No one wants to write a shitty code base. You want healthy code. And so, what founders don't realize is, when you're not taking care of your health, you are shitty code. You are not beautiful code.
Reading is probably the single most important thing you can do. Over time, I noticed that many of the most successful people in the world read constantly.
"We've basically helped put together all the talent from around the company, sort of pushing in one direction. A lot of it was assembling together all the ingredients we already had and then kind of pushing with relentless sort of focus and pace."
In the AI era, it should be easier than ever for people to build new businesses. We want to build the services that enable this. This is important for ensuring that people broadly share in the prosperity created by superintelligence.
You just have to immerse yourself in it. You should just constantly be building. That's what's going to give you the best chance of having the relevant skill set that is needed to make a difference in technology.
I founded VITA in 2019 after a 20-year career with Big Four and a national accountancy firm, where I reached partner level. Over that time, I saw the profession change significantly. Accountancy services have increasingly become commoditised, and in many cases, the depth of client relationships has diminished. Earlier in my career, accountants were often trusted advisors.
When the crypto startup I was working for was sold in July 2025, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to go all in on myself as a content creator. I had about $6,000 in savings and less than 40,000 followers on TikTok, but I believed I was worth the investment.
Wizard, an AI-native shopping agent cofounded by Marc Lore and CEO Melissa Bridgeford, is coming out of a nearly 5-year private beta with an ambitious promise: to end the era of endless scrolling in ecommerce and replace it with a personalized and streamlined shopping experience. Launched publicly on Feb. 11, the New York-based startup is betting that the next wave of online retail will be driven not by bigger marketplaces,
My journey as a bootstrapped founder has been pretty unique, and I love to share my insights and lessons learned with others who may be traveling along a similar path. But there's another dimension, too. I want to be embedded in the communities that I think Jotform should reach. If you know me, and my product feels familiar, you're more likely to think of us the next time you need an online form builder.
In an era obsessed with shortcuts, overnight success, and polished social media profiles, adversity is often treated as something to avoid. Something unfortunate. Something that signals failure. That assumption is completely wrong. Adversity is not a flaw in the entrepreneurial journey; it is, in fact, the training ground, the pressure that sharpens one's judgment, accelerates their adaptability and forges the kind of resilience no accelerator, MBA or funding round can manufacture.
Through strategic advisory engagements, Tommy S. Shields works with founders to evaluate leadership roles, business models, operational systems, and market positioning. These assessments help uncover misalignments that often undermine investor confidence. When a company lacks focus or internal structure, valuation becomes speculative rather than strategic. By addressing these issues early, Tommy S. Shields helps ventures build credibility before capital is ever introduced.
Silicon Valley is having an anti-college moment due to sky-high education fees, AI lowering the barrier to entry for skills like coding, and the shifting political and social landscape. But three young founders who dropped out of college told Business Insider that they weren't motivated by expenses or politics, but by timing. Each spotted an opportunity in the market that they couldn't resist, leading them to quit college and go all in on entrepreneurship.
A colleague and I launched a new company after our previous employer closed. We divided responsibilities so she handled manufacturing and distribution while I managed digital content and marketing. My side of the business grew steadily. But within six months, her operational area began to falter. I began to step in to keep physical projects moving, and key infrastructure on her side wasn't maintained. Despite having access to shared digital project management tools, she frequently framed it as a communication problem.
So it was 2020, prime time of COVID, and I was feeling a little bit unsure what I wanted to do with my life. I was still, at the time, sophomore in college, sent home halfway through university. And one of my friends had been sharing that she was working on a mobile app around biking. I basically contacted her. We decided to work together, and from there really grew from working and contributing as an intern, to founding engineer.
