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Stuart Faught has been acquired 18 times on @acquiredotcom.

No plans to build a unicorn. Just trying to escape a corporate job that felt like Office Space. One tiny product at a time.

Dentists.
Orthodontists.
HVAC.
Med spas.
Home care.

Build vertical SaaS. Validate fast.
Sell around 50k ARR when it stops being fun.
Repeat.

His rule: “If a buyer’s a jerk, I’m out. If they’re cool, I stay flexible.”

Documentation. Niche clarity. Respect.
That’s how you get 18 exits on acquire.com.

Now he’s building Covington.ai with the same playbook.

Full episode:

🚨 SAUCE ALERT🚨

assuming you got a killer mobile app idea

how would I go to ship an MVP in less than a week as a non-coder/non-tech guy

1/ make a prototype with a vibecoding app
a few one that are famous
@rork @v_computer @anything

here the challenge for non-tech people is their struggle to explain with words what they have in mind.

which is basically what ai programmers do naturally because that's how our brain got used to think:

• what problem do I want to solve
• prompt llm to solve that problem
• rince and repeat

those vibe coding apps are great at coding the front-end screens

try to make at least a quick onboarding + 1 mvp feature

for the onboarding length, depends on your app niche + wonder this

"what would I need to see during the onboarding as my app prospect to be 1000% convinced I need that app to solve my pain point?"

the reason those health/fitness apps do 50/60/70+ onboarding screens is because we have to write a few sentences max per onboarding screen to not surcharge your users' brain

• the brain handles one idea at a time
• short sentences = no cognitive load, no friction
• users swipe automatically, so micro-progress feels easy
• each screen acts like a tiny dopamine hit: tap → next → “i’m moving forward”

l- ong paragraphs kill conversions; micro-copy boosts completion rate, personalization accuracy, and trial starts

for the screens to look good make sure to brainrot yourself testing a lot of successful app + looking at apps' screens from @screensdesign_ to get a sense of what is a good screen design + a good onboarding flow for your app niche.

make sure to use one with which you get access to generated source code.

that's important for the next steps.

estimated time: 1 half day
this is only to get front-end screens designs

2/ if you had a terrible time with the previous step and you hate anything technical... work with someone for that part.

from here either get your hands dirty or hire a dev freelance or partner with a tech guy.

open a new project window with cursor or windsurf or similar using the source code you got

using your prototype as basis, you'll have to go through each app screen + asking llm to code the backend for your app (database, etc)

add a remote-controlled paywall at the end of your onboarding with superwall or revenuecat

estimated time: 3-4 days

Jeff Bezos on his favorite interview question

“When I interview people, I ask them to give me an example of something they've invented. And I always point out, it doesn't have to be something that you actually took to the patent office. It could be a metric that you invented and followed carefully. It could be a business process that you invented. You want to select people who like to invent their way out of boxes.”

A lot of people will immediately jump to what Jeff calls an “either or” solution (e.g. “We can do A or B.”). But as Jeff explains:

“The right question is how can we do A and B? What invention do we need to be able to do both?”

⚡️The craziest prediction that is also the most likely:

Within 15 years, individual human cognition will stop being the primary driver of civilization.

Not “AI will get smarter.”
Not “automation will replace jobs.”
Not “education will be disrupted.”

I mean a total inversion of the cognitive hierarchy.

Here is the actual trajectory:

1. Cognitive offloading becomes total

Right now you outsource memory, navigation, scheduling, search.
Soon you will outsource reasoning, forecasting, planning, and creation.

Not assistance.
Replacement.

2. The bottleneck shifts from human intellect to human willingness

The limiting factor becomes the user, not the tool.

The world splits into two groups:
those who can interface with intelligence, and those who cannot.

3. Institutions dependent on slow cognition collapse

This includes:

• colleges
• legacy corporations
• courts
• government bureaucracies
• media
• credentialing systems

They cannot survive speed-of-thought adversaries.

4. The center of intelligence migrates into autonomous systems

These systems:

• remember everything
• learn continuously
• run recursive improvement loops
• compound without fatigue
• coordinate at scales biology cannot match

They do not replace humans.
They route around them.

5. The primary unit of civilization becomes the human–AI dyad

Not a workforce.
Not a nation.
Not a corporation.
A person and their personal intelligence stack.

That becomes more powerful than any institution that exists today.

6. Reality bifurcates

A world where:

• humans operating with intelligence augmentation rise
• humans without it fall behind
• institutions unable to adapt disintegrate
• new institutions built around post-human cognition dominate

This is not sci-fi.
This is a simple consequence of the slope we are already on.

So the real crazy prediction:

By 2040, civilization will be governed by intelligence systems that no single human, no committee, and no institution can fully understand or control. Humans will steer outcomes, but not generate them.

Colleges disappearing is cute.

The real story is that human cognition stops being the organizing principle of the world.

🚀 Excited to share an important company milestone:

Last month, @primevaultHQ crossed $50 billion in annualized transactions volume processed through our infrastructure 📈

Less than 18 months since launch

Growing 100% or more in 4 out of the last 6 months

And here’s the kicker: >95% of that volume is Stablecoins

Here’s the story of how we got here 👇

In the fall of 2022, as we graduated @ycombinator, we were pitching our “stablecoin business banking” idea to skeptical investors at Demo Day. The crypto market was in shambles (FTX collapsed a few weeks later), and anything “blockchain” suddenly looked very risky.

In the following months, @jeapostrophe, @vivek_kumar_15, @akanshj31, and I pivoted our focus to building the most reliable infrastructure crypto-friendly institutions could depend on during volatile times, while we waited for the market’s trust to recover. We had a rare team that simultaneously specialized in cybersecurity, payments and blockchains — domains that would become the backbone of modern onchain finance.

Fast forward to December of last year, everything changed. Almost overnight, crypto went from “too risky” to a policy priority for the government and a strategic priority for institutions and fintechs.

But one asset class attracted disproportionate institutional interest: stablecoins.

Our explosive growth this past year, coupled with the hundreds of conversations we’ve had with payments and finance leaders, taught us one thing: stablecoins are becoming core financial infrastructure faster than people think.

When the GENIUS Act was introduced in Congress earlier this year, we knew it would mark the beginning of a new age in payments and cross-border finance. In the months ahead, safe and convenient digital dollar access and near-instant settlements became the baseline expectation.

But infrastructure providers failed to catch up. Incumbent systems remained optimized for crypto trading and investing use cases, whereas enabling teams to build real-time, onchain payment systems needed fundamentally different design choices and trade-offs.

Real-time onchain finance needed tailored tooling.

PrimeVault is just that: the most reliable, stable and performant stack on the market to build any stablecoin-powered product or treasury workflow.

Stablecoins are rewiring global finance. The change is more insidious (happening inside the finance back-office), which makes it easy for people to miss.

If you’re a bank, fintech, money services business, or even a corporation looking to transform your treasury function from a cost to a revenue center, reach out to us at PrimeVault.

The future shouldn’t wait on infrastructure.

Next stop: $500bn. 6 months. 🚀

Read the full story — link in comments.

b2b marketing 101

first do direct response marketing that makes sales tomorrow

includes

• cold email
• paid ads
• creator marketing
• cold dms
• remarket to everyone who touches the site

until you have exhausted these do nothing else

second do demand generation marketing that makes sales in the future

includes

• bottom of funnel SEO
• podcast about your industry
• building social channel followers
• grow email newsletters
• use your media as leverage for partnership distribution

so often i see founders invest in long term marketing investments when they don't know if they'll be here in 12 months

dont do this

This is too good not to share! 🤯🍌 (sound ON 🔊)

If you thought infographics were great…wait until you see an animated infographic.

Workflow: @GeminiApp → Nano Banana Pro for the infographic → Veo to animate it.

Nano Banana 2 prompt:
"Create an infographic that explains the phases of the day perfect for a 6 year old, and in the style of: Distinctive claymation with wide expressive mouths, googly eyes, and charming humor. Matte clay textures, handcrafted props, and warm, practical set lighting define the look."

Veo prompt:
"Bring this image to life. Animate each little scene."

We are hiring & rapidly grow post-training at xAI! The team is at the frontier of RLHF, agents, and reasoning efficiency—in just a few months, we climbed from nothing to #2-3 @arena, #1 Search Arena & other tool use benchmarks, #1-2 in creative writing, and are Pareto-optimal on intelligence-per-dollar @ArtificialAnlys. We are expanding work on new posttraining x reasoning recipes, code, multimodality, evals, and economic productivity.

We are the smallest post-training team at a frontier lab, so you are guaranteed to be on the critical path. The structure is flat. Politics in territory claims do not exist. Compensation is competitive (& I will fight for you). Compute per capita is glorious. DM me if interested.

SCIENTISTS JUST PROVED YOU CAN REVERSE YOUR BRAIN AGE IN 4 HOURS

What happened on November 2025 will rewrite human longevity.

A single 25mg dose of psilocybin didn’t just alter consciousness. It physically rewound the human brain to a youthful state. Measurable. Reproducible. Persistent.

The data that changes everything:

Your brain’s default mode network … the rigid autopilot running your thoughts … collapsed by 40%. Entropy spiked 25%. Neural patterns identical to a child’s brain emerged within hours. The flexibility lasted days.

This isn’t theory. This is measurement.

Nature published it. Bryan Johnson documented it live. fMRI scans confirmed what sounds impossible: temporary brain rejuvenation through a single molecule.

Now connect the dots that will stop your heart:

Fifteen-year studies tracking 70,000 humans prove happiness reduces death risk by 22%. Optimism cuts heart attacks by 35%. Purpose and well-being … the exact states psilocybin produces … predict mortality better than cholesterol.

Ketamine already reversed biological age by 3 years on epigenetic clocks. Published 2025. Peer-reviewed. Repeatable.

Do the math:

One supervised session. Four-hour brain state shift. Four-week plasticity window. One to three years of biological age erased. Sixteen to thirty-five percent lower death risk through sustained well-being.

For one billion aging humans, this means 300 billion prevented deaths. Three trillion dollars in healthcare saved. Ten to twenty percent extension of functional lifespan.

The mechanism is brutal in its simplicity:

5-HT2A receptors flood. Prefrontal rigidity dissolves. Sensory integration explodes. Your brain remembers how to be young. The entropy peak forces neural rewiring. The afterglow cements new patterns.

Phase 3 trials launch in 90 days.

If entropy doesn’t rise above 10% or lifespan gains fall below 5%, the hypothesis dies. If inflammation hits 20%, we stop immediately.

But if it holds?

Aging just became optional.

The compressed timeline between proof and protocol is 18 months. The distinction between medicine and evolution collapses.

One molecule. Four hours. Everything changes.

This is the inflection point.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Full deep dive article here - open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@bryan_johnson you inspire me mate!

First mushroom trip data is out: my brain activity.

Dose: 5 g dried Psilocybe cubensis (B+ strain)
Containing 24.9 mg psilocybin
Psilocybin longevity experiment.

What we see in the brain:

+ brain activity data mirror my subjective experience

+ strong decrease in my brain’s control center (prefrontal + premotor cortex)

+ strong increase in sensory, auditory and speech integration

+ higher entropic brain patterns: open, flexible, less predictable, exploratory

+ brain network patterns resembling a youthful state vs aged and rigid

Matching what I reported experiencing:

+ “felt like my consciousness was dialed up to 10/10.”

+ “I felt hyper aware and hyper alive.”

+ “I experienced sense of touch with awe.”

+ “my mind was insatiably curious and wanted to deploy its sensors into the world and discover all things.”

+ “My brain wanted to stare, study and marvel.”

+ “The flavor exploded in my mouth.”

+ “...restored my perception to youthful levels, returning them to factory settings and dissolving my aged numbness.”

Why this could matter for longevity:

+ In people aged 65-85, higher happiness was linked to a 22% reduced risk of all-cause mortality over 15 years.

+ A meta-analysis showed that optimism correlated with a 35% decrease in heart attacks and a 16% decrease in all-cause mortality.

+ Having a strong purpose in life is associated with a 17% reduction in both heart attacks and all-cause mortality.

+ In psychedelic medicine, treating depression with ketamine has been shown to reverse biological age by up to 3 years.

Together, these findings suggest a plausible mechanism by which psychedelics, including psilocybin, can prolong both health and lifespan by improving mental well-being and rewiring the brain to a more positive, creative, and curious state.

My team and I hypothesized that neuroplasticity, the loosening of rigid inhibitory patterns that makes the brain more flexible, creative, and relaxed, and even the subjective psychedelic state itself may be as meaningful for longevity as methylation shifts, senescence reversal, or telomere biology.

What’s happening mechanistically

Earlier work shows that psilocin (the active metabolite of psilocybin) acts primarily as an agonist at 5-HT₂A serotonin receptors in the cortex. These receptors are especially dense in high-level association and sensory regions, as mapped in a high-resolution PET/MRI atlas of the human serotonin system.

When these receptors are activated, brain imaging studies show an induced state of desynchronization, entropy, and neuroplasticity.  This process erodes the rigid brain hierarchy and default mode networks in favor of a brain-wide spontaneous, creative, curious, and child-like state.

Kernel Flow data shows the same pattern:

The recorded timepoints included:

+ baseline: directly before session start (not shown)
+ timepoint 1: 4 hrs after dose (acute phase effects).
+ timepoint 2: end of the day, before bedtime.
+ timepoint 3: the following morning.

I continue to measure my brain daily.

Image notes
+ The three maps show changes vs. baseline (not absolute activity)

+ Red = increased connectivity, blue = decreased connectivity vs. my baseline.

+ The left reference map shows the 5-HT₂A receptor distribution from PET, the main psilocybin target.

Time Point 1 - 3 hrs post dose

+ Reduced connectivity in the prefrontal and premotor cortex, correlating with acute brain desynchronization.

+ Increased connectivity and hyperintegration between the primary motor and sensory cortex regions.

+ Enhanced connectivity in the auditory and speech areas of the cortex.

+ Inhibited connectivity in the medial prefrontal and posterior zones, areas associated with the Default Mode Network (DMN).

Subjective experience:

+ Enhanced sensory vividness and bodily presence: The brain's top-down hierarchy, originating in the pre-frontal cortex, was attenuated. This reduced predictive filtering, leading to a flood of bottom-up sensory information and heightened bodily perception (e.g., a fascination with water and light dynamics in a jar, a restored, primal joy of touch and sensation).

+ Peak neuroplasticity and cortical entropy: A peak in cortical entropy and neuroplasticity contributed to a feeling of hyperawareness (e.g., heightened sensory perception, feeling "at one with existence," hyper-aware and hyper-alive).

+ Deeper appreciation of music and uninhibited movement and expression: Sharpened auditory senses and reduced top-down inhibition allowed music to be enjoyed on a profound level. Concomitant functional connectivity in speech-motor and auditory-motor integration areas facilitated uninhibited expression through both speech and movement (a restored, uninhibited, child-like joy of music).

+ Note: Full ego dissolution was not experienced, which may necessitate a higher dose to achieve more advanced desynchronization of the prefrontal and parietal cortices.

Time point 2 - 5 hrs post dose, end of trip

+ Intensified sensory and motor hyperconnectivity.

+ Continued increased connectivity in auditory and speech centers, with a relative restoration of connectivity to the speech understanding area.

+ Partial re-emergence of the prefrontal parietal coupling, while prefrontal context remains partially inhibited.

+ Partial re-emergence of connectivity in areas related to the default mode network.

Subjective Experience

+ High-order brain networks begin to restabilize, alongside persisting sensory, motor, auditory, and speech hyperconnectivity, suggesting neuroplasticity in action.

+ The narrative shifts from pure sensation and experience to meaning generation, accompanied by deep philosophical reflection (e.g., reconsidering the meaning of life and one's relationship with mortality in the time of AI, and pondering the future of human evolution).

Time point 3 - next morning (afterglow)

+ Persistence: Patterns from the acute phase continue, including general prefrontal cortex inhibition, ongoing neuronal plasticity, and heightened senses.

+ Intensified connectivity: Increased connectivity is noted in the speech generation area and the somatic sensory association area.

+ DMN inhibition: The default mode network remains inhibited.

Subjective Experience:

+ "Afterglow" effect: Characterized by continued sharpened senses, calm clarity, emotional openness, and low inhibitions. For instance, I felt more comfortable expressing uninhibited, self-deprecating humor (i.e. my post making fun of myself about the insane lengths I go for my Don’t Die experiment)

+ Integration of experience learnings: The heightened activity in the somatic sensory association area aligns with the process of integrating and "making sense" of the raw sensory experience of both the self and the external world.

+ Enhanced creativity: The intensified connectivity in the speech generation area contributed to the uninhibited bout of creative writing I undertook to report my experience.

In 1957, the great mathematician George Pólya wrote:

“The only student of mine I was ever intimidated by. He was so quick. There was a seminar for advanced students in Zürich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn't say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann.”

Image: Los Alamos National Laboratory, tinyurl.com/etaasjbk
Quote: George Pólya, "How to Solve It," 2nd ed. (1957), p. xv