📶 RIP remote work

Today’s sponsor

Good morning 👋

Everybody wants a remote job except for the people hiring.

Amazon put out a notice yesterday telling all employees to return to the office, and it’s just the latest reminder that remote work is mostly dead (at least at the corporate level).

Does that apply to startups?

Not necessarily, but in our opinion, most of the best teams are spending every waking moment together. It’s hard to replicate that when you’re not in the same physical location.

We don’t think remote work is dead, but we think remote roles should only become available at a certain level of scale.

Then, of course, you eliminate those remote roles and require people back to in-person once you reach the next level of scale (like Amazon + all of the other major companies have done).

P.S. 💰 We’re starting to collect data for our fourth annual VC compensation report.

If you work in venture, growth equity, private equity, or at a family office, fill out your info so we can share the latest comp results in a few weeks.

TL;DR:

• 📰 News

• 🔗 Links

• 🐥 Tweet

• 💰 Funds

• 📶 Recs

• 🗳 Poll

HEADLINES
RIP remote work (2020 - 2024) 🪦

• Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week (CBNC)

• Salesforce’s VC arm just doubled its AI firepower to $1B (Pitchbook)

• SEC turns to litigation to address rulemaking failures (Pitchbook)

• Sam Altman departs OpenAI’s safety committee (TechCrunch)

• Pet Startup Funding Has Slowed (Crunchbase)

• Google will begin flagging AI-generated images in Search later this year (TechCrunch)

Together with Intercom
Did somebody say “free customer service”? 👀 

Join Intercom’s Startup Partner Program to give your portfolio 12 months free on Intercom’s complete AI-first customer service platform.

Join 600+ other VC's, accelerators and startup communities such as Y Combinator, a16z and Index Ventures and start referring your founders by applying below.

LINKS

↗️ 1000x Leverage: How to build leverage (even if you can’t code)

🦯 Mr Beast onboarding guide: A leaked document showing you inside the mind of a person obsessed with their craft

🌁 The San Francisco Founder Guide: For every founder that wants to build a global company, here is the ultimate guide of SF for startup founders

💯 The Top 100 AI Consumer Apps: Andreesen Horowitz takes a deep dive into which AI apps people are returning to, versus dappling and dropping

🙌 Raising a Seed Round 101: Lenny brings the why’s, what’s, and how’s of seed funding

🤫 How Investors Secretly Tell Founders They’re Not Interested: Michael Houck says the signs are there if you know what to look for

🏅 The Ultimate Startup Hiring Guide—How to Build a Winning Team: Here is a strategic, systematic approach to hiring

TWEET

FUNDS

Explore all new funds (along with contact info) 👉 here.

RECS

• Creator Spotlight: Your guide to building an audience with social media and newsletters

• SCALE Newsletter: Weekly insights directly from the world's best growth-stage founders and investors

• Big Desk Energy: Startup insights, stories, and vibes sent to your inbox every Tuesday

POLL

Thanks for reading this far and giving us a little bit of your attention this week.

Feel free to unsubscribe whenever this stops becoming valuable to you.

- Clay

RESULTS

Here are the results from our poll question in yesterday’s piece:

Have any of your portfolio companies bought other startups before?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes (13)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ No (8)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Not yet - but expect them to (6)

27 Votes