💪 Mighty Brief
Sunday, February 22, 2026 · 3:30 AM CT
📌 TL;DR — Start Here
1. Supreme Court rebukes Trump tariffs 6-3 — he doubles down anyway
SCOTUS ruled against emergency law tariffs but Trump raising rates to 15% and pursuing UK deal. Markets brace for Monday.
NYT: Trump's Trade Gamble ·
Fortune
2. Anthropic data: 50% of AI agent tool calls = software engineering
The other 50% are greenfield verticals most founders are ignoring. Garry Tan highlights this as the real opportunity map for agent builders.
Techmeme ·
Garry Tan
3. US consulting market growing 7% in 2026 — fastest since COVID
Source Global data via FT. Companies seeking AI transformation advice driving the surge. Direct tailwind for _M.
Techmeme/FT
4. Rondale Moore (Vikings WR) has died at 25
Heartbreaking local news. Former Cardinals 2nd-round pick, traded to Vikings.
Ben Leber
5. Bomb cyclone hitting East Coast — biggest NYC blizzard in a decade
15-20" from Philly to Boston, 70 mph gusts. Hurricane hunters flying recon. Paul Douglas tracking.
Paul Douglas
6. Russian hacker used generative AI to breach 600+ FortiGate firewalls across 55 countries in 5 weeks
Amazon-sourced report. AI-assisted hacking at scale is here.
Techmeme/BleepingComputer
7. OpenClaw ecosystem exploding — Hiten Shah, Garry Tan, levelsio all building publicly
Hiten running multi-bot pair prompting sessions. Garry Tan 34 days into Claude Code addiction. Levelsio: "vibecoded app selling $$$ in 3 months represents everything threatening 9-5 devs."
Hiten Shah ·
Garry Tan ·
levelsio
8. Cardiologist places 3rd at Anthropic hackathon (out of 13K applicants)
Built it in 7 days — coded day and night in the hospital. Yohei: "excited to see more industry experts get started without needing a tech cofounder."
Yohei
🏗️ Blank Metal
📊 Pipeline
| Deal | Stage | Status |
|---|
| Points North | Lead | HOT Feasibility report done — 5 HIGH, 4 MED, 1 LOW. Strong result. Proposal due Monday. |
| NeoGov | Discovery | HOT Scoping done. Follow-up tomorrow (2/23). |
| Caribou | Discovery | HOT Tech stack review 2/20. PE-owned, 40 IT staff, Azure cloud. $650K Workday + $600K Paytronics + $375K Beekeeper = modernization pressure. Great Plains ERP support ending 2031. |
| BBG | Discovery | HOT Scope split OK, samples late. |
| Bento | Discovery | HOT Cowork-first approach, access pending. |
| Bond Sports | Discovery | HOT Scoping scheduled. |
| PaceLoanGroup | Proposal | HOT ~$100K proposal sent. |
| PowerPusher | SOW | WARM $78-135K, SF convo blocker. |
| Dasvandh | Proposal | WARM $125-170K, awaiting reply. |
| Zivian Health | SOW | WARM Partner POV written. |
| Pivotal | SOW | WARM Reviving, $36-50K. |
| hc1/SourceIQ | Discovery | COLD 26+ days silent. Likely lost. |
| Marqi Medical | Proposal | COLD $180K, Oct 2025 — stale. |
| Holmes Staffing | SOW | COLD MSA delay, Oct 2025 — stale. |
Pipeline summary: 8 active hot/warm deals · 3 stale/cold · Est. weighted pipeline: $500K+
👥 Team Activity (last 24h)
- Auto-sync commit (Feb 21)
- Points North: sample URLs added for feasibility testing
⚡ Dan's Plate
- No unread _M emails needing response
- Only promo from Zapier in _M inbox
- Tomorrow (Mon 2/23): _M Pipeline & Staffing meeting 10:30 AM · Omnia Weekly Planning 11:00 AM · NeoGov follow-up scheduled
- Points North proposal due Monday — feasibility looks strong, need to lock proposal
📋 Recent Meeting Context (Feb 20)
Caribou Tech Stack Opportunities — PE-owned company, 40 IT staff (24 roles), everything Azure cloud. Big SaaS spend: Workday $650K, Paytronics $600K, Beekeeper $375K (underutilized). Great Plains ERP (MS support ending 2031). Custom SMA app is critical, only 1-2 engineers supporting it.
Self-Service AI Approach (Insurance-Newco/Wondr) — "Zip line across the bridge" concept. One-pizza team for AI experimentation: Jarner/Alex as product, Eric+Mike as AI engineers, Jeff Burja from Engine team. Positioned as discovery within Popcorn structure, not separate team. Prove infrastructure-to-experience connection before scaling.
🧠 Munger Observer
Opportunity Cost — Aruba Tomorrow: With vacation starting and Points North proposal due Monday, there's a collision. If the proposal isn't locked before wheels up, vacation brain will fight deadline brain. Invert: what does a Monday deadline look like when you're poolside? Either ship it before wheels up or negotiate the deadline now. Half-measures guarantee both suffer.
Circle of Competence — Portfolio Spread: Blank Metal, Aetherical, coaching practice, content pipeline, Squorum, Pulltab, Lite. Each one reasonable alone. Together they create the illusion of diversification while fragmenting focus. Munger bought concentrated positions. The question isn't "which of these is good?" — it's "which 2-3 would I bet the farm on?"
— "Invert, always invert."
🐦 X/Twitter Highlights
AI List
- Yohei: Cardiologist won 3rd at Anthropic hackathon out of 13K — non-dev builders are arriving →
- Adam Brotman: "Claude is actually an agentic tool that can tool call python, web search, and use Excel/PowerPoint" →
- Ethan Mollick: Claude made its own "Claude's Corner" folder when given free time between coding sessions →
- Derya Unutmaz MD: Tested GPT-5.2, Gemini 3.1, Opus 4.6, Grok 4.20 on redesigning the immune system — Grok most creative →
Leaders List
- Jason Lemkin: "You can vibe code anything now — 99.99% of us are too lazy to maintain it" →
- Hiten Shah: Pair prompting with two bots talking to each other like colleagues →
- Garry Tan: Data center NIMBYs killing $1T in AI infrastructure — Loudoun County said yes, got $111M in school funding →
- Claire Vo: Beautiful thread on builder joy — "See. Puzzle. Make. What a time!" →
Tech-Dev List
- Techmeme: Anthropic data — 50% of agent tool calls are SWE, the other 50% are greenfield →
- Techmeme: US consulting market +7% in 2026 driven by AI advice demand →
- Techmeme: Jump (AI for financial advisors) raises $80M Series B →
- Matt Galligan: Claude Code sessions now running 2+ hours regularly, up from ~1hr six months ago →
Tools List
- Peter Steinberger (OpenClaw): Responding to auto-generated security reports — "how else should I name config options designed to disable auth?" →
- levelsio: My prompts are short, talks to AI like a friend, wonders if giant prompts actually help →
- Internal OS built in 2 weeks: Rails + Claude Code while running a company →
Twin Cities
- Rondale Moore (Vikings WR) has died at 25 — heartbreaking, 2nd-round pick →
- Paul Douglas: Bomb cyclone — biggest NYC blizzard in a decade, 15-20" with 70 mph gusts →
- Union membership rose to 10% in 2025 — 14.7M workers represented →
- KLAR down 70% in 5 months — BNPL "smooth dream" turning into subprime nightmare →
📰 Headlines
Memeorandum
🧩 Trending Skills (skills.sh)
Top trending: remotion-render (10K installs), agent-tools (10K), find-skills (7K). Microsoft Azure skills dominating (observability, AI, cost optimization, diagnostics, storage). The agent skills ecosystem is consolidating around a few mega-skills while Microsoft pushes hard on Azure copilot integration.
Personal thought: The Anthropic "50% SWE, 50% greenfield" stat is the most important signal this week for _M. You're already positioned in the greenfield half — Caribou (restaurant ops), Points North (payroll compliance), insurance workflows. The consulting market growing 7% confirms the thesis. But Munger's right about the portfolio spread. Monday's pipeline meeting is the place to ask: which 3 deals would you bet the farm on? The rest need a partner or a pass.