"Leigh Marie" Braswell @LM_Braswell Twitter profile

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

3 years

Just your daily reminder if you're looking for jobs at startups you should bug your VC friends! I have way more visibility now than I did as a candidate across sectors / stages + it's one of the (IMO) few ways VCs can actually be helpful...

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

My empirical take

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Once you realize you can cold message most people and nothing that bad will happen (worst case, they ignore or don't see), a whole world of possibilities opens.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

I’m excited to share that I’m joining @KleinerPerkins as a Partner to invest in the next generation of history-making founders, esp. those working on infrastructure & ML applications. I’ve long admired KP's investing strategy & portfolio, and am thrilled to be part of the team!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Today, I'm closing the door on my time at Founders Fund. It's been an incredible few years of learning, working with some of the most legendary investors as well as an unbelievable broader team & set of portfolio companies. Thanks to everyone that helped me grow!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Remote doesn’t stand a chance 😍

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

OH in SF: “I couldn’t give my boyfriend the full allocation he wanted in my seed round, so he floated the idea of us getting married instead” 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Just learned a portco founder keeps a leaderboard of all investors and gives a person a point with each candidate referral, customer intro, etc. Also found out I am in the lead, but am now even more energized knowing there’s a competition... good way to gamify your cap table 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

I'm excited to announce I'll be investing @foundersfund ! I can’t wait to partner with companies that are passionate about building a better future & not afraid to make crazy bets on themselves. As for #miami (because, twitter) -- I will go soon if this tweet gets 10k likes 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

5 months

If your investors aren’t fueling with Panera charged lemonade, you don’t want them

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Most of my career advice boils down to “what do you actually want to do and what are the fewest possible steps *required* to get there”. Rarely in tech do these steps *require* extra degrees, things that preserve “optionality”, or many years doing an irrelevant job.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Insane how even the startup swag in NYC is 10x more stylish 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

6 months

I love the smell of semiconductors in the morning

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Back to back in person meetings indoors & outside during Miami tech week in new @foundersfund office ☀️

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

If I could go back in time and give myself 1 piece of advice, "stop worrying so much about being annoying" would be a candidate. Would have led to faster learning, making more friends/professional connections, starting angel investing sooner, etc. with likely minimal downside.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

I love twitter 🤗

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

So how long are we starting every convo w "happy new year" for? Need an answer ASAP

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

6 months

Just changed my halloween costume to a frightening floating-point operation

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Would love to hear about your b2b SaaS startup in the middle of a party 🙋🏻‍♀️

Pavel Asparouhov

@Pavel_Asparagus

2 years

I don't think a single time in my life I've thought "yeah, I really want to hear about this guy's b2b SaaS startup in the middle of this party" yet it keeps happening

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Best (& most fun) startup recruiting strategy

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Few things unify the people of SF more than repeatedly posting photos of the Golden Gate Bridge 😍 🌁

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Great VC / angel investing advice I heard recently - always have a up-to-date list of the best ~10 people you've met that you'd back (ideally eyes closed) if they were to start a new company, & make sure you keep in touch with them!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

My first patent came today! AMA about data labelling 😉

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 months

I’m thrilled to announce that @kleinerperkins has led @codeiumdev 's Series B, and I’ve joined the board. The incredible team at Codeium is building the future of software development, from individual developers to large enterprises. More here:

Codeium: The modern coding superpower

Codeium has the opportunity to become a comprehensive developer productivity platform, starting with their IDE autocomplete, code search chat, and terminal offerings, and soon expanding out to other...

www.kleinerperkins.com

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

8 months

After years of personally annotating countless LiDAR scenes during late nights early on at Scale, glad to now be regularly riding in self-driving cars around SF. Just hope my work was accurate ;)

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

What are the most common mistakes you see around ppl evaluating startup equity offers? I'll start - not asking what % of the company they own (to benchmark comp fairness / skin in the game)... thinking of writing a substack of tips / resources here!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

7 months

Reminder to all of my friends new to sf, these views are 1-1.5 hr out of the city!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Pros of being in San Francisco: Getting a manicure from a robot in a few weeks. $8 and 10 minutes long!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Planning a tech meet-up in NYC and honestly

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Things that have happened because of poker: - Fun - Met some of my best friends & professional relationships (fun fact: poker led to me joining @scale_AI ) - Have helped many startups hire & make GTM inroads Highly recommend startups host poker nights! Usually a no brainer.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

I'll still be based in SF & investing. More on my next adventure very soon :)

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

6 months

I was terrified by the scariest costume @kleinerperkins today... The Ghost of Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) Behavior 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

I wrote an overview of why I’m excited about LLMs () with application examples & ideas! I think this technology has massive potential to create generational business opportunities, and I’d love to talk to anyone thinking about the space.

Overview & Applications of Large Language Models (LLMs)

From perspective of an investor & previous early-stage operator in the space

leighmariebraswell.substack.com

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

It can be challenging to navigate data tooling startups when many long-term visions involve becoming a "data platform". I wrote a post breaking down many recent startups / categories by popular end users: . Some takeaways in a thread 👇

The one data platform to rule them all… but according to whom?

An overview of recent data startups based on popular end users

leighmariebraswell.substack.com

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

5 months

OH in Silicon Valley: "My husband was so stressed during his fundraise he lost 15 pounds... maybe I should fundraise"

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

A-door this

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Coastal Trail in Mount Tam Park not overrated!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

P.S. I would love to be your "VC friend" 🚀

"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Just your daily reminder if you're looking for jobs at startups you should bug your VC friends! I have way more visibility now than I did as a candidate across sectors / stages + it's one of the (IMO) few ways VCs can actually be helpful...

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 months

Figured out how to turn my dining table into a poker table … let the games begin 😎

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

10 months

The best founders internalize that most every great person in their network is recruitable (though it might require regular extended hangouts over months/years...)

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

5 months

Running in SF in December - perfect weather

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

7 months

Fitness status: phone correcting “gym” to “gtm”

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

ra¢hel

@rachdele

2 years

I hear the tech correction is so bad that ml startups are back to linear regression

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

10 months

SF poker games: People play semi-attentively, chat w neighbors about work / book recs NYC poker games: People play super fast, 3/10 ppl are playing a seperate poker game on their phones in addition to live game, there are many other rules (“if 27o wins, pay x”, “standup game”..)

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

One of the best decisions I made in college was taking off a year to do a few consecutive internships at startups & tech companies. Helped me figure out my interests! Also, a surprising # of startups (including many in FF portfolio :) ) are willing to do off-cycle internships.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

I am frequently surprised about the surprise I encounter with my software engineer => product manager => VC transition. Every experience I had has been so helpful context-wise when finding/evaluating developer / data / ML tooling & infra...

Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

we still desperately need more VCs who used to be software engineers

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

From founder convo: summary of why I think Scale AI had such effective recruiting v early on (& still today)- *many* informal events (e.g. bring friends to poker nights), top priority of founders/investors, sourcing candidates= everyone's job, & targeted career fair presence/swag

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Any PMs in my network looking to be the first PM at a Series A trucking / fintech company? Message me if so!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Been in Europe for 2 weeks so can’t wait to start calling mid to late stage startups “scale-ups” when I get back. Term is used everywhere here & I hadn’t heard it before! I barely hear the word “startup” (in London, Berlin, etc.)

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Candidate for biggest culture shock going from a startup to working in VC: there is very little communication through emoji reactions to slack messages. Surprises me every day!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

If you're looking to join an extremely early stage (<10 ppl) crypto, LLM application, or data/ML infra team, I have a ton of portfolio companies, angel investments, & companies I'm a fan of that are hiring across many locations (esp. technical roles). Always happy to share!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

If part of your New Year's reflection led to considering new opportunities at startups, always happy to chat & share thoughts from a VC perspective! Even if you're not 100% actively looking, would love to meet you & jam.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

if we're going to ban juul, can we just go ahead and ban tiktok too while we're at it?

ian bremmer

@ianbremmer

2 years

chinese bytedance employees repeatedly accessed private data from american tiktok users, according to leaked audio from internal meetings. not good.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

After a few exciting few days in NYC I'm back to SF. Totally understand the hype around being there - NYC WeWorks are becoming packed with awesome startups. Please DM me if you're curious about in-person NYC (or Austin - similar feelings) startup job oppts across the board.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

View from the start of my walking meetings @foundersfund … no complaints

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Now do, literally any other "fast-paced" startup.... 🙄. Totally unfair, unequal standards for female founders on display.

Melia Russell

@meliarobin

2 years

NEW: April Koh built a $2 billion mental-health startup by age 29. Current and former employees tell me she led a fast-paced culture that created panic and fear.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Winter in SF - idyllic office views

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Why should founders go on podcasts? Not only reach of the podcast / community of the podcaster, but also the proof it gives of being a "real company." It's what will come up when candidates & customers google you! "Real company"-ness is an overlooked but real metric ppl consider.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

I worked nights & weekends at a very early stage startup right out of (and during) college, and I think that was necessary for both that startup & my career to progress. Everyone at the startup was working at that intensity, which gave us an execution advantage.

Lucy Guo

@lucy_guo

2 years

I don’t understand why this is a controversial thing to say but seriously, startups are hard work

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

yesterday - listened to a podcast about space manufacturing while getting eyelash extensions from a robot, then took a rideshare home where the driver suggested we remove our masks since we're both vaccinated - not sure what to be most amazed about

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 months

Me when someone unexpectedly joins a zoom via Vision Pro:

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

When evaluating what startup to join, don't forget to ask yourself... do I love building products for *these* customers? That will be your obsession for the next year(s), so pick a group of customers you are fascinated by!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Wrote a post to summarize the general opportunities I see for startups in ML infrastructure based on my time at FF, Scale, & doing ML at Google - . Compared to data tooling (my last post), the best-of-breed ML stack is even less obvious.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Underrated VC skill: 30/45/60 minute scenic walks starting at office with limited time checks. Took me a little too long to perfect, but worth it now😅

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

25 days

You all realize many venture greats started as associates, right? Seems short-sighted to be dismissive of associates as a group...

Aaron Levie

@levie

26 days

Fun fact: during Box’s Series B we were in the midst of pivoting to the enterprise, with an untested freemium model, and running out of runway. The strategy was speculative. Every partner we pitched passed, but one associate ( @mamoonha ) fought to push the deal through, saving us.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Have a friend packing her stuff to move from NYC to SF and she just asked me what people in SF wear to "go out". What should I respond? Funny answers only.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

One of the best VC feelings - getting enthusiastically thanked for connecting 2 ppl who would not have met otherwise. Has led to lots of idea sharing, SaaS purchases, hiring, fundraising, and ~hopefully~ a company forming soon. Please RO if you think I could be helpful w intros!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 months

Cohosting 2 poker games in SF over the next few weeks with founders of seed stage startups. We are looking for a few engineers to join each who are open to considering new opportunities (win / win, you get to play poker & learn about a new cool company). DM me if this is you!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Trying to tell as many people as possible I'm writing a blog post so I actually write a blog post

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

After mask mandate removal announcement was made, the cabin broke into loudest celebration I’ve ever heard on a flight & basically everyone took off masks (NYC => Miami)

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Startup areas I'd love to chat with people working on & learn more / jam... - LLM applications - Wasm applications - Anything in crypto security FF is thesis agnostic, but some spaces feel ripe for 10x improvements (with strong founders :) )

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

So excited for our LP meeting today! Will be a fun day talking about our latest investments, the portfolio, & tech trends @foundersfund

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Just heard someone I knew used GPT-3 to turn bullet point notes into full performance reviews. Crazy times.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Word of the year for me - "focus". Last year I purposely cast a wide net to explore & learn (which was quite fun/informative), but this year I'm doubling down on what works best for me personally and saying no a lot more otherwise.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

🚀 💻 🤖 ☁️

Dan Primack

@danprimack

2 years

Inbox: Founders Fund raises $5 billion combined for eighth flagship VC fund and second growth fund.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

7 months

If a founder doesn't respond to a great candidate intro in 15 minutes, I'm sending a search party

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Lot of talk about AI reliance decreasing human ability, but there's strong effects in other direction too- friend who uses DALLE regularly finds meditation visualization much easier now & programmer friend who uses Copilot says he hasn't learned so many new techniques in years

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

product manager venture capitalist 🤝 ungodly amount of calendar reminders to ping people

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Just moved & decided to name my wifi "Occam's router" so you are warned early on about my sense of humor

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Name a better place for a walking meeting, I’ll wait …

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

To say the least, times are crazy. If you're looking for new roles in engineering/design, please ping me - lots of companies I work with are hiring! Would love to help you find your next role.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Warms my heart to see a lot of interest for in-person poker nights in SF. People not resigned to be virtual always & forever, even in San Francisco :)

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Kinda cool how @scmallaby 's The Power Law (which is an incredible read about the history of VC) ends by discussing the perfect "embodiment" of the power law -- @foundersfund & @traestephens ' incubation of @anduriltech .... "If others are daunted by a problem, go there."

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

My top advice on picking very early startups to join: - Must 100% trust CEO/founders: either thru past relationships, references, &/or spending a *ton* of time w them before joining - What type of customer do you want to work w for 4+ years? - Signals from investors / early team

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

24 days

There's VCs being theoretically helpful, and then there's the fact that for a recent enterprise portfolio company, KP made 16 executive-level customer introductions over the past 3 months. We have a truly incredible GTM/BD team & network! 🙏

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

5 months

Thankful for God, the USA, my family & friends, and the incredible people I have the opportunity to meet & work with each day. Living the dream and feel so lucky!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Cleaning out my apartment to move & it’s normal to keep ~100 pieces of startup swag, right? Right.

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

8 months

VCs / media: “Looking at ChatGPT website page visits, this AI hype is dying down” Founders: “I recently stopped telling my friends about [GPU cloud provider] because I need to keep every GPU I can to myself”

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Love going on walks with people from nyc, because they are the only ones who never comment on my walking speed 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

OH: "We're building something like OpenAI or Anthropic but for ... Amazon"

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 years

Warm sf summer days 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Evening meetings with a view 😍

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 year

Importance of behavioral references & high-signal interview can't be overstated at earliest stages of a startup. Some good questions to consider asking: * What's a time you went out of your way/role to fix something? * What's a time you thought you weren't going to accomplish…

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

1 month

Watching yc demo day and taking bets on the number of times “AI” is said

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

3 months

Caught up with a founder today who downloaded the @ycombinator "countdown to demo day" chrome extension, even though he's not in YC. Apparently, multiple ex/non-YC founders download it annually to create a sense of urgency like the current batch. Anxiety-inducing but effective!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

The adrenaline rush of taking meetings from a coworking space conference room you didn't book

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

6 months

References for hiring are so tough - a person in the wrong role / wrong company can be mediocre & in the right role / right company can be incredible. Same applies to founders & founder references as well. Have seen many times!

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 months

Sickest burn of 2024: acquantaince gets feedback he really shouldn’t use AI-generated voiceovers for his demo videos (to sound more genuine) aaand… it’s actually just his voice 😂

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

Petition for phone call as the default non in-person catch-up format! Who's with me

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"Leigh Marie" Braswell

@LM_Braswell

2 years

What I'm esp. cognizant of during LLM app pitches (while my eyes go 🤩 during demo) - * Are the founders problem-first vs solution-first? * Can they build a product/biz after the 🔥 demo? * Are they iterating leanly to test out hypotheses with efficient amount of $ spent?

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