Hey builders,
This week, we saw massive checks go to ideas that wouldn’t have made it past a seed deck two years ago.
We’ve now got AI agents playing around on fake internets, and Quantum infra being spun up outside the Valley.
Yet, somehow... we all just kind of go… Yeah, that makes sense.
Just another week in tech, I guess. 🤷
In this week’s newsletter.
New Startup Spotlight: Matrices is training AI agents inside a synthetic internet, and they’re hiring a founding engineer.
AI News Recap: A $2B seed round. Perplexity’s $18B breakout. And quantum infra getting built in India.
Recent Job Postings: SDKs, 3D home security, edge-case onboarding, and a $330K founding role you’ll want to see.
Check it out below 👇
12
Engineer spots left this month
Each month, I work with a curated group of cracked 0→1 engineers. The kind founders want to hire or co-found with.
As of this issue, only 12 spots remain.
If you’re building something on the side, bored at Big Tech, or just too good to be cold applying, this is your sign.
🔍 Startup Spotlight
Matrices
Matrices is building a gamified replica of the internet. Only, it’s not for users, but for AI agents.
Inside this synthetic web, thousands of agents roam, explore, and learn via reinforcement learning. It’s all designed to unblock training for a new class of “doers” the kind that don’t just autocomplete, but actually use computers like humans do.
They’ve already landed 7-figure contracts with leading AI labs, and they’re still just 3 people.
Now they’re hiring a founding engineer to help scale it all. Infra, agent systems, novel pipelines, you’ll be building things that don’t exist anywhere else.
This is one of those “you had to be early” roles. And it’s still early.
TL:DR
— Training ground for AI agents inside a gamified replica of the internet
— 7-figure contracts signed with top AI labs
— Work spans infra, distributed systems, agent tooling, and novel pipelines
— Founding engineer role → $250K–$330K comp + equity
— Backed by Index Ventures, AI Grant (Nat + Daniel), and Naval Ravikant
Megan’s Take
This is one of the most original startups I’ve seen in a while. If you’re into agents, frontier AI, or building weird infra from scratch, you should be all over this.
🤖 AI / Industry Recap
🔗 QpiAI Raises $32M to Fuse AI + Quantum
India’s QpiAI just raised $32M to build hybrid AI/quantum models for drug discovery, smart grids, and robotics. They're backed by Avataar Ventures and the Indian government’s National Quantum Mission.
📱 Perplexity Hits $18B Valuation After New Round
Perplexity just raised another $100M and is now valued at $18B. The AI search startup is going full throttle, challenging Google’s monopoly by actually answering questions instead of sending you links.
🧠 Thinking Machines Lab Raises $2B Seed Round
Mira Murati (ex-OpenAI CTO) just launched Thinking Machines Lab and raised $2B on day one. A16z, Nvidia, AMD, and Jane Street are all in. It’s an open-source, multimodal AI with a serious research backbone.
Megan’s Take
We're past the foundation model gold rush. Differentiation is attracting big dollars now. For engineers, generic LLM work is commoditizing. The money's flowing to domain-specific applications and novel architectures.
Recent job posting in
NewYork
jobTitle Software Engineer_
{
// TLDR: You’ll build high-quality SDKs used by developers at Square, ElevenLabs, Cohere, & more.
// Company: Fern;
// Location: New York (On-site, Williamsburg, Brooklyn);
// Base: $200k - $230K;
// Funding: $13.3M (YC + Bessemer)
}
OUTPUT:
Recent job posting in
NewYork
jobTitle Forward Deployed Engineer_
{
// TLDR: You’ll work hands-on with infra teams to implement production-ready setups and feed insights back into the product.
// Company: Antimetal;
// Location: New York (On Site);
// Base: $180k - $220K;
// Funding: $20M
}
OUTPUT:
Recent job posting in
SanFrancisco
jobTitle Software Engineer_
{
// TLDR: You’ll design and ship a 3D interface for home security. Think SwiftUI + Python + real-time systems, built alongside ex-Tesla and Zipline engineers.
// Company: Sauron;
// Location: San Francisco (On Site);
// Base: $155k - $180K;
// Funding: $22M Seed
}
OUTPUT:
Recent job posting in
SanFrancisco
jobTitle Founding Engineer_
{
// TLDR: Join a < 5-person team building a gamified replica of the internet to train AI agents.
// Company: Matrices;
// Location: San Francisco (On Site or remote);
// Base: $250k - $330k;
// Funding: $5M
}
OUTPUT:
AMA
Question:
I’m at a “safe” company, but it feels very mundane, and it’s no longer challenging. How do I know when it’s time to move on and try something new?
Answer:
Boredom is a signal. So is the fact that you’re asking this.
If you're no longer growing, solving hard problems, or learning from the people around you, it's probably a sign to move on.
The best time to make a move is before you have to. It’s never too early to explore your options.
— This question was from Priya.
Send me your question by replying to this email.
💡
Thought Prompt of the Week
When your grandkid asks where you were when AI changed everything? What story do you want to tell?
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Megan has worked with me tirelessly throughout my job-searching process. She ended up sending me two roles, both actually aligned with what I wanted but, I chose the one that was going to challenge me the most, and it's the first time in a while I’ve felt excited to build something.