Fire content, IPOs, Bitcoin, Miami, and more!
Startup and tech news and happenings from the past two weeks.
Welcome to The Takeoff, a newsletter and podcast helping students and young professionals learn more about startups, tech, venture capital, and more. In this newsletter, we share content that our team found worthwhile over the past two weeks. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe below, share it with friends, and give us a like by hitting the ❤️ button!
Hey everyone,
Happy Saturday and Happy Holidays! Michael here 👋. I just finished up my first round of finals and am super excited for a bit of free time before finishing up the next wave of finals in early Jan. Yes, WashU thought it was a good idea to give students finals Jan 4-10. I don’t know why!
We’re trying a new format to this week’s What We’ve Been Following newsletter, including bringing back a “Jobs” section. Let us know if you like the new format by filling out the 5-second survey 👇.
New content since the last What We’ve Been Following newsletter from Dec 4.
(Podcast) Lukas chatted with Sam Corcos (CEO & Co-founder of Levels) about what he and Levels are building to help individuals monitor glucose levels
(Podcast) I had the privilege of chatting with rockstar investor Hunter Walk (Co-founder & Partner at Homebrew)
What’s coming up.
(Podcast) On Monday, we’ll be releasing a new podcast episode with Joshua Rahn (Co-founder & Managing Partner at Oceans)
(Podcast) On Dec 28, we’ll be releasing a new podcast episode with Job van der Voort (Co-founder & CEO at Remote)
(Mini Deep-Dive) I’ve been doing a dive into a fast-growing, super exciting space over the past few weeks. My post is just about done, and I’m excited to share my findings with all of you in early 2021!
Lots more! We have a ton of interviews lined up to be recorded over the next few weeks! (one of the perks of winter break 😁)
What we’ve been following.
(Blog) Our amazing Contributor and friend Gaby Goldberg wrote a great piece for Bessemer Atlas on The state of sound in 2020 and beyond with her colleague Talia Goldberg.
(Blog) Our friend Vinay Iyengar (Investor at Two Sigma Ventures) put together an amazing Guide to Finding a Startup Job. The post is geared toward helping students and young professionals learn more about startups, what type of startups might be best for them, how to find good startups, getting a foot in the door, compensation, and much more. We’re super thrilled to be having a short Q&A with Vinay about his background and the Guide in the coming weeks!
(Blog / Post / Amazing) Andreessen Horowitz released an interactive mega-post called Social Strikes Back! on the future of audio and social (I have no idea if “mega-post” is the right term for this, but I’m not sure what else I’d call it).
(Podcast) Greylock’s Reid Hoffman on Airbnb Reflections.
(IPO) DoorDash went public last week. Shares closed at $190/share after the first day of trading (the IPO price was $102/share). Lukas sent me this incredible video from the early days of DoorDash when the team was applying to YC.
(IPO) Airbnb broke $100b in market cap on its first-day trading. Not to say I predicted it (but I kind of did). I have a feeling Airbnb’s market cap is going to go way up from where it is today. I came across this gem from Airbnb’s founder & CEO Brian Chesky on some of the early rejections he got while trying to raise a $150k round in 2008.
(Soon to be public) Opendoor is going public on Monday by way of a Social Capital SPAC.
(Soon to be public) Coinbase filed an S-1.
(Bitcoin) Bitcoin reached $20k for the first time. And then it just kept going up. As of the time I am writing this post (8:25 pm on December 17), it’s at $22,978.5.
(Other) From TikTok to VC. TikTok star Josh Richards joins Remus Capital as a Venture Partner.
(Other) Turn your Notion page into a website with Super.
(Other) Genius! David Dobrik’s Hundred Thousand Dollar Puzzle.
(Other) Is Miami the new Silicon Valley? There has been a lot of talk on Twitter about VCs and startups moving to Miami. Keith Rabois, Lucy Guo, Matteo Franceschetti (former Takeoff interview guest), and Harry Hurst are a few of the early movers. Low taxes, great weather, an awesome mayor in Francis Suarez (who followed me on Twitter yesterday, making my day), and a solid NBA team, what’s not to love? Um, maybe the fact that the city will be underwater in 15 years? But, that’s not something to worry about in the short-term. I love Miami, and I’m excited to see how many tech folks actually make the move down there!
Twitter stuff.
Austin Rief on Morning Brew’s early college ambassador program. We may steal a few ideas from here for The Takeoff!
More from Austin on how Morning Brew got to 10k subscribers. He had some good threads this week (to say the least)!
How to get a job at a startup out of school.
How to get this job: 1. Find a killer company you like where you're in the target demographic of the business. 2. Interview 5 friends about the company. 3. Reach out to the CEO with a list of insights: issues and ideas for what they should do. Ask for a job. 4. Do this 10 times.What would you tell someone who is in their early 20's, non technical, didn't go to a name brand college but is smart and works hard and wants to get a job at a startup?
Joe Fernandez @JoeFernandezEvan Charles Moore on the early days of DoorDash.
More on the dopeness of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
Funding 💲
AI-powered financial assistant Cleo raised a $44M Series B
Ramp raised $30M from D1 Capital, Coatue Management, and Founders Fund. Ramp has quickly become one of my favorite companies (Shaheel Mitra can attest to how much I love the company). I’m having Ramp’s CEO Eric Glyman on The Takeoff for a podcast episode on Tuesday. Going to be a lot of fun! (If you want to learn more about Ramp, check out Packy McCormick’s insanely good post on the company.)
Unicorn health insurance startup Oscar raises $140M from Tiger Global, Coatue, Dragoneer, Khosla, Founders Fund, and others.
Jobs.
(Full-time) Investor at Tusk Venture Partners (Learn more) — (Apply)
(Full-time) Launch Analyst, Strategic Partnerships at Oscar Health — (Apply)
(Full-time) Product & Money Operations at Atomic — (Apply)
(Full-time) Associate Product Manager at Coinbase — (Apply)
(Full-time) Full-Stack Engineer at MainStreet — (Apply)
(Full-time) 2022 Full-Time Investment Analyst at Insight Partners — (Apply)
(Part-time) Community Intern at First Round — (Apply)
(Internship) Biz Ops Intern at Carta — (Apply)
(Internship) Marketing Design Intern at Alloy Automation — (Apply)
(Internship) Business Interns at Blair — (if interested, DM me or respond to this email and I’ll put you in touch with the team!)
Did we miss any good content, venture rounds, and job postings from the past two weeks? If so, let us know on Twitter.
Let us know your thoughts on today’s newsletter! It helps us make them better moving forward!
Written by Michael Spiro (Founder at The Takeoff. Senior at Washington University in St. Louis. JMI Equity, Equal Ventures, Ground Up Ventures, Intello).