Nathan Maton

There are four core foundations of health: sleep, diet, exercise, and social connection. Sleep sits at the bottom of the stack supporting all three. Staying awake for 24 hours reduces cognitive performance, reaction times, and judgment to the physiological equivalent of having 5 alcoholic drinks in an hour. If you don't feel clear, creative, or resilient, don't overcomplicate your routine—fix your sleep baseline first.

Today's AI agents ace benchmarks but still fail at organizational memory: they can't remember what happened last quarter, what your team already tried, or personal working preferences. Backing Hyperspell came down to backing that exact missing piece: indexing enterprise tools into unified memory networks agents can query. The lesson: look for the fundamental architectural gaps emerging as autonomous workflows scale.

In life it's easy to feel isolated—to believe conditions were uniquely stacked against you. Like a tree planted in tough soil, the world isn't out to get you. I spent years holding resentment toward my parents because our home lacked the tools to resolve conflict safely. Over time, I saw the other side: they were doing the best they knew how, and in my pain, I was the one who shut them out. Recognizing that your caretakers were doing their flawed best is often where real healing starts.

Two boundary habits that protect high-leverage creative energy: 1. No-meeting mornings. Booking 9am to 1pm purely for creative and deep strategic work ensures priorities happen before the day reacts to everyone else. 2. Screen-free breaks. Switching from a laptop to a mobile phone during a break does not rest the brain—it just creates lower-grade screen fatigue. Step outside or step away entirely.

What I've learned from the election: Data centers are the new crypto

Here are my two digital brains. One from Typeshare, another in my Obsidian wiki. Based on my data-driven niche selection, I am committing to writing more about health & wellbeing.

A single vigorous workout can blunt your body’s cortisol response to acute stress shortly afterward. In a study of 83 men undergoing treadmill exercise at varied intensities (30%, 50%, 70% heart-rate reserve) before an intense public speaking and mental arithmetic stress test, vigorous exertion altered the physiological stress spike. If you know a high-stakes conversation or stressful event is coming up, intense movement beforehand acts as a physiological buffer.

By definition, the best entrepreneurs get to pick who their investors are. They have too many options for capital, not too few. If you want to be valuable to founders at pre-seed, play the long game. Build a give, give, get culture. When you ask before giving, you get put in the pile with every other investor who adds zero value.

Your pitch deck's first reader is probably AI. You should write for it. Like a growing number of investors, I screen thousands of deals a year and use AI to help with the first pass. Here is what happens when a deck hits my inbox. My AI reads the pitch and within seconds extracts a structured profile: First, a thesis check (pass/fail): - Pre-seed or seed? - Post-money under target valuation? - Direct investment? - Team assessment? - Sector assessment? If all five pass, it extracts the key data: one-liner, raise amount, valuation, traction numbers, founder backgrounds, and competitive landscape. Then it flags missing pieces. If your deck leaves out team context or buries your core metrics, the AI flags it before a human partner ever dives deep. Write clearly for machine screening first, so you make it to the human conversation.

It’s getting easier and easier to be fake online. In the 2010s, we watched the rise of curated feeds—perfect photos, perfect lives, while people quietly struggled off-camera. Now AI makes it effortless to generate synthetic polish. But I’ve noticed something in myself: I linger on posts that feel vulnerable and human. I crave creators sharing both the highs and lows of the exact same moment. Rare things pull attention. Say the hard thing you think no one wants to hear.

The Critical Path In work it can be hard to know what the critical path is to accomplish an objective. Even if you know, it can be hard to keep the main thing the main thing. Over the last month I was lucky to have an opportunity to be a group partner for Lightyear, a month long accelerator all about helping founders identify the critical path and do the hard things towards it. Here are three lessons for founders: 1. Fuck yes or hell no This is so easy to say, and so hard to keep doing. There aren’t many things in life you’re truly a fuck yes about. If you’ve started a company, that’s 1. If you need sales, that’s a second. Many other things aren’t. Can you really stick to this day after day? Compound enough of those in a row and you'll likely do something great. 2. Energy management The hardest time to keep going is when your spirits are down, which is compounded by thousands of things from work to life to health. Learning to be healthy, and catch your negative patterns before they knock you on your side is critical. 3. Doing #1 and #2 is extremely hard I watched founders who gave up company equity to join us continue to mess up #1 and #2. We helped them get back on track, but it is really not easy.

Your pitch deck's first reader is probably AI. 82% of PE and VC firms now actively use AI somewhere in their process—up from 47% the year before. EQT built Motherbrain to monitor 10M+ companies; SignalFire's Beacon tracks 80M+. I screen thousands of deals a year, and like a growing number of investors, I use AI for the first pass. Most founders still don't know this is happening, and almost none are adapting for it.

In vertical AI the hard part is knowing which 50 workflows matter, what “good” looks like in each one, and where the AI must never guess.

Last week I rage bought a $250 smart toothbrush after a bad dental visit and somehow am now inspired about the future of human health. It coaches me on coverage, pressure, can magically monitor how long I'm spending on each part of my mouth, and even gives me extra ideas on how to help with the gum issues beyond what my dentist shared (the dentist suggested getting a Waterpik which I also got). While my dad told me I'm still only getting input based metrics, so who knows if it is working (thanks dad), the feeling of technology supporting me on something frustrating is inspiring. How many other areas of health could be improved with smart tools that we can afford but don't think to try/buy? How many of the world's problems are caused by people in bad health feeling fear and acting out of fear or self preservation vs. stewardship of the world and abundance?

Lol, except my insane comp packages?

If you want to start a startup work at a t1 VC or Tesla/SpaceX?

Some mistakes I see people make when seeking to be good stewards of our planet.

Agents are discovering the cloud. Bout time