Mariano Battan

We just wrapped up an incredible session with Daniel Vargas-Gómez, PhD, who shared how he went from a non-AI background to becoming a sought-after AI expert and even publishing a book on the future of creativity and AI. In our session, Daniel offers simple, practical steps for non-technical professionals to build AI expertise, get recognized at work and in their networks—without being pushy, superficial, or loud on social media. 💡 Just one of his tips: start by asking what you need help with, then explore how AI can amplify your performance rather than replace it. If you’d like to hear Daniel’s full story and learn from other experts on shifting your view of AI from chaos to opportunity, join other professionals for the October cohort. It will be the most practical, actionable training you will attend this year. https://lnkd.in/decjp_9N #AItraining #AIcourse

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In the early days of a startup, what people engage with isn't the product. It’s how the founders see the future. Early in YC, Eli said something that stayed with me. When he hired great engineers, he never shared just one doc. One was requirements. The other was expectations. At the time, it felt like a hiring detail. Only later did I realize it was something deeper. Most early-stage companies communicate what they're building. Very few communicate how they think. As we’re writing a company handbook at Hyprnote, we decided to publish it openly on our website. Not because it’s "best practice", but because in the early days, authentic founder writing does more than any polished landing page. Before traction, before growth charts, companies were built on manifestos. On personal beliefs about how the world should work. That's what people connected to. Open source makes our code public by default. This is us doing the same for our thinking. The handbook isn't a rulebook. It's a snapshot of how we define good work, ownership, and trust - right now. Curious how others see this: what's a belief or expectation at your company that exists, but has never been written down publicly?

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Something is happening in Miami that's easy to miss if you're not here. It's not just that the city became a tech hub. Lots of places call themselves tech hubs. What's different is the texture of the community that's actually forming. This week I was in three different rooms with people building... not pitching, not networking, not posturing. Actually building. AI companies, media brands, consumer ventures, new financial infrastructure. There's an energy here I haven't felt since the early web3 days, except this time it's less speculative and more operational. People are shipping things. Real things. Fast. Miami has always had the ambition. What's new is the follow-through. The city doesn't need to become the next Silicon Valley. It's already becoming something different... and honestly, something better. A place where serious people are doing serious work without the performance that comes with it. If you're building something and you're not plugged into what's happening here... that's worth fixing.

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Today, we kicked off the first of two Responsab workshops with the QUBIC Labs Accelerator Cohort II. We shared practical guidance on designing websites that help people take action, not just look good. A website should guide decisions, build trust, and move people forward.

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💡 Outsourcing isn’t what it used to be—and that’s a good thing. Forbes nailed it—Latin America is leading a new wave of nearshoring, and it’s not just about proximity. It’s about talent, collaboration, and real-time execution. At EvolutionCode.io, we’ve built a network of bilingual, highly skilled developers across cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara, Bucaramanga, and Medellín. Same time zones. Deep cultural alignment. Strong work ethic. We’re not just “outsourcing”—we’re building long-term partnerships that move fast and feel local. If you’re still thinking outsourcing is about cost... you might be missing the bigger opportunity. https://lnkd.in/gAZpXSVw #Nearshoring #LatinAmerica #Outsourcing2025 #GlobalTalent #EvolutionCode #TechLeadership

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Artificio is building a deeptech startup in Peru. They're raising $7M. Its founder went to Harvard and MIT. Yet, fundraising isn't a piece of cake. They're stuck between two dilemmas. Here's how co-founder Arturo Deza (the Harvard/MIT one) explained it to The Realistic Optimist: "Artificio is an outsider for both LATAM VCs and for American VCs, but for two different reasons. For LATAM VCs, we’re a rare occurrence of a local deeptech startup. They don’t have many benchmarks to point to, and are thus frisky about investing. They don’t know how to value us. Things would be easier if we were doing food-delivery, in which case we could both point to Rappi and call it a day. Of course, Rappi is a spectacular company. But we’re building something very different. For American VCs, we’re a rare occurrence of a non-San Francisco based company building extremely advanced technology. To American VCs, if you’re not based in San Francisco, it means you lack ambition. Many don’t understand that the world has changed, and that Artificio is five steps ahead. We’re playing “4D Chess”. We are not the only ones crazy enough to do this: in other industries, many founders have decided to build outside of the US while still taking US-based VC funding (Mistral AI in France, NotCo in Chile…). They know that post-pandemic, newer markets and opportunities are emerging outside the US that no one else is seizing." Link to Arturo's full Realistic Optimist interview in the comments.

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Pax Historia is one of the hottest startups in the Valley, and they use ashr to make their game more fun at breakneck speeds. Pax is not the next AI coding agent, or some futuristic technology. It’s a video game that answers the age-old question: What if history were different? It aims to answer this question using a sophisticated implementation of agentic AI. If anyone has played this game, they’re probably not reading this post. Because the game is so addictive that you genuinely can’t get anything else done. However, a game operating at a scale like this routinely experiences very strange problems. One of these problems is not being able to truly pinpoint what game experiences users want. You’d expect a survey to be representative of it. But in-game surveys and actual usage statistics completely varied. People didn’t even know what they wanted. That’s where we came in. After ingesting thousands of rounds of Pax Historia, we were able to train a reward model to effectively score responses. This model provides such a useful signal that Pax Historia can now use it to test prompt changes, model calibrations, and new additions with the confidence that their users will delight in every new feature. They no longer have to rely on weeks-long surveys to see if their changes stick. They can simply run tests, using ashr’s evals and infrastructure as a North Star. If you want tests and evals that actually work for you, no matter how niche the use-case. We’re here. Book a call at: https://lnkd.in/gZu9M-BM Pax Historia working with you has been a blast. Let’s build some great evals together.

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Thrilled to see Vercel announce their Series F! From our first investment 4.5 years ago in their Series C to watching the team revolutionize web development, Guillermo Rauch and team continue to execute at the highest level. The future of AI development is already here, powered by Vercel’s AI Cloud. What started as the company behind Next.js has evolved into something far bigger: democratizing web development itself via AI. With their AI SDK, AI Gateway and v0.app, which is already generating 6.5 apps every second with 3.5M+ users, companies can focus on building intelligent applications and not managing complex AI infrastructure. v0 brings the best of agentic AI, breaking down complex tasks step-by-step. Less errors, faster iteration, and suddenly non-technical users are building full-stack apps with databases, integrations, and polished UIs. We recently wrote about how great infrastructure and AI companies scale profitably: Vercel went from 0% gross margins at $2M ARR to 70%+ margins at $200M+ ARR. As CFO Marten Abrahamsen told us: "Our hypothesis was: solve the hardest infrastructure problems and the margins will follow." (Link in the comments for the full blog post) At Notable Capital, we invest in founders who see the future before others. Guillermo didn't just build a deployment platform - he built the foundation for a new paradigm, one where anyone can build. Congrats to the entire Vercel team on this milestone. Vercel’s future is very bright! Cc: Dan Cahana, Oren Yunger

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Most people think international hires = “lower quality” In my 15 years of supporting US and European companies with staff augmentation, here’s what I’ve actually found: – Argentine reps: More driven than my U.S. team – Colombian developers: Meticulous and fast – Brazilian marketers: Smart, friendly, dependable And all of them cost 50%+ less than U.S. equivalents. Wake up. The world is flat. And global hiring is your unfair advantage.

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