you fall on Skill, Chill, and High—er—Shot Taker shapes how you navigate chaos, build teams, and steer the ship.
The upper left quadrant is the realm of sole proprietors, lifestyle gigs, and Taco Trucks. Terrific for you if that’s your bliss - I won’t judge. Enjoy the coffeehouse gigs, and be Zen-like about the fact that you’ll never go platinum.
The size of the bubble corresponds to the scope of your ambition. Small bubbles = Chip Shots; medium bubbles = Fairway Finders; large bubbles = Moonshots.
🧮 THE CONTROL PANEL COWBOY
(High Skill, Low Chill, Chip Shot)
📝 Definition 📝
The founder who lives inside dashboards, KPIs, and operational minutiae. They can spreadsheet you under the table and have three versions of the financial model ready to go before you’ve had your coffee. But their obsession with control leaves little room for ambiguity, delegation, or creative chaos. In their zeal to dummy-proof the system, without visionary leadership on top, too many dummies stick around to do their bidding. Every knob is calibrated — but nobody else is allowed to touch the machine.
💼 How to Deal 💼
Don’t try to convince the Cowboy to “just vibe.” Instead, equip them with high-signal inputs and let them synthesize. Give them clean data, clear options, and frameworks they can break down. But watch for over-engineering — they may need gentle reminders that not everything in startups can be modeled, controlled, or reduced to a dashboard metric. If they’re in a leadership role, coach them actively to cede control before they suffocate their team.
Smart, tight grip on the wheel, but stiff and not exactly vibing. The founder who over-engineers the deck and freaks out when things go off-script. Think: Steve Ballmer.
🧠 THE STOIC BUILDER
(High Skill, Medium Chill, Fairway Finder)
📝 Definition 📝
A quietly competent operator who doesn’t get high off their own supply — or yours. They’re the steady hand, the architect who lays solid foundations and scales with discipline. No viral vision or cult-leader charisma; just relentless execution and durability. They may not swing for the fences, but their on-base percentage is strong.
💼 How to Deal 💼
Give them room to work. They don’t need a hype squad or constant validation — they need autonomy and strategic clarity. Engage them in problem-solving, not hand-waving visionary brainstorms. Recognize that while they won’t chase every moonshot, they will get you where you’re going, on time and under budget.
Quietly competent, even-keeled. Less emotional volatility, more substance. The unsexy executive or founder whose company still wins. Think: Frank Slootman.
🌀 THE CONSCIOUS CRAZY
(High Skill, High Chill, Moonshot)
📝 Definition 📝
The visionary who knows exactly how crazy their ambition is — and calmly does it anyway. Emotionally intelligent, self-aware, and secure enough to empower people smarter than them. They don’t micromanage the vision into oblivion; they architect it, set direction, build consensus, and empower others to build the ship while they chart the stars.
💼 How to Deal 💼
Set their sights on big problems, not small ones. Surround them with execution talent and protect them from getting sucked into the weeds. Their power is in pattern recognition and bold bets — not daily operations. Encourage their irrational optimism, but build mechanisms to catch the blind spots they might be too future-focused to see.
Chill as hell, aflame with vision, and allergic to micromanagement. Possibly the most sustainable founder long-term. Think: Bill Gates.
🎯 THE TRUE BELIEVER
(High Skill, Medium Chill, Moonshot)
📝 Definition 📝
Fully intoxicated on mission and purpose. They’re all in — emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. They can execute when vision aligns, but challenge their narrative and you’ll hit a wall. They’re not just building a company; they’re fulfilling a destiny. Effective, magnetic, occasionally pungent or punitive interpersonally.
💼 How to Deal 💼
Channel their conviction without becoming collateral damage. Help translate their mission into practical next steps. Support their narrative, but be the mirror they need when belief starts blinding them. Keep trusted pragmatists close to balance the fire.
Their project has to work, or they’ll die trying. Convincing, effective, on a mission from God. Think: Jeff Bezos.
😶 THE MIMIC
(Low Skill, Low Chill, Chip Shot / Fairway Finder)
📝 Definition 📝
The founder who learned startups from pitch decks and Twitter threads but never built a product or led a team. Fluent in buzzwords, allergic to doing the work. Easily rattled when the map doesn’t match the terrain. Looks the part — until it’s time to perform.
💼 How to Deal 💼
You’ve made a mistake. Keep expectations low and responsibilities limited. Watch for performative leadership and over-indexing on optics. If you’re backing them, make sure you’ve got real operators close by. They’ll need scaffolding — or an early exit.
No chill, no skill, but vibes hard. LinkedIn founder who never ships, never shuts up. Think: Composite of dozens of first-time failed YC founders.
🤡 THE KOOL-AID GUZZLER
(Low Skill, Low Chill, Moonshot)
📝 Definition 📝
Fully zooted on their own narrative, burning through capital and common sense at breakneck speed. Loves press, confuses attention with traction. Wild ideas, no execution. The walking embodiment of “move fast and break everything” — including themselves.
💼 How to Deal 💼
Treat them like a live grenade. Try to channel their charisma into actual deliverables, but have a fail-safe plan for when the hype train inevitably derails. If you’re on board, build an operator safety net yesterday. The fall is coming.
Absolutely zooted on their own narrative. Forget the moon — they’re already on the seventh ring of Saturn. Think: Adam Neumann.
🔧 THE CULTURAL MECHANIC
(High Skill, High Chill, Fairway Finder)
📝 Definition 📝
The founder who knows how to make a product feel like a movement — without cult vibes. Deeply attuned to narrative, timing, and brand architecture. Doesn’t disrupt for disruption’s sake; rewires systems with elegance and cultural fluency. Frequently enters a space that already exists and makes a cooler/better/stronger product. Plays the long game, makes it look easy.
💼 How to Deal 💼
Give them resources, autonomy, and trust. They don’t need handholding or hype — they need space to align vision, culture, and execution. If you want to scale sustainably, get out of their way and let them cook. They’ll win market share and mindshare.
Smooth operator with a sixth sense for timing and tone. Builds brands that move like movements — and products that feel like inevitabilities. Think: Whitney Wolfe Herd.
I want to be clear: this was a fun and useful exercise, but there’s no one right quadrant—or one right shot to take. Some founders build dull but durable businesses. (I’ve been called that. It hurt at first, but then I liked it.)
There’s nothing wrong with building steady. One day, what looks dull isn’t dull anymore. I’ve been doing data management and AI stuff for decades. Suddenly it’s not so boring.
The point isn’t to believe that the best entrepreneurs all fit into the same box. The point is to know where you stand. And if you don’t like where your feet are? Keep moving.
My Media Diet:
AI Can Give You New Insights About Your Customers for Cheap by Liz Brody via Entrepreneur 🤖📊
Researchers from Columbia, Berkeley, and Alberta have discovered that generative AI, like ChatGPT, can mimic human responses in market research scenarios. By feeding AI detailed demographic information, businesses can simulate customer feedback without the traditional hassle of surveys and focus groups. This approach offers a cost-effective way to gain insights into consumer preferences and behaviors, making market research more accessible for startups and small businesses.
Databricks to Buy Startup Neon for $1 Billion By Belle Lin via WSJ 🔧🤖📦
Databricks just spent $1B on Neon, a cloud-native Postgres startup where 80% of databases are spun up by bots. That’s not magic—it’s automation. And it fits a clear pattern. Between MosaicML, Tabular, and now Neon, Databricks isn’t trying to “invent the future” like OpenAI or Anthropic. It’s quietly locking down the infrastructure layer—the boring-but-critical foundation all the sexy stuff runs on. 🧱🧠📊
Your A.I. Radiologist Will Not Be With You Soon by Steve Lohr via NYTimes 🧠📸🤖
Nine years after Geoffrey Hinton declared radiologists doomed, Mayo Clinic has more of them than ever — now with A.I. copilots that save time, catch more, and still ask the human to make the call. Lesson? A.I. isn’t replacing experts; it’s sharpening their scalpels. Another reason that the A in A.I. should stand for Augmented.
The World Is Wooing U.S. Researchers Shunned by Trump by Patricia Cohen via NYTimes 🎓🌐🇺🇸
As Trump torches U.S. science funding and exiles immigrant researchers, countries from France to South Korea are rolling out the red carpet to poach America’s best minds. Brain drain? Try brain sprint. Too bad we couldn’t have predicted this.
India File: After the ceasefire, trade is back in focus by Ira Dugal via Reuters 🌍💼🇮🇳
India and Pakistan just hit pause on their decades-long tension (read: not-quite-a-war), and now India’s racing to close a U.S. trade deal before a tariff freeze melts in 90 days. Meanwhile, Washington’s diplomatic flex has New Delhi side-eyeing Uncle Sam’s meddling in Kashmir. Because nothing says “free trade” like a little soft imperialism.