The meeting room setup at Reinvent is so dystopian. Feels like I’m in the B2B SaaS version of Severance.

Startups like Prime are a great reminder that ANYONE can disrupt a space with innovative thought and great execution.

> be me > 17 year old CS major at a non-target school in 2016 > apply to 500 internships, get rejected from 500 > rejected from KP fellows > miraculously get an offer at twilio > it's time to cook > twilio IPOs during internship, no equity b/c intern > grind internship to get return offer. > working on 500k RPS authentication system in the critical path > senior engineers regularly destroying me in code review > iron sharpens iron > get return offer > jobs not finished > continue grinding at twilio > make senior swe in 1.5 years (youngest ever) > make tech lead 1.5 years after that (youngest ever) > mfw the hedonistic treadmill of promotions isn't hitting > global pandemic hits > locked in a room for 3 weeks > enter introspection arc > start virtual events startup in early 2020 (rip) > raise a $2m preseed > insanely competitive and fast moving market > now THIS is pod racing > can't win enough market share > pivot to prosumer live streaming software > it's like canva, but for live streaming > too lazy to build composition engine > so we run the entire app inside a headless browser and livestream the browser window > video infra devs look at me like i'm insane > notbad.jpg > headless browsers take up basically all my time as CTO > now mid 2021 > can't find PMF within prosumer live streaming > probably spending too much time working on the headless browser infra > pitch an acquisition to our biggest supplier > our tech would be a great sdk for building live streaming apps > it works > now 2022 > working on headless browsers for live streaming at mux, series D video infra company > meet some of the best engineers ever > everyone agrees headless browser infra sucks and nobody except me wants to touch it > realize developer tools companies are my thing > start a blog about infrastructure and dev tools (hawk hill ventures) > get rejected from susa fellows, become an a16z scout instead > invest in a new dev tools start up every month > study their investor updates, be helpful, learn > 2023 - chatgpt launches > immediately using it every day > build side project that enables airbnb hosts to let AI respond to guest messages > name it guestguru > airbnb integration works using a headless browser b/c no messaging APIs > mfw headless browser enters my life AGAIN > hits $5k mrr, sell it to one of our customers > november 2023 - where it all comes together > see karpathy's LLM OS tweet. > the goat says that the browser is going to be an important tool for AI > he doesn't even know how hard browser infrastructure is! > write about the state of browser infrastructure and what's going to change for my weekly blog post ( > same day i write that, i hit a 8 leg parlay and win $2k on football > must be a sign > share my blog post with the smartest people i know, expecting them to find some major flaw in the busines > nobody can find any holes in it > i can't find any holes in it > realize that everything i've done up until this point has lead to me being prepared to build a company in this space > worked with headless browsers at scale almost daily for the last 4 years > saw infra greatness firsthand at twilio and mux > spent all my free time studying writing about dev tools > realize all my story arcs converge on headless browsers > start browserbase > mfw everything in my life is secretly a forced tutorial for browserbase