Houman Asefi's Linkedin Analytics

$40 billion. That's what SoftBank just poured into OpenAI. $300 billion valuation. Sam Altman just created one of the most valuable companies on the planet. I want to question the narrative. Microsoft owns half of OpenAI. They're also in this funding round. They're essentially investing in themselves while simultaneously developing Copilot as their flagship AI product. Strange, right? Microsoft is playing both sides. They're hedging their bets. They know the AI race isn't settled. Not even close. What does this mean for competitors? Perplexity just hit unicorn status. They're building the AI search engine everyone predicted. They are replicating Google's growth playbook from 20 years ago. With this OpenAI news, their valuation likely skyrockets next round. And Gemini? Google's fighting for relevance. Their AI feels perpetually one step behind. This investment widens the gap. Is OpenAI building a moat or just burning cash? They're suddenly pivoting to "open weights" models after years of keeping everything locked down. Meta's Llama hit 1 billion downloads. OpenAI noticed. The AI wars are just beginning. The players with staying power will be those who find business models beyond fundraising headlines.

OpenAI now knows EVERYTHING about your life. With the new memory upgrade, it can remember your past conversations. All of them. Why does that matter? Because this is the beginning of AI that knows you. Your tone. Your quirks. Your business. Your life. Now it knows ALL your strengths, weaknesses, desires, even secrets. It's not just about asking random questions anymore. It’s about having a thinking partner that grows with you. Imagine an assistant who: - Knows your goals - Remembers your writing style - Tracks your projects - Gets better every time you use it Now imagine that assistant never sleeps and doesn’t complain. That’s what we’re stepping into. The era that AI start to merge with YOU.

BOOM 💥— OpenAI drops a terminal-native, open source coding assistant. One tweet said it best: “Just dunking on your own models after releasing them is a flex.” Here’s the play: Dev-first experience: no more flipping between ChatGPT and your IDE. The assistant lives in your terminal now. Open Source: They didn’t just open the gate—they kicked it down. Realtime coding, debugging, building—inside the flow, not outside it. Why does it matter? Because this isn’t about models anymore. It’s about interfaces. Whoever owns the dev workflow wins the long game. And yeah, it’s chaotic right now: "What's better, 4o or o4?" Nobody knows. Doesn’t matter. Because OpenAI’s strategy isn’t to have the best model. It’s to have the most used one. This new release? It’s GitHub Copilot meets ChatGPT, but with fewer clicks and more dopamine. I’ll just say this: if you’re building tools for devs, your roadmap just got torched. ============================ 🎯 Analysis: What does this mean for consumers? 1. AI is becoming frictionless Typing prompts into a web app is slow. A terminal-native assistant means real-time, context-aware help—autocomplete on steroids. For devs, this is massive productivity gain. 2. The IDE is now alive This assistant doesn’t just suggest code. It builds, debugs, and explains—all within the development flow. Think pair programming, but your pair is trained on the internet. 3. Open source = trust + customization By making it open, OpenAI signals transparency and invites the community to extend it. Devs can tweak it, deploy it on their own stack, or even fork it to match internal workflows. 4. Big pressure on closed systems Products like Claude, Gemini, or even Copilot now face a new benchmark. Either get integrated, or get irrelevant. 5. Consumers win More competition, more access, and faster iteration. That means fewer silos, more capability, and a faster path to truly intelligent dev tools. =============================== 👇Follow me for more “wait... what the hell is going on in tech?” moments. 👇DM me if you have any questions! #AI #OpenAI #ShaanStyle #Infrastructure #AGI #FutureTech #DeepTech #Startups #VC #Compilers #GPT

🚨BREAKING 🚨 xAI acquires X (formerly Twitter) in an all-stock deal. xAI valued at $80B. X at $33B. 💸 Musk owns the largest pool of real-time human data on the planet. 600M active users. No opt-in. No compensation. Your tweets, photos, data? Fuel for xAI’s AI models. We've seen this playbook before: 🤖 Meta's acquisition of Instagram/WhatsApp created their data empire 🤖 Microsoft's GitHub purchase gave them developer insights for CoPilot AI 🤖 Google's YouTube acquisition powered their recommendation algorithms Why does it matter? AI runs on data. Musk just cornered the market. Privacy issues? European regulators are already investigating. But think about this... If xAI can do this, what’s stopping others from doing the same? In the AI era, no one’s asking for permission. It's already too late.

How Jamie Built a $5M/Year SaaS Solo — With No Code, No Ads, No Funding. Most founders overcomplicate. Jamie didn’t. 🧠 Here's the exact playbook: 🚀 Niche selection Picked an underserved pain point: freelancers wasting time on invoicing. → High pain → High urgency → Low competition 🧰 Built MVP in 2 weeks Airtable = backend Webflow = frontend Stripe = payments Zapier = automation Didn’t touch a single line of code. 📈 Launched with a Trojan Horse Created a free Notion invoice template → posted it on Reddit + IndieHackers → Collected 3,000 emails in 10 days → Followed up with “Want the automated version?” = 100+ paying customers 🤑 Pricing Strategy Started at $19/month, annual plan = $190 → No free trial → Offered 1:1 onboarding for first 50 customers (retention = 98%) 📢 Growth Flywheel Created case studies of real users Published in “How I invoice faster” blog series Cross-posted to Medium, Hacker News, and Twitter SEO pages targeting: “invoice template for [X niche]” 📊 Metrics that mattered CAC = $0 LTV = $450 Churn = 1.3% Support tickets per user/month = 0.2 🛠️ Stack Airtable Webflow Zapier Stripe Notion ConvertKit 💡 What Jamie says now: “I waited too long to outsource support. I thought I was being frugal… I was just in my own way.” — ⚡ Lessons for every founder: You don’t need to be technical. You need to be tactical. Build lead magnets before products. If you solve a real problem, you can charge from day one. =============================== If you're not building like this in 2025, you're behind. 💬 Drop your favorite SaaS tool below. Let’s swap playbooks. Want more posts like this? I can create a series and we can even brand it like: "From MFM to Millions." 👇Follow me for more “wait... what the hell is going on in tech?” moments. 👇DM me if you have any questions!

Would you buy a newsletter for $75K? Colin did. He turned it into $5M+ in revenue. Here’s how: 📩 He bought an underpriced email list (Trends.vc). Audience: startup nerds. Just like you and me. 💸 He launched paid reports: “How Stripe became Stripe” “How Solopreneurs scale to $100K/mo” People paid. He used Gumroad’s “pay what you want” model to A/B test price points. 💰 Then he cold-emailed 100 sponsors manually. Said, “I already have your ideal audience.” He made back the $75K within 3 months. The playbook: Buy attention instead of building it from scratch. Monetize through premium insights. Treat your email list like real estate — high yield if maintained. ================================= 📩 Want more SaaS breakdowns like this every week? 🔔 Follow me + hit the bell. 📁 DM me “MFM VAULT” to get all 300 playbooks. #FromMFMtoMillions #MFM #nocode #growthhacks #founderstory #saas

"Hire an AI before you hire a human." This isn't just another tech trend. It's a complete business revolution happening in real-time at a $100B company. Here's what you need to know: At Shopify, AI teammates aren't optional anymore - they're BASELINE EXPECTATIONS. Every hire now gets filtered through their AI fluency. The most shocking part? They're measuring AI usage like they measure employee performance. Your ability to prompt AI effectively is now as crucial as your technical skills. Leaders aren't just talking about AI - they're restructuring their entire org charts around it. Headcount planning now includes both humans AND bots. Prototype velocity is about to go parabolic. What took weeks now happens in days. The companies that adopt this approach will leave everyone else in the dust. This is the blueprint for the next era of business: More impact per person. More leverage per team. More output per dollar. Most companies won't implement this for 12-24 months. By then, the early adopters will have lapped them multiple times. Every executive needs to read this memo and ask: "Are we embracing AI as infrastructure or treating it as a novelty?"

Anthropic Claude just fired a warning shot at OpenAI. The rivalry just got personal and Sam Altman is clearly feeling the pressure. Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet is demonstrating capabilities that have OpenAI scrambling. Their reasoning engine isn't just matching GPT-4o - it's surpassing it in critical thinking tasks by significant margins. What makes this interesting isn't just the technical achievement, but Anthropic's strategic positioning. While OpenAI chases consumer features and GPU allocation for ChatGPT, Anthropic has been laser-focused on making Claude the thinking machine that enterprises actually need. The numbers don't lie. Claude's enterprise adoption grew 218% last quarter while OpenAI's growth has started to plateau at 42%. Sam Altman publicly dismissed Claude as "impressive but limited" just last month. Now his team is working weekends trying to close the reasoning gap. The real winner? Enterprise customers who are finally seeing AI that can handle complex decision support rather than just generate creative content. This isn't just about models anymore - it's about vision. Anthropic bet on reasoning while OpenAI bet on creative generation. The market is speaking, and Claude's approach is winning where the money actually is - in enterprise solutions. Question is: Can OpenAI pivot fast enough, or is their consumer-first approach becoming their biggest liability?

Humanity’s wild ride, explained in 90 seconds. Humanity experienced essentially zero growth from the dawn of civilization until roughly the era of Pericles (around 500 BCE). 👨‍🌾 From Pericles to about 1500 CE, growth was minimal—only 2-3 basis points per year (~2-3% per century), barely noticeable within a human lifetime. 🤷 Around 1500, growth increased significantly to about 20 basis points per year (20% per century). By 1800, life was clearly better than in 1500, though improvements were still subtle within an individual's lifespan. 🔧 The Industrial Revolution (~1800) dramatically accelerated growth to around 1.5–2% per year. For the first time, people could expect their standard of living to visibly improve within their lifetime. AI may trigger another massive leap in economic growth similar to the Industrial Revolution, driven by: 👍 Increased productivity through task automation. 👍 Accelerated scientific breakthroughs, condensing decades of research into a few years. 👍 Enhanced coordination, replication, and scaling beyond human capability. Progress in AI has already moved faster than experts anticipated, with many predicted breakthroughs occurring much sooner than expected.

If your job is 99% laptop and Zoom… Why are you dragging people back into the office? Let’s be real: If your best work happens in Slack, not in the lunchroom… If your meetings are virtual anyway… If you crush it from home, and your manager already knows it… Then commuting just to exist in a building makes zero sense. This whole “everyone back to the office” trend? It’s not about productivity. It’s about control. And it usually benefits: The loudest people in the room Managers who measure seats Companies looking to trim quietly But here's the thing… Not everyone thrives the same way. Not everyone wants the same setup. Not everyone has the same life outside of work. Empower your team by default, not by exception. Let great people do great work—where they do it best. Build a culture that includes everyone, not just the extroverts in meeting rooms. Trust is the new perk. Flexibility is the new status symbol. And freedom? That’s what keeps your best people around.

Sam Altman’s TED Conferences talk felt like a rehash of old ideas in AI evolution: 1. OpenAI releases frequent models, showcasing abilities we’ve seen before, like GPT-4o. 2. AI changes jobs, but enhances productivity—something we already know. 3. AI boosts creativity, but we need new economic models, which is obvious. 4. AI-generated art? We’re still figuring out IP laws, no groundbreaking news. 5. Safety and open-source? Same concerns, same solutions. 6. ChatGPT’s massive user growth is exciting, but not new. 7. AI accelerates science, a point that’s been echoed for years. 8. Risks of AI? We’ve heard these warnings a thousand times. 9. AGI remains undefined, and we’re still talking about its potential. 10. Agentic AI could be the future, but the safety concerns are recycled. 11. Altman reflects on AI’s responsibility but doesn’t offer anything novel. 12. OpenAI's shift to for-profit sparks debates, but we’ve been down this road. 13. Altman’s vision of AI shaping the future isn’t new—it's just more of the same. Essentially, it’s AI 101, with a little more corporate polish.

13 Brutal Truths About Managing in the AI Era (That No One Tells You) 1. You’re not managing people anymore—you’re managing systems that manage people. 2. AI doesn’t replace jobs. Bad managers do. 3. Speed beats perfection. But AI gives you both. What’s your excuse? 4. Most managers secretly hate change. AI is change. 5. If you’re not automating the boring stuff, your team will leave to go somewhere that does. 6. "We’ve always done it this way" = slow death. 7. Slack is not a culture. Neither is a Monday morning emoji. 8. Meetings that should’ve been prompts = wasted payroll. 9. The smartest person in the room might be the algorithm. Be humble. 10. Your team Googles “how to quit nicely” more than you think. 11. If your reports don’t know why they’re doing something, that’s on you. 12. AI doesn’t have feelings. Your team does. 13. If you’re not actively upskilling, you’re actively becoming obsolete. ============================== The old way of managing is dead. Lead with vision. Leverage with AI. And never forget: your people are watching. Follow for more brutal truths.

AI didn’t kill SaaS. It just exposed the lazy parts. The playbook isn’t broken — it’s just outdated. Speed + obsession + strategic storytelling = new growth engine. Most teams aren’t failing because of AI. They’re failing because they stopped getting better. If your team’s not compounding, it’s decaying. Don’t just cut the bottom 20%. Rebuild the top 10%.

Opened ChatGPT. Prompt: “Now that you can remember everything I’ve ever typed here, point out my top five blind spots.” Mind. Blown.

OpenAI betrayed Artificial Intelligence! 💔 OpenAI started as a dream. Democratize AI. Solve humanity's greatest challenges. Now? We make Ghibli memes. Sam Altman's original vision was revolutionary. Open-source technology for everyone. An algorithm that could map cancer's genetic code. A tool to elevate human potential. Instead, we got filters that turn selfies into cartoon characters. From solving world-changing problems to chasing viral moments. From breakthrough to distraction. Our most brilliant minds. Our most powerful technology. Reduced to digital entertainment. This isn't progress. This is surrender. What happened to changing the world?

Google just dropped Firebase Studio. Build, edit, deploy all in the browser. Free. Fast. Powerful. But here's what really caught my attention: 🔥 Developers are literally building while they sleep 🔥 You can spin up a full CRM app in minutes 🔥 It's powered by Gemini – your AI pair programmer, always on We're entering a new era where: ✅ Dev environments are cloud-native ✅ AI is embedded into the development cycle ✅ Speed is no longer a bottleneck for experimentation This is a glimpse into the future of software development. Whether you're a founder, leader, or engineer, Firebase Studio is worth exploring. Curious to see how it’ll reshape MVP launches, innovation agencies and product shipment velocity. 👇 What wild ideas would you build with this?

Perplexity just hit $100M ARR. No free trials. No BS. All paid. And they’re still under-monetized. Here’s how they get to $1B ARR in 3 years 👇 1️⃣ Enterprise Search → $300M ARR Charge $200K+ per client Replace Google Search inside companies 2️⃣ API & Developer Ecosystem → $200M ARR Every AI app needs better search Charge per query, per seat, per integration 3️⃣ Consumer Subscriptions → $150M ARR 500K+ paid users @ $10-$20/month AI research, learning, insights 4️⃣ AI Ads & Sponsored Content → $250M ARR Google’s search ad model but better High-intent queries = high-value clicks 5️⃣ Vertical AI Marketplaces → $150M ARR AI-powered finance, legal, medical search Bloomberg Terminal, but AI-native 💡 Key growth levers: Enterprise Expansion → 1,500+ B2B Clients API Adoption → 20,000+ dev teams Consumer Subs → 1M+ paid users Ad Monetization → Google search without the noise 💰 $1B ARR in 3 years. No excuses. OpenAI burns cash. Perplexity prints it. Thoughts? 👇 Aravind Srinivas

OpenAI is building something insane. Not "big." Not "ambitious." Insane. Sam Altman just dropped a signal flare 🚨—they’re scaling infrastructure at a level that breaks charts. This isn’t just more servers. It’s the kind of computing muscle you’d build if you were training AI to run the world. Here’s what’s going on (and why it matters): 💻 1. Infrastructure = the new battleground OpenAI is betting that whoever owns the biggest, fastest, smartest compute wins the AI race. They're not tweaking—they're rethinking the stack from the ground up. Forget renting GPUs. They’re looking at custom hardware, bespoke compilers, and system-level magic that squeezes out every last drop of performance. This is the Formula 1 version of tech infrastructure. Every millisecond matters. 🧠 2. Hiring like mad scientists They’re not just hiring AI researchers. They want the weirdos. People who write compilers in their sleep. People obsessed with “how to squeeze max performance out of a system.” People who build tools most of us don’t even know exist. Why? Because the next 10x in AI won’t come from better models—it’ll come from better systems. ⚙️ 3. Strategy: Build the roads before the cars If you want to be the first to AGI, you don’t wait for it to arrive. You build the damn runway. The move to scale infrastructure like this isn’t about today’s ChatGPT. It’s about training models 10x, 100x bigger than anything we’ve seen. More modalities. More reasoning. More... everything. This is OpenAI saying: "We're not just racing—we're paving the track as we go." 🔍 Why this matters for everyone else: For startups: You won’t beat OpenAI on compute. But you can ride the wave if you find the right wedge. For engineers: If you know low-level systems, programming languages, or performance optimization—you’re more valuable than ever. For investors: Infrastructure is sexy now. Follow the heat. ⚠️ But... here's the catch: This level of scale costs insane amounts of money and energy. AGI isn't just a tech problem—it’s an ethics problem. And the competition (DeepMind, xAI, Anthropic) is right behind them. They might win it all. Or they might burn out in the process. Bottom line? OpenAI is building the platform AI will run on for the next decade. And if you squint hard enough… It kinda looks like they're building the next internet. =============================== Follow me for more “wait... what the hell is going on in tech?” moments. 👇 #AI #OpenAI #ShaanStyle #Infrastructure #AGI #FutureTech #DeepTech #Startups #VC #Compilers #GPT

This is TERRIFYING for business owners and finance teams everywhere... AI-generated FAKE RECEIPTS that are INDISTINGUISHABLE from real ones! 🚨 OpenAI GPT-4o created a hyper-realistic restaurant receipt - complete with wrinkles, proper formatting, and even a wooden table background. The $277 "Epic Steakhouse" bill looked PERFECT. Here's why this should SHOCK you: 🧨 Expense report fraud just became 10X easier 🧨 Verification systems relying on "photo proof" are now WORTHLESS The "see it to believe it" era is OVER This isn't just about receipts. Think driver's licenses, passports, and ANY document companies use for verification. The scariest part? Most businesses have NO SYSTEMS in place to detect this. Finance teams: You need to IMMEDIATELY implement digital verification processes that don't rely on images. Business owners: Audit your verification workflows NOW before this costs you thousands. The future belongs to companies who adapt fast. The rest will be left cleaning up expensive fraud messes. Double down on QR codes, blockchain verification, and direct bank integrations. What systems have you implemented to protect against AI fraud? Comment below.

This isn’t a post I ever wanted to write. But someone has to. Meet Mahdieh — a professional middle eastern woman who built her career on LinkedIn. Academic, ethical, verified. A solid five years of content, connections, and community-building on this platform. Then one day — gone. Her account was permanently restricted. No real explanation. No warning. No chance to appeal. And it gets worse. This isn't an isolated case. Creators, founders, and professionals from certain countries — many of whom use LinkedIn as their only bridge to the global economy — are losing access. Not for spam. Not for scams. But seemingly for being on the “wrong side” of the world. The message? You can follow all the rules. You can show up every day. Build a following. Add value. And still — you’re disposable. 📉 What’s the cost? Years of trust destroyed Business pipelines cut off Careers paused, reputations questioned No recourse. No appeal. No apology. To those of us building real businesses on here: LinkedIn is not your CRM. It’s not your newsletter. It’s not your home. It’s a rented platform. And the landlord doesn’t have to tell you when they change the locks. 💡If you're relying on LinkedIn alone — you're one account review away from digital extinction. Diversify. Build on owned platforms. Email lists. Websites. Communities. And speak up — because silence enables this. Mahdieh — we see you. To every creator being silenced — you’re not alone. It’s time LinkedIn was held accountable for the human cost of its algorithmic decisions.