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Building tools to make it easier and faster for the world's brightest technologists to…
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Minn Kim shared thisAs a long-time reader of Works In Progress, what a treat to be able to show our work Lighthouse HQ alongside the many others pursuing new and underrated ideas to improve the world. S/O to Renaise Kim for the beautiful design collaboration to help land frontier talent in the U.S.!
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Minn Kim posted thisA huge share of the researchers, engineers, and founders building in the US got here through the same handful of visa pathways, and most of them are under-discussed and misunderstood.| Two live sessions next week on the two that matter most: July 21 — The O-1A: the 3-year employment visa with a 90%+ approval rate that most ambitious technologists don't realize they qualify for. July 23 — The EB-1A and EB-2 NIW: the two green card pathways for people making outsized contributions in their field. Hosted by Luke Eure, Blake Rowland, and Simas Zavistauskas from our Sales Team at Lighthouse. Register in the comments 👇
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Minn Kim shared thisProud of this one. The first of many First Landing storiesMinn Kim shared thisIn 2023, swyx published an essay titled "The Rise of the AI Engineer." It named a discipline that barely existed. Today it's one of the fastest-growing roles in technology. That's the kind of person the First Landing series is about. Swyx left a finance career in Singapore, taught himself to code, and built in public. He landed in the unknown so the builders coming after him wouldn't have to. A decade later, he's helped define the technical role of the century: the AI Engineer. Latent Space. The AI Engineer conference. Cognition. All built here. This is his First Landing story.
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Minn Kim shared thisFirst Landing had to start with Swyx. The startup community rewards those who pay it forward. Few have given more back to the people around them than swyx. He came from Singapore, walked away from a finance career to teach himself to code, and spent a decade building in public before it paid off. In 2023 he named a discipline, the AI Engineer, that now defines how a generation of technologists describe their work. He didn't just make the leap. He drew the map for everyone making it after him. So grateful we got to tell his story.
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Minn Kim shared thisWhen Anthropic was directed to cut foreign nationals off from its top models (Fable + Mythos), frontier researchers started asking: how do I make my position here permanent? The good news: For many researchers, the EB-1A green card is well within reach. The last thing we want is for top researchers to leave the US when there is a permanent path available. So we turned what we've learned from thousands of applications into a free resource: The Researcher's Guide to the EB-1A. Share this guide with anyone in your network thinking about a green card. We want them to stay in the US 🇺🇸 And if you want a free personalized assessment, get in touch. Link in comments.
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Minn Kim shared thisOur team put together a session for July 1 to share what we're seeing on the ground in US immigration this year: what's actually changed, what's noise, and the things ChatGPT won't tell you. If you're a founder or technologist navigating any of this, come join. Register in the comments 👇Minn Kim shared thisWhat's quietly shifted in US immigration this year and what didn't make the news. Join our team live on Tuesday, July 1 at 9am PT. We'll walk through visa pathways available to frontier talent: O-1, TN, H-1B, EB-1A, and answer the questions founders and technologists ask us every day. Register in the comments 👇
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Minn Kim posted thisSo grateful for the positive reception we’ve had. A founder in France sent a reflection about what gave him the courage to take the leap. Two engineers I’ve not yet met wrote to say they’re inspired to move to SF. Another founder I supported with their green card two years ago wrote to remind me how glorious it felt the day it came in the mail. First Landing is just the beginning.
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Minn Kim shared thisWe started Lighthouse HQ because I believe the best and brightest in the world deserve a faster, smarter, more human path to doing critical work in the U.S. Today we're releasing First Landing: stories about people who left somewhere familiar to go build the frontier. We sat down with the founders, engineers, and technologists we've helped get here, and asked one question: why America? What surprised me was how consistent the answer was. Across every conversation, they had come chasing something bigger than themselves — a version of themselves that only existed on the other side of the leap. The deal has always been the same: give up the familiar, gain the frontier. Watch the trailer today below. Our first episode, featuring swyx drops at the end of the month.
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Minn Kim shared thisOur Lighthouse HQ team is at HumanX meeting with the people thinking about the real-world impact of AI, and how scaling their teams means attracting the best and brightest from around the world. Come find us to learn about visa pathways best suited for top technical talent, or get started in the link below to find out more!Minn Kim shared thisLighthouse is at HumanX today in San Francisco, talking with founders and researchers building at the intersection of AI and human potential. We're especially curious to chat to people about how AI is amplifying top talent to build more, faster. If you want to chat about talent, AI, hiring globally, or visas for your team, swing by booth 132 or shoot us a message. Would love to say hi.
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisHave you ever been to Home Depot? Why did you go there instead of Costco - they're a generalist and sell everything? Why hasn't Costco eaten Home Depot alive? You go to Costco when you want one place to get a bit of everything: toilet paper, eggs, a faucet, and books all in one trip. But let's say you're making a deck for your home on the weekend. Where do you go? Of course, Home Depot. Let's say you're a carpenter. Where do you go? Of course, Home Depot. Let's say you're a plumber. Where do you go? Home Depot. Today, Home Depot has a $300B market cap. Costco is a $400B company. Home Depot has not been eaten alive by Costco. In fact, Home Depot is the highest-returning American stock of the last 45 years (WSJ). I think there's a similar misconception in physical AI: once a generalist policy can execute any task, the companies building those policies will capture the entire robotics market. Executing a motion is not sufficient to see ROI. This paradigm misses that generalizability is 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘦 factor, which directly conflicts with other dimensions like throughput. If you talk to our food manufacturing customers, they'll tell you that, for any given job, a worker does one, two, or three tasks throughout the day (and generally, one). They don't need a system that can do every task under the sun (from assembling food to folding laundry to picking up toys from the floor) if it sacrifices the dimensions they actually care about (for example, throughput, reliability, and yield savings). What they care about is not task generality - they care about domain generality. They want our robots to handle any ingredients, portion sizes, trays, compartments, and conveyors. It's generalized in the domain they care about. Within domain generality, their lines often run at 30 to 45 trays per minute, and reliability is key. So for our customers, domain generality while maintaining high throughput and reliability is substantially more important than task generality with low throughput and low reliability. In the home, the requirements are different. A robot may need to fold laundry, prepare food, and pick up toys. Taking 30 minutes instead of 20 to fold laundry may be acceptable. On a production line, that means you're making 33% less revenue. We believe industrial robotics will scale industry by industry, with systems that generalize within each domain and meet its performance requirements. Like Home Depot, there's value in serving a particular set of needs exceptionally well. More on our blog (link in comments).
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisSolo founding will become the default way new startups get started. We’re building the infrastructure to improve their odds of success. Thank you Megan Leonhardt for the conversation and covering our collaboration with Carta for the State of Solo Founders report in your excellent piece “AI won’t destroy the job market” Link to the article and the report below
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisIn my last month of paternity leave, my intuition told me to do something impulsive. It taught me a lesson I didn't expect. I booked a last-minute 6-hour red-eye with my toddler. The mission: surprise my dad for his 70th birthday. I felt guilty. My newborn was staying home. I also felt a kind of clarity I hadn't felt in weeks. The logistics were a nightmare. It was going to be Type II fun at best. None of that mattered. Something was pushing me to go. So I listened. I'd been losing that signal lately. It felt good to hear my gut again. We pulled up to my childhood home at 7 AM. I design experiences for a living. Normally I'd have mapped every beat of a surprise like this. This time there was no plan. Just one idea: sneak in. Every door was locked. Every window too. So prudent and responsible, Mama and Baba. Then it started raining. We scampered under the roof overhang. The family dog spotted me through the patio door and started barking. My mom woke up convinced we were being robbed. She grabbed my dad. He opened the front door and found us standing there, drenched. 😂 Now grandpa and granddaughter are in the kitchen making morning coffee together. They can't stop laughing. Two kids who feel like they've known each other in past lives, playing with pure joy. Here's what I relearned as an experience designer. When the door opened, I wasn't giddy. I wasn't present. I was beating myself up for not designing a more magical reveal. I was grading the moment instead of living it. The best moments aren't perfectly planned. They're the ones where you show up and let the rain do some of the work. Intention brought me to the door. Presence was the choice I had to make once I walked through it. Andy Bernard said it best in The Office: "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." These are the good old days. This is it. So go surprise your parents. Do it while they're healthy. Do it while you're healthy. Your work will be there. Your family will support you. Your sleep will come back eventually. You won't regret it. P.S. If you're dreaming up an experience for someone you love and want help designing it, DM me. Normally something I do for work or charge for, I wanted to do some pro bono! I am striving to do 8, 30-minute Experience Design Your Life sessions with people in my community before the end of my paternity leave. Holler in comments what you're scheming / DM.
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisPoseidon Fellows is UC San Diego's flagship entrepreneurship fellowship, and we're now looking for our 2027 class. UC San Diego is one of the top 10 public universities in the country, with 10K+ engineers and researchers on campus at any one time. We're the epicenter of breakthroughs in biotechnology, semiconductors, climate science, and more. Triton talent invented Node.js and developed drugs that beat back cancer. Our alumni include legendary investors like Elad Gil and Mark Suster, as well as renowned technologists like former US Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil. And yet, our highest potential students never had a real pathway into startups. I returned to my alma mater this past year to build one. Along with my partner in crime Professor Elizabeth Lyons, we handpick 12 students each year for a dedicated lecture series on entrepreneurship, leadership, and technology. Fellows hear directly from founders who have built billion dollar companies, and I personally mentor every fellow. Some of the most consequential companies of the next decade will be built by people who aren't old enough to rent a car. I watched it happen - Cursor was built out of a dorm room and acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion. I’m committed to making sure more great entrepreneurs come from UC San Diego, and the Poseidon Fellows program exists to give this upcoming generation of innovators a head start. Applications for our next Poseidon Fellows class are now open - link in comments to learn more. Deadline is November 12, 2026 at 11:59 PM. Go Tritons. 🔱
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisIf you're still on the fence about Jev, we did the experiment for you. We have been running it in prod for a week and it's wild, 89% faster and 39% cheaper We put the prompts, details and analysis in a single blog post such that you don't have to dig https://lnkd.in/gCg_BTNRWe swapped our LLMs for Jev. It's 39% cheaper. · PolylaneWe swapped our LLMs for Jev. It's 39% cheaper. · Polylane
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisEarlier this year, humans stopped being the main audience for documentation. In August, sites running on Mintlify served 131 million human visitors. Agents made 257 million requests to the same sites. For every person who opened a page, nearly two agents pulled it too. That changes what a product is. When the reader is a person, your product is an application. When the reader is an agent, your product, and everything you know about it, is an API. We just published our State of Knowledge Report with over 300 companies. Only 7% had made their content readable for agents. The other 93% are still writing for the audience that's now the minority. Knowledge is an API now. Most companies are still shipping it like an application.
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisWe hit a big milestone today: 50,000 patient visits across the Corner Health network. That’s 50,000 times a patient got care at a brand-new, independent practice around the corner. 50,000 times a patient got 2x the time with their provider than is typical. And 50,000 times a patient got access to independent care that costs a fraction of the status quo. There are still about 50,000 things on our to-do list, but it feels really good to celebrate this one :) Very proud of the team and every independent provider who got us here. Onward 🚀
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Minn Kim reacted on thisMinn Kim reacted on thisWe just signed our first seven-figure deal at Exec. Terms: • 3-year deal • $1M/year • Enterprise Wide License How we got there is the interesting part. We actually got a verbal yes from the CEO back in March. But, it took until this week to actually close. Along the way, we were sure the deal died three separate times. Nearly every conversation was high stakes. Product demos, back-channeling, security reviews, pricing negotiations. So we did the thing we built Exec to do. We turned each hard conversation into a Roleplay and practiced until we scored Gold. We had never closed a deal this size before (our ACV is ~$40k). The practice was what gave us the confidence to find real pain, build champions, and hold the line when it mattered. Huge thanks to everyone at Exec who contributed, and to our new partner, for getting this one over the line. Now it's time to deliver.
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Bloomberg Private Equity BRIEF
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On Measuring Risk - With collaboration from private equity research firm PERACS, we assessed their new analytic technique that allows LPs to assess the risks in their private equity portfolios.
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