Newcomer
newcomer.co · Group blog · on HN since 2020
Newcomer is Eric Newcomer's newsletter covering venture capital, startups, AI companies and the business of Silicon Valley.
What HN saysHN links it for venture capital reporting, including Andreessen Horowitz's media strategy, OpenAI board coverage and startup funding details.
57HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
58stories submitted
443story points
2 months agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Unauthorized Story of Andreessen Horowitz4 people · 173 points · first shared 2021 · 55 comments on HN
- 2Andreessen Horowitz and the 'Future' of Media4 people · 7 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 3Microsoft's Big AI Hire Can't Match OpenAI3 people · 9 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 4Former GitHub CTO Jason Warner Raises $26M for his new startup3 people · 7 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 5Bolt's investor letter: $450M Series F at $14B, bewildering deal terms3 people · 7 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 6The Scam in the Arena3 people · 5 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 7Give OpenAI's Board Some Time. The Future of AI Could Hinge on It3 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 8Founder's Choice VC Rankings Revealed2 people · 9 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 9The Limits of Founder Friendly2 people · 6 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 10Bloodthirsty Capitalists – Conversation with Chris Sacca2 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 11VC Contagion Is Venture Capital Killing Itself?2 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 12Cursor's Popularity Has Come at a Cost. GPT-5 May Have Arrived at the Right Time2 people · 2 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 13Sources: OpenSea Eyes $13B Valuation1 people · 58 points · first shared 2022 · 123 comments on HN
- 14Stripe Is Raising $6B to Resolve Employee Tax Issue1 people · 33 points · first shared 2023 · 23 comments on HN
- 15Sequoia Is Down Bad1 people · 28 points · first shared 2022 · 8 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
bonaldi · 2021-06-15
Very worth looking at this in the context of https://www.newcomer.co/p/the-unauthorized-story-of-andreessen (Summary: AH doesn't like how the media has become critical of tech, would like to present its own narratives by going direct)
sgpl · 2021-11-03
> “The only way a Substack grows is through tweets. I am like 85% serious when I say this.”
This rings true for me as a consumer of tech and tech-adjacent news. Most writers that I've started to follow via their newsletters, I've come across on twitter via their tweets that have gone viral or have been liked/retweeted by people in my network.
Another journalist that I subscribe to via their Substack in Eric Newcomer who also recently published a "Looking Back ..." post [0]. Interesting just to diff it from this post. From my understanding, Eric started writing his newsletter last year without importing a pre-existing list (at least that's the impression I got). His numbers (11,867 free subscribers and 1374 paid subscribers) definitely seems to suggest that Substack's guidance that about 10% of subscribers convert to paid is in the ballpark.
[0] https://www.newcomer.co/p/looking-back-on-newcomers-first-year
11867 1374
dcre · 2025-11-13
This article claimed they had single-digit monthly cash burn in August, when they had over $500M ARR (so let's say $41M monthly) and 150 employees. If that is true, they are spending way less than 200% of revenue.
"Anysphere runs pretty lean with around 150 employees and has a single digit monthly cash burn, a source tells me."
https://www.newcomer.co/p/cursors-popularity-has-come-at-a
asukumar · 2024-10-02
Thrive is one of the 10 most respected firms in venture capital. They work super hard and have a track record to prove it. Nobody who knows what they’re talking about would consider them dumb money.
https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoia-founders-fund-usv-elad-gil
JumpCrisscross · 2023-11-20
> Sam has even less power with the board, and the board in a 3 trillion dollar corporation would be even more risk averse than the OpenAI one
This is where I see the win. Newcomer’s concerns about Altman are valid [1]. It is difficult to square the reputation he nurtured as OpenAI’s CEO with the reckless lawlessness of his crypto start-up.
Microsoft knows how to play ball with the big boys. It also knows how to constrain big personalities.
[1] https://www.newcomer.co/p/give-openais-board-some-time-the
setgree · 2023-11-20
This whole thing smells bad.
The board could have easily said they removed Sam for generic reasons: "deep misalignment about goals," "fundamental incompatibility," etc. Instead they painted him as the at-fault party ("not consistently candid", "no longer has confidence"). This could mean that he was fired with cause [0], or it could be an intended as misdirection. If it's the latter, then it's the board who has been "not consistently candid." Their subsequent silence, as well as their lack of coordination with strategic partners, definitely makes it looks like they are the inconsistently candid party.
Ilya expressing regret now has the flavor of "I'm embarrassed that I got caught" -- in this case, at having no plan to handle the fallout of maligning and orchestrating a coup against a charismatic public figure.
[0] https://www.newcomer.co/p/give-openais-board-some-time-the
stephc_int13 · 2022-11-14
Well, they might consider renaming their fund going forward.
https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoias-bad-year-just-got-much-worse
propter_hoc · 2021-09-11
Honestly it seems like what they did right, more than anything, was realize that to be successful VCs they had to make a ton of noise and build a super media-focused brand.
https://www.newcomer.co/p/the-unauthorized-story-of-andreessen
melomal · 2021-01-23
That quote is what made a16z. It's the cornerstone of their image, it seems they are riding that quote into the ground.
If you are interested in having some more laughs, this is the full story: https://www.newcomer.co/p/the-unauthorized-story-of-andreessen
confd · 2023-11-17
Went digging through your Substack archives to find the full piece, but sadly it's locked.
An adjacent story had an interesting and tangentially relevant point as of today, though
> To understand the material world, you might study physics. To resolve those epistemic questions, you could turn to philosophers. For questions of the soul, you might ask a minister. But for these social questions in the short-term you’re basically stuck with journalists...
>
> ...We’re left trying to build a mental model for how the world works in this fog. In tech, we know very little about what leaders like Peter Thiel or Marc Andreessen are up to on a day-to-day basis. We get only snippets of their actual ideologies. Thiel famously hid the fact that he was funding the lawsuit to bring down Gawker! We learned about it because Ryan Mac and Matt Drange reported it.
https://www.newcomer.co/p/andreessen-horowitz-and-the-future