Introducing Gemini 4 Argon – our new frontier model. It’s built for complex workflows across coding, enterprise knowledge work, and cybersecurity defense – rolling out today to a set of trusted testers through our Fairwind Program.

.@benthompson says consumer AI has a marketing problem because the average consumer doesn't actually want to be more productive. "Tech companies are like, 'Let us book your flight for you!' I’ve had a personal assistant for 10 years. He does not come within an inch of booking my flights for me. That is crazy talk." "I understand which ones are gonna be delayed. I know which seat I want to be on. So the fact that this is continually a demo is hilarious to me." “Number two: people love shopping. They don’t want to be productive. They want to be entertained. One of the biggest forms of entertainment is shopping.” "Also, there’s so much information on a product page. Companies have spent so much energy focusing on that. You look at apparel as a category. They’re going to tell you what size the model is wearing, and you want to know that, and you want to look at the different styles." "The idea of having a personal agent that’s going and getting some of the information and bringing it back to you, and then you’re like, 'Well, what about this other thing? Tell me about this thing.'" "And you have your eager tech company executive say, “Oh, I have an assistant that can do it for you!" "And it’s like, no. Not only do I want to do it, I want to complain about it. I’m enjoying myself complaining right now, okay? Would you just let me be and live my life?"

Founders: Price anchoring framework that works: 1. Show 3 tiers 2. Make middle tier 2.2x bottom tier 3. Make top tier 1.8x middle tier 4. Add 3 unique features per tier 5. Highlight middle tier Psychology = more deals at higher ACV.

And it’s working! with aggressive leukemia… the first-ever clinical trial of an AAV-delivered cancer immunotherapy. With a single injection of instructions, the body does continuous manufacturing of complex therapeutic proteins internally. Instead of continuous protein infusions, it takes a single dose and is much less expensive than current gene therapies. “VNX-101 is designed to turn a patient’s own liver into a biofactory capable of producing GP101, a CD19/CD3 bispecific T-cell–engaging protein, following a single administration.” “VNX-101 has achieved an important first for the field: demonstrating that a systemically delivered, one-time in vivo therapy can translate into clinical antitumor activity in patients with blood cancer and extramedullary disease.” — Vironexis news today: biospace.com/press-releases/… — Company: Vironexis.com

Contrarian career advice: This is an EXCELLENT time to go into sales. So many of the best / hottest AI companies will tell you how hard they’re working to find good sellers... because no one actually believes AI is replacing AE roles any time soon (sorry to all the sf billboards out there that suggest otherwise). Obviously, as a candidate, it’s hard to break in if you don’t have the right logos or years of experience on your resume. As AI makes the mechanics easier to pick up, the team @firstround is betting we can teach high-potential talent the uniquely human parts of the craft. So we’re launching the @firstround Sales Combine: We’ll train you up for FREE and put our name behind you when we make the intro to companies like @notion, @fal, @Rillet, @Gumloop, @Serval & @Verkada. More below, apply by 10/3: firstround.com/sales-combine

Every retail bottle of Kikkoman sold in the US is brewed in Walworth, Wisconsin. Has been since 1973. It's the highest producing soy sauce plant in the world. Before it opened, the soybeans and wheat were grown in America, shipped to Japan, brewed for six months, shipped back across the Pacific in bulk and bottled in Oakland. Kikkoman looked at that and built the plant in the middle of the soybean belt instead. It's the same process as Noda, Japan, where the family has been doing it since the 1600s. Soybeans, wheat, salt, water, six months of fermentation.

What does the average American actually like about AI? 34% of adults use AI for medical advice and the vast majority (95%) find it helpful. Leaders in tech and VC correcting assumptions about data center water use and citing employment numbers is unpersuasive. Why are you not building and promoting the thing that people actually want? Many VC firms don't invest in healthcare at all ("it's too hard to make money"). There are probably more VC-backed tech companies focused on sports betting and nicotine products than getting patients better healthcare using AI. It should not be confusing why this side is losing the argument. There are exceptions. OpenAI to its great credit has invested deeply in applications for patients and for clinicians. And there are a number of VCs and earlier stage app companies. But most of this ecosystem has not once thought about picking up the phone and trying to support the thing that Americans (empirically) like about AI, which is improving their experience with the healthcare system. If you want to help, start demonstrating it with your actions instead of your lips!

A 1988 Chicago Trading Pit documentary accidentally described the exact reason 90 percent of modern retail traders will never stop until they blow up. The film was shot in the peak years of open outcry, back when trading meant shouting yourself hoarse in a physical pit, taking speech therapy at Schwab Rehabilitation Center, and sometimes ending up in the medic's chair with a busted lip from a fistfight over a trade. At 16:34 in the film above, one trader said this. "When I first started I heard stories of other traders making 50 or 100 thousand a day. I said if I made that kind of money I would quit. I would take the summer off. When I had my first five-figure day, ten thousand plus, I found myself in the pit the next day." He made his summer's worth of money in one session. He came back the next morning. Every retail trader today who says "if I just double my account I'll cash out" is that trader. Every day-trader who promised themselves they would quit after their first six-figure year is that trader. Every options gambler who tells their spouse "one more good week and I stop" is that trader. The 1988 documentary called it the game. The people who stayed in it called it being a gladiator. The paramedics on duty at the exchange called it a job. Modern brokers call it engagement. Every Robinhood push notification is designed to reproduce the pit floor without the paramedics. That single confession from a Chicago pit trader in 1988 has probably explained the last four decades of retail blowups better than every behavioral finance textbook combined. Retail traders build spreadsheets tracking P&L in real time because they cannot look away from the score. Options traders open the app on the toilet because the pit is now in their pocket. Prop shop hires get told the money is what matters when the actual driver is the same dopamine that trapped the 1988 gladiator. The full 19-minute documentary is above. Almost none of the viewers have actually asked themselves what number would make them walk. The framework is free. The willingness to actually name the number that ends the game before you get there is the entire edge.