Hiring never seems to get easier as a founder. I’ve managed to fuck it up left, right, and sideways. So I took each of these fuckups and turned them into a list of questions I must answer before giving an offer. I call it my “Don’t fuck this up again you silly little man” checklist. 1) Is the job crystal clear (in terms of the 3-5 core responsibilities)? 2) Are the skills crystal clear (in terms of the 3-5 qualifications needed to do the job well)? 3) Are the deficiencies of the candidate clear? 4) Are the deficiencies a dealbreaker or is there a clear path to mitigate them? 5) Has this candidate been compared against another high quality candidate (such that the decision isn’t driven by feeling rushed or by emotion)? 6) Has this candidate demonstrated substance and not just salesmanship? 7) Does their comp make sense financially for the business? 8) If you have to fire this person in 6 months, what would the reason be? 9) How can you avoid that scenario happening?

Is it possible to succeed without founder-led social? Of course. Is it a very powerful tool in a company's marketing motion? Yes. The companies that I believe are crushing marketing today all have some flavor of founder-led social in their repertoire: @im_roy_lee at @cluely @denk_tweets at @beehiiv @dharmesh at @HubSpot @christinacaci at @TrustVanta @bryan_johnson at Don't Die @levie at Box

I want to understand AI at a fundamental level. How neural nets work. How the transformer works. The math behind these models. So I’ve started binging 3Blue1Brown’s YouTube videos. They’re fantastic. 7m subscribers and the creator is incredible at breaking down complex topics simply. First, i’m consuming his course on Neural Networks. One chapter per day, taking voracious notes, looking up any concepts I don’t understand. Crazy how many rabbit holes a single topic sends you down. As I’m learning about neural nets, I’m becoming a linear algebra and calculus student again. I couldn’t have been less interested in these topics when I was in high school. Now, as these topics can be applied to my actual work & my education can be self-guided, I’m obsessed. Highly recommend @3blue1brown’s stuff if you want to deeply understand the technology shifting our world at this moment.

In this next phase of life, my north star is simple, but profound. Be a worldclass family man & entrepreneur. In that order. I want to prove to myself that it’s possible, and in doing so, prove to others that it’s possible. Because the startup world doesn’t have enough models like this. Lots of good entrepreneurs. Few worldclass entrepreneurs. And even fewer that put family first. It IS possible—and for me—it’s the only option.

Welcoming to the world Brooke Spencer Lieberman. Named in honor of my dad, Bruce Spencer Lieberman. She’s healthy and happy and so is mama. We are so very blessed.

Every time I’m in a hospital, I’m reminded that we tech founders have the privilege of playing our fun little Internet games because the heroes on the front lines are doing god’s work. Truly so grateful for them.

We’re building Cursor for Content. An ai-native end-to-end content operating system. The last content software a marketer/creator will need. I’m hiring our first engineer. Probably the most consequential hire we’ll ever make. If you’re interested & have the right chops, shoot me a DM for more info. What I’m looking for: - Have taken a green-field product to launch and iterated in production. - Are comfortable in React/Next.js and Python (bonus: LLM/agentic pipelines). - Sweat front-end polish; you know great UX from merely functional. - Enjoy using the latest AI tools to ship 10x faster. - Can lead and ship code daily.

Website building is very AI antifragile. Requires 3 skills that AI isn’t yet great at: - design (branding, graphic design, product design) - copywriting (AI is still no bueno at this) - taste (clichè but websites require a lot of it)

Software engineering feels like one big paradox right now. - people say the future of the job is in jeopardy as they talk about founding engineer competitiveness - supply of software is skyrocketing, yet truly exceptional product experiences feel few and far between - coding skills have never been less valuable, while a strategic engineering mindset (how to structure software, what tools to use) has never been more valuable - the delta between average engineer and exceptional engineer has never been greater - software moats feel weaker, yet demand for great software is strong as hell

Worst product features of all time: Gold medal: iMessage search Silver medal: Venmo transaction feed Bronze medal: Siri’s intelligence