💪 Mighty Brief
Monday, March 9, 2026 — 3:30 AM CT ·
Archive
⚡ TL;DR
- Strait of Hormuz virtually shut down — WSJ reports the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s. Oil spiking, Asian stocks crashing, futures falling. WSJ
- Iran's new Supreme Leader — Mojtaba Khamenei (Ali's son) anointed as successor, signaling no let-up in conflict. Reuters
- $300B Gulf AI spending imperiled by Iran war — UAE/Saudi data center plans from xAI, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon at risk as cheap energy disappears. The Information
- GPT-5.4 vision called "incredible" — OpenAI's Romain Huet says dense document/diagram comprehension is miles ahead of any model. @romainhuet
- Apple expanding Ultra line + 3D-printed aluminum — MacBook Ultra with touchscreen, M6 chip coming; 3D-printed chassis for iPhone/Watch. Gurman/Bloomberg
- OpenClaw craze sweeping China — AI labs launching setup tools, Shenzhen drafting support policies. Kimi Claw riding the wave. Techmeme
- Levie: "Make software that agents want" — API-first design because AI agents, not humans, will be primary software users. @levie
- gogcli 0.12.0 shipped — Google Workspace in terminal: Docs editing, Markdown export, Sheets upgrade, calendar aliases. @steipete
🔗 Capture Themes (last 48h)
Smart Money's Quiet Alarm
Captures: @wolfejosh Lux Capital founder memo · The Information "A Venture Firm Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud"
Two independent captures converging on the same signal: top VCs privately doubt AI valuations while publicly staying bullish. Wolfe says "less than 10" AI startups matter, urges founders to extend runway. Why it matters: Validates the _M positioning — real operational AI value (not hype) is what survives a correction. Client conversations should emphasize preparedness.
Process Is the Expensive Part
Captures: Founders #414 "How SpaceX Works" · Sam Lessin's molchat.ai
SpaceX: materials = 2% of rocket cost, 98% is process waste. Lessin: vibe-coded a credible AI podcast twin in 30 minutes. Both point to the same thesis — atoms/compute are cheap, orchestration is the moat. Why it matters: Direct validation of the compounding engineering thesis. The _M FDE model IS the process layer that captures the 98%.
🏗️ Blank Metal
📊 Pipeline
5 new leads added: AutoStore, Bitfarms, CSC-Steel, Orion, TritenIAG
Active prep: Tufin (training today), Turn/River (debrief today)
| Deal | Status | Last Activity |
|---|
| Tufin | Active — Training today | Mar 8 |
| Turn/River | Active — Debrief today | Mar 8 |
| BBG | Active | Mar 3 |
| Bond Sports | Active | Mar 3 |
| Dasvandh Network | Active | Mar 2 |
| AutoStore | New | Mar 8 |
| Bitfarms | New | Mar 8 |
| CSC-Steel | New | Mar 8 |
| Orion | New | Mar 8 |
| TritenIAG | New | Mar 8 |
| Oshi Health | Stale (12d) | Feb 25 |
| SRI | Stale (12d) | Feb 25 |
| Talkiatry | Stale (12d) | Feb 25 |
| PointsNorth | Stale (15d) | Feb 22 |
| Insurance-Newco | Stale (21d) | Feb 16 |
| NeoGov | Stale (21d) | Feb 16 |
| Bento | Stale (20d) | Feb 17 |
👥 Team Activity (last 24h)
- Dan: Added training session archives, demo skills, Tufin prep, headlines issue 12. Added 5 new leads + Tufin script alignment + cross-session learnings.
- Teresa: Commented on Tufin Cowork/Training slides — asking Dan if something passes muster.
- Elli: Canceled today's Deal Flow Check In (8:30 AM).
⚡ Dan's Plate Today
- 8:00 AM — Cover application form data session (Teams) w/ Ryan Blesi, Elli
- 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM — Tufin Cowork Training (Zoom) w/ full team (Elli, Mark, Teresa, EJ)
- 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM — Weekly _M Pipeline & Staffing (Zoom) w/ full company
- 2:30 PM – 3:00 PM — Turn/River Cowork debrief & planning (Zoom) w/ Teresa, Jennifer Schnee, Evan Ginsburg, Elli
8:30 AM — Deal Flow Check In CANCELED by Elli- 📧 Teresa needs response on Tufin Cowork slides ("does this pass?")
🧠 Munger Observer — March 6
Opportunity Cost — 9 of 14 drafts cooling. Only 2 drafts have momentum, 9 are 14+ days stale. The chains feeding them are loaded — the-question-changed has 6 fresh captures this week alone. The raw material compounds; the drafts don't write themselves. Every week of delay is decay, not patience.
Incentive Check — Training others on your tools. A 4-hour Claude Cowork for Turn/River is high-touch delivery. Does training a client to use the tool you built create a moat, or does it commoditize your edge? If the value is in the orchestration layer (your thesis), then teaching execution-level tool use may be the wrong altitude.
Inversion — What breaks if you ignore the 4 broken crons? Gmail triage, podcast monitor, markdown health, skill directory — all errored. None catastrophic alone. But compounding failures in automation infrastructure is exactly how you wake up one morning with no morning briefing and no idea why. Fix or kill.
— "Invert, always invert."
📧 Newsletters
The Information: $300B in Gulf AI Spending Complicated by Iran War
UAE and Saudi data center plans from xAI, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Google at risk. Cheap energy was the draw — that's disappearing fast.
Read article · Gmail
Lenny's Podcast: The Most Successful AI Company You've Never Heard Of — Qasar Younis
Applied Intuition ($15B) adds intelligence to cars, tractors, planes, subs — Tesla/Waymo without hardware. Ex-YC COO. Key insight: biggest AI revolution plays out in mining, farming, construction, trucking over next 5-10 years, NOT software. Values: speed above everything, half the work is follow-up, never disappoint the customer.
Read article · Gmail
Every: Your Claw, Yourself
Plus: OpenAI is back in the coding race.
Read article · Gmail
Lenny's Community Wisdom
Trending: Claude Code vs other coding tools, vibe coding with Figma design systems, debugging Claude Code loops, business books that haven't aged well.
Read article · Gmail
🐦 Twitter — AI
- @emollick: Built a Northern Seas lighthouse visualization with Claude Code — right colors, frequencies, brightness, visibility range. →
- @romainhuet (OpenAI): GPT-5.4 vision is "incredible" — dense documents, diagrams, sketches just work. Ask Codex to turn sketches into something real. →
- @emollick: Asking if the "fruit fly upload" thing is real — no academic paper found, just video + tweet thread. →
- Techmeme: 50%+ of UK adults used generative AI for financial advice (Lloyds study). ChatGPT most used. →
- Techmeme: OpenClaw craze in China — AI labs launching setup tools, Shenzhen drafting policies, Kimi Claw riding the wave. →
🐦 Twitter — Leaders
- @lennysan: "Claude Code UX just feels so much more pleasant... The softer colors, font, animations, personality." Karri Saarinen (Linear) disagrees — finds Codex faster and more polished. →
- @jasonlk: "My biggest hiring mistake: I hired folks who didn't really, really, really want the job. None have worked out." →
- @nikitabier: "Just dragged all my tax documents into Grok and said figure it out." →
- @garrytan: RT of @DavidWells on AI existential dread → developing a plan for how to live with it. →
- @awealthofcs: Dinner in Miami interrupted by oil prices spiking, Asian stocks crashing, futures falling. "Good times." →
🐦 Twitter — Tech/Dev
- Techmeme/Levie: "Make software that agents want" — API-first design, AI agents will be primary users of future software. →
- @mwseibel: Great irony: everyone believes America is in structural decline regardless of party in power. "Actually a hidden source of America's strength." →
- @danshipper: 300K people took @hammer_mt's AI course on Udemy. Co-authored Prompt Engineering for Generative AI (O'Reilly). →
- @rauchg: "The computer" — responding to Naval's "computer used to be a job title, then a thing humans used, now a thing computers use." →
🐦 Twitter — Tools
- @openclaw: OpenClaw 2026.3.8 — ACP provenance, openclaw backup, Telegram dupe fix, 12+ security fixes. →
- @steipete: gogcli 0.12.0 shipped — Google Workspace Admin, ADC auth, Docs tab editing + Markdown/HTML export, Sheets upgrade, calendar aliases. →
- @steipete: "I'm using AI to detect and block AI" — claw cron to block slop accounts via birdclaw. →
- @steipete: OpenClaw mention shill/reply bot blocking ruleset published. →
- @jxnlco: RT: In the API, use image detail: original to unlock biggest vision and CUA gains. →
🐦 Twitter — Twin Cities
- @nacholeber (Ben Leber): Vikings FA targets: DL John Franklin-Myers & Sebastian Joseph-Day, CB Kader Kohou & Cobie Durant, C Cade Mays. →
- @andybrehm: Minneapolis skyline 2014 vs 2024 — only substantial difference is a publicly subsidized stadium. "Pro-growth policies matter." →
- @DanMonfre: Rebel Loon project converted 500+ jerseys, raised $7,500+ for Minnesota's Immigrant Defense Network in 3 weeks. →
- @mronge (Matt Ronge): Using Codex for a Rust game — code is great, struggling with AI pixel art. →
- @BusinessMN: Senior living properties in Rosemount, Bloomington, St. Paul sold for $65.1M combined. →
📰 Headlines
Techmeme
- Apple: MacBook Neo thoughts + Ultra line expansion + 3D-printed aluminum for iPhone/Watch (Gurman/Bloomberg)
- Lenny's Podcast: Applied Intuition / Qasar Younis — most successful AI company you've never heard of
- Big Technology Podcast: AI Revenue Explodes, Dario's Memo, McDonald's CEO
Memeorandum
- WSJ: "The Long-Feared Persian Gulf Oil Squeeze Is Upon Us" — Strait of Hormuz at virtual halt
- AP/Reuters/Bloomberg: Iran's Mojtaba Khamenei appointed as new Supreme Leader
- CNBC: Markets in turmoil — oil spiking, Asian stocks crashing
🧩 Trending Skills
24h movers on skills.sh:
- find-skills (vercel-labs) — 12.6K installs, #1 all-time
- ai-image-generation (toolshell) — 11.5K
- agent-browser (toolshell) — 11.3K — browser automation for agents
- ai-video-generation (toolshell) — 11.2K
- twitter-automation (toolshell) — 11.0K
- sleek-design-mobile-apps — 8.2K — mobile design system skill
- frontend-design (anthropics) — 2.9K
- agent-browser (vercel-labs) — 2.0K — separate browser skill
- azure-ai (microsoft) — 2.0K
Pattern: image/video gen + browser automation + agent tooling dominating. Two separate agent-browser skills in top 20.