| High Signal— AI × business, founder economics. Read these. |
| 08/16/26 | Sundays with Sam | #32: I, Robot | Sam on the "strange phase" of AI agents entering everyday work. Sponsor is Even G2 — camera-free AI display glasses that put a live sales copilot in the seller's field of view. The agent-augmented-human theme is squarely in your Phaedrus/BrightZen lane. | High | Substack ↗ |
| 08/02/26 | Sundays with Sam | #30: Sloppy Metaphors | Sam built an OpenClaw agent ("Abraham") as a social media manager, then let it auto-reply to comments — and unpacks why automated engagement felt hollow. Directly relevant: it's the same platform Phaedrus runs on, and a cautionary tale about where agents should and shouldn't speak for you. | High | Substack ↗ |
| 08/09/26 | Sundays with Sam | #31: Fit Check | China's Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, an open-weight model near US frontier quality at ~50–70% lower cost than GPT and Fable. Shifts the AI conversation from benchmarks to geopolitics — can China distill instead of train? Closed-lab leaders argue open weights are a security threat. Good macro read on AI cost curves. | High | Substack ↗ |
| 08/16/26 | Adam Robinson (RB2B) | VC just got worse for founders | In characteristically blunt terms: new VC deal structures have made an already founder-hostile game worse. His conclusion — unless the business is truly capital-intensive, bootstrapping beats venture for most founders. Aligns with the Contribution Engine / self-funded-growth worldview. | High | Gmail ↗ |
| Medium— worth a skim when you have the time. |
| 08/16/26 | HBS Alumni Update | Favorite professors; MLS commissioner; the AI debate | Skydeck podcast asked returning alums "who was your favorite professor?" — stories of life-altering classroom moments. Also: an alum named MLS commissioner, and a piece on shifting the AI debate. Nostalgia + a data point on how HBS is framing AI. | Medium | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/02/26 | HBS Alumni Update | Advice that sticks; unlikely entrepreneur; startup milestones | This year's Alumni Achievement Award recipients — Larry Culp, Paul Finnegan, Jennifer Eplett Reilly, Mitt Romney — share the advice that stuck with them. Short, quotable leadership material. | Medium | Gmail ↗ |
| 07/31/26 | Adam Robinson (RB2B) | Hold me. | MoltSets waitlist crossed 5,000 — 3× RB2B's waitlist in half the time — while the product's core APIs still aren't proven. Honest founder-anxiety writing about launching ahead of the tech and undercutting a market by 90%. | Medium | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/08/26 | Adam Robinson (RB2B) | We invented a new way to validate emails | B2B email validation is breaking: Microsoft sends fake auth responses, Google tightened too — so "valid" emails bounce and "invalid" ones are often real. MoltSets claims a new validation approach. Relevant only if outbound email becomes a WA/SDCFO channel. | Medium | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/14/26 | Blockware Intelligence (personal) | Week 220: disinflation, fading rate-hike odds | July CPI 3.4% / Core 2.5% — second straight month of disinflation. Market odds of a 2026 rate hike fell from 93% to 66%; retail sales −0.6% and payrolls −23K argue against hikes. Solid macro read before the closing pitch (bitcoin mining + 100% bonus depreciation webinar). | Medium | Substack ↗ |
| 08/14/26 | Abundance360 (personal) | What if your next co-founder is already in the room? | Winston Fisher (Fisher Brothers / AREA15) pitched a climate-risk idea at the Abundance Summit opening exercise; risk expert Bradley Hamburger was sitting a few feet away already building it. Now a shared venture — an AI early-warning engine for climate risk in real-estate portfolios. Nice case study in engineered serendipity (Ferrazzi's 60-second round). | Medium | Gmail ↗ |
| Low— generic prompts and motivation. Skip unless bored. |
| 08/16/26 | Alignable (Carlsbad) | You have four months left. What's your number? | Weekly playbook prompt: turn your year-end revenue goal from a vague direction into a math problem, then work the referral network. The framing (goal → math) is fine; the content is boilerplate. | Low | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/09/26 | Alignable (Carlsbad) | One name. One relationship. Your whole year. | Claims $367K of "potential business" in your network (147 contacts × $2,500 avg). Referral-network arithmetic to drive clicks into their intro tool. | Low | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/02/26 | Alignable (Carlsbad) | The referral you didn't see coming | "Ask Allie" (their AI) to surface who in your network is ready to send business. Same referral pitch, new wrapper. | Low | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/09/26 | HBS Alumni Update | Fired up; a talking painting; hummus side hustle | Alum profile: Dan Gertsacov (MBA '04), three years running Big Green Egg. Plus a talking painting and a hummus side hustle. Human-interest issue, light on substance. | Low | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/16/26 | Jen Gottlieb | the failure math nobody talks about | Motivational volume-over-perfection piece: Sinatra's 17% hit rate, Picasso's <1%, Dyson's 5,126 prototypes. Pleasant, but it's a warm-up to sell her brand program. | Low | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/16/26 | Byron Katie — The Work (personal) | Let’s sit together in The Work this week! | Standing invite: live Zoom sessions Mon–Wed 9 AM PT at athomewithbk.com. One dated item: two-day in-person event in Ojai, Sept 11–12, at The Center for The Work. Same invite most weeks. | Low | Gmail ↗ |
| 08/15/26 | The Standing Order — Miles Fisher (personal) | No. 3 | Curated summer-gear list — SeaVees deck shoes, Persol sunglasses, Ooni pizza oven, Ten Thousand shorts. Well-written product letter, zero business content. | Low | Substack ↗ |
| 08/16/26 | Mesh (personal) | ⚫️ Weekly Digest — August 16 | Auto-generated digest of links saved in the Mesh reading app. Machine-made, no editorial — useful only as a reminder of what you clipped this week. | Low | Gmail ↗ |
| Noise— unsubscribe candidates. |
| 08/16/26 | Magdalena Grace | Love and money don't have to be HARD… | Manifestation/coaching funnel aimed at "ladies" — five sends in three weeks, zero relevance. Recommend unsubscribe; archiving on sight until then. | Noise | Gmail ↗ |