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Most founders build companies. A few build the systems that keep them from breaking.
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Na'ama Moran shared thisEvery founder I talk to asks me: how do I get a Sequoia, a16z or Founders Fund meeting? I raised $130M+ in VC. Here's my take: Stop chasing that meeting. The VC market looks very different from the inside. PitchBook: 41% of US VC in 2025 went to 10 companies. Only certain kinds of businesses get funded. Know which game you're in. Don't waste your time. VC is one game, built for one kind of return: a company big enough to return the whole fund. That's why it's growth at all costs. But here's the more interesting part. I talk to post-exit founders who got the meeting. Got the term sheet. Took the money. This time? Not a single VC dollar. I ask why. The answer keeps coming back the same: Raising is a mental and emotional tax. They'd rather put that energy into building. I get it. I've paid that tax. The money doesn't just fund your plan. It writes it. The fund's return becomes your growth rate. Then your calendar. Then your kid’s bedtime. So here's my rule: Fit the money to the business. Never the business to the money.
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Na'ama Moran shared thisIn July, Fidji Simo left a multimillion-dollar role as OpenAI's No. 2 executive. She was too sick to stay. Reading her note hit me hard. I stepped down from the CEO role at the startup I scaled to $150M because I felt I was going to get sick. I thought I'd escape that fate, but I still got vitiligo, an autoimmune disease. Every mirror reminds me of my choices. Fidji skipped her own medical tests so she would never miss a day at work. She walked away from a possible billion-dollar exit. Her colleagues told her: "You're courageous for prioritizing your health." Her answer: "I am only making this decision now because I failed to make it many times before." I know those sentences. In my last year as Cheetah's CEO, my chest tightened before every board meeting. I stopped sleeping. My partner noticed. My co-founders noticed. I didn't listen. Then a quiet voice inside whispered: you will get sick if you don't change. So I stepped down before my body chose for me. Fidji grew up believing opportunities are precious, to be grabbed with both hands. So did I. But when is the right time to quit? No one teaches you how to answer this question. The question we ask in the secrecy of our hearts, we are also asking collectively. What is your answer?
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Na'ama Moran shared thisI just love how eloquent and grounded Scott Galloway is. These times are calling us to hold seemingly opposing truths in both hands: government protection doesn’t have to mean technological or economic destruction. It’s the swing too far to either side that creates the backlash. Humanity needs to climb back toward the fulcrum.Na'ama Moran shared thisWe built the FAA and the FDA. It’s time for the Artificial Intelligence Agency,,, a trillion-dollar industry shouldn’t be left to regulate itself.
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Na'ama Moran shared thisDo you want to die at home, or at the hospital? Joseph Coates, 37, was dying of a rare blood disorder. His girlfriend sent one more email instead. By morning, a doctor in Philadelphia had replied. Suggesting a treatment that came from an AI model. Old drugs, already approved, used in a new way. A year later, the man is in remission. Most of what I hear about AI sounds nothing like it. It sounds like fear. Job destruction. Deepfakes. Extinction. I'm not naive. I read the risk reports too. I think about them when I put my daughter to bed. But fear takes away our agency. It tells us this is something happening to us. It makes us victims. Hope gives us our agency back. It reminds us this is something we are building. The same technology that makes deepfakes just found a treatment hiding in plain sight. Good or evil isn't a property of the technology. It's a choice humanity makes, again and again. And a power this big can't belong to a few. It has to belong to everyone.
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Na'ama Moran shared this2016. One of my co-founders staged a coup. He recruited one of our investors to remove me as CEO. Two hours later, he was fired. A conference room in SoMa. Me, two co-founders, an old speakerphone and one of our smaller investors on the line. Out of nowhere the investor asks: "Do we have the right CEO?" Another co-founder, dialed in from NYC: "I think I should be the CEO." I look at my two co-founders. Shocked. One turns purple, a vein about to burst on his forehead. Our NYC co-founder spent weeks working that investor. The stupidest coup I have ever seen. "This call is over," I said to the investor. "Whatever you have to say, take it up with me." "Two hours," I told my co-founders. "Me as CEO, or him. Not both." I had therapy right after. Perfect timing. When I came back, it was unanimous. They wanted me. I called the conniving co-founder: "You're fired. Next time, do your f%cking homework." One of my first lessons in power: It can't be taken. It must be granted. Give your all, earn the allegiance. And, when you know you need to fire someone, don't wait. Do it.
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Na'ama Moran posted thisI raised over $130M at Cheetah. In LA we did $40–50M a year. Bootstrapped, that's a great business. VC-backed, it wasn't enough. A VC has to return the fund and make extra money for themselves. So every company they invest in gets pushed to grow at all costs, because a few big wins have to pay for all the others. 3 in 4 VC-backed startups never return their investors' money. And MIT found most IPOs and acquisitions happen without venture capital at all. Venture money can make you go faster. It can buy you a shot at the jackpot. But the stats tell you what you're giving up: Your chances of making it through. A real piece of what you built. Actually walking away with money at the end. So before you pick your road, keep this in mind: Founders can build and sell without VCs. VCs can't do a thing without founders. The leverage is yours. Use it.
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Na'ama Moran posted thisThe worst founder habit right now? I'll go first: Calling it "staying AI-native." You're not AI-native. You're three tools deep in a stack nobody on your team asked for, chasing the next frontier model drop. At the same time, the actual process underneath, the one that's actually broken, sits exactly where you left it in March. That's not native. That's noise, with a subscription bill attached. I build AI tools for founders for a living. The founders who actually ship root-cause the break first, then run a gap analysis, then make the fix the new SOP. Everyone else is just collecting token bills for a process they never mapped. Your turn: The worst founder habit is…
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Na'ama Moran shared thisThe curse of discipline is that every day looks the same And the curse of no discipline is that every year looks the same. It's a bit of a brain-twister. Sunday night we sketched a schedule. Exercise, guitar, meditation, family time, boxed into slots. I coach founders on exactly this. Lock the calendar. Get rigorous. Discipline is what survives the spike, the raise, the pivot. Meanwhile my daughter runs a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, never once needing a calendar block for it. Nobody scheduled her into flow. So here's what I actually think: discipline is the container, not the content. Build one loose enough to still surprise you.
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Na'ama Moran shared thisAI safety. Power. Ego. Trying to make sense of it all? Read on. I wrote the play. The Council of Fire - A Short AI Safety Play, Inspired by William Shakespeare Shadows gather round a blue, thinking brazier. Thunder murmurs. AMODEI: “This fire may heal, or turn the world to ash. Test it, pace it - let no hand wield it blind.” MUSK: “Beware the lords who beg to hold the keys; Their safety may be but a crown in disguise.” ZUCKERBERG: “Let each house tend its own bright hearth with care; The State need not command each spark we make.” A VOICE, ASIDE: “Trust Meta to guard the flock from its own wolf? A merry prayer for those who prize the sheep.” 27-YO AI SCIENTIST: “Within the labs, the race devours restraint. They fear the cliff, yet spur their horses on.” TRUMP: “Build fast. Build strong. A nation that delays May wake to find its rival owns the dawn.” BURRY: “First they raise the storm, then sell the shelter - And groom the gate for profit when they float.” The flame grows. Each face is half in shadow. ALL: “Who holds the fire - and who will bear its cost?” Makes a lot more sense now right? What's your take? Is this all a well coordinated psy-op or genuine call for government to, em, do their job?
Na'ama Moran commented on a post
8h
Justin Rosenstein I’m super inspired by your vision and work at One Project and would love to support you. How can I help?
My main concern for you is that you’re not the obvious ideological and personality fit for this current administration and the people driving it. Can use some leverage with Peter Thiel or David Sachs? Not sure they are aligned with your approach though.
Happy to talk more about what I can do for you. DM me if interested.
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Na'ama Moran liked thisNa'ama Moran liked thisThe President is choosing an AI Czar, and I'm throwing my hat in the ring (dark horse though I may be). From developing Google Drive to founding Asana and One Project, I've spent a career helping people collaborate on hard problems. Collaborating to steer the future of AI is our hardest problem yet. AI will supercharge whatever goals we give it. It could cure diseases, create industries, and make life more affordable for everyone. But if we aim its enormous power at the wrong goals, even unintentionally, the results could be catastrophic. I saw it happen after I helped create Facebook's Like button. This isn't a partisan issue. We don't have to choose between the President's vision of "building America's Golden Age" and protecting human wellbeing. They're one and the same. As AI Czar, I would: 1. Let Americans decide what to do with the money AI generates. President Trump wants Americans to share in AI's success, calling it "a partnership with the American public." He's right. A share of AI's wealth should go to the public: we, the people, whose cultural output is the resource these companies mine, and whose lives they'll disrupt. But if AI does all the work, and only a few people own it, a dividend check alone leaves the rest of us with no leverage at all. And handing the money to political appointees ties it to politics. Instead, I'd push for participatory budgeting, where Americans decide together how to invest it. In Columbus, Ohio, residents are practicing it to decide how to spend $9 million. 2. Give Americans a governing stake in major AI companies. Senator Sanders has proposed the U.S. take a governing stake in the labs. I'd go one step further and put it in the hands of the American people, through a citizens' assembly on AI, not another Washington commission. 3. Lead the world toward international cooperation, like we did with nuclear safety. The President has said, "Whoever wins AI, wins." But if AI puts humanity in danger, everyone loses. Just as America pioneered nuclear safety protocols and then led the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency, we can lead on democratic control of AI, with citizens' assemblies of everyday Americans, chosen by lottery and supported by experts, proposing the goals AI must serve and the guardrails it must honor. Washington would have to adopt each proposal or publicly explain why not. Assemblies are already shaping AI policy in the UK, Belgium, and Taiwan. Ours would also lend democratic legitimacy to U.S. proposals in talks like the ones Secretary Bessent recently began with China. President Trump is optimistic about the future of AI, and I want to be too. As AI Czar, I would do what I do best: help people collaborate. Together, we can prevent the worst and realize the full promise of AI: a stronger, healthier, more prosperous America, and world. If you agree that Americans deserve a say in AI's future, please share this, and share your ideas (or feedback on mine) in the comments.
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Na'ama Moran liked thisNa'ama Moran liked thisThe most interesting thing in tech: A new installment of the “Emmett eval” in which my nephew Emmett Buck-Thompson explains which AI models he's using the most now.
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Na'ama Moran liked thisNa'ama Moran liked thisI was 26. A man dropped into a mammography clinic. Months of backlog. They kept hiring the wrong people. The mistake was strangling half their capacity. Day one, I skipped the numbers. I asked how everyone got into the field. Most had a family story about breast cancer, wanting to help. That's what got them to open up about work. The techs were fine, with time to scroll Facebook. The radiologists never left the reading room - that's were the bottleneck was. We kept hiring more techs because they were cheaper, which piled scans on the radiologists. We needed less techs and another radiologist instead, which would raise scans 50 percent without moving cost. We didn't lay anyone off. Attrition did it, freeing room to hire the radiologist. First trust, then process.
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Na'ama Moran liked thisNa'ama Moran liked thisShe took over a money-losing chipmaker worth $2 billion and grew it to $1 trillion. She is the first woman to lead a trillion-dollar company. Meet Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of AMD. Lisa was born in Tainan, Taiwan, and moved to New York with her parents when she was 3. Her father was a statistician who quizzed her on multiplication tables when she was 7, and her mother was an accountant who later started her own business. When she was 10, she started taking apart her brother's remote control cars because she wanted to know why they stopped working. She stayed curious about how things worked all through school. After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, she earned her bachelor's, master's, and PhD in electrical engineering from MIT. She then spent nearly 20 years working on semiconductors at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale. When she joined AMD in 2012, the company had been losing money for years and a lot of people on Wall Street had given up on it. One of her first big moves was getting AMD chips into the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, which helped the company grow beyond PCs. She became CEO in 2014, and on her first day, AMD stock was worth about $3 a share. She decided to put the company's future on a new chip design called Zen, even though it would take years to pay off. In 2017, AMD launched its Ryzen and EPYC chips, and they started winning customers away from Intel. Over the past few years, she has moved AMD deep into AI, signing major chip deals with OpenAI and Meta. In the second quarter of 2026, AMD's revenue grew 50% to $11.5 billion. On September 21, 2026, AMD crossed $1 trillion in market value, which made it the first woman-led company to ever reach that number. When someone asked her how it felt, she said, "It was a pretty darn good moment." This week, AMD also agreed to buy World Labs for $8.2 billion, and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li will join the company as its chief scientist. If you had bought AMD stock on her first day as CEO, you would be up more than 18,000% today. Still, most people can name Jensen Huang before they can name her. That's why I share stories of trailblazing women like Lisa every Wednesday for #WomenFounderWednesday ____ ♻️ Share this post with someone who is changing the world. 🔔 Follow Jenny Stojkovic for more content on the future of women in AI.
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Na'ama Moran liked thisNa'ama Moran liked thisLast week Mathias Döpfner, who runs Axel Springer, asked Peter Thiel whether we should stop arguing over whether AI is good or bad. Thiel said he was about to get himself in trouble. "What is the antonym of good?" he asked. "The moral antonym is evil. The functional antonym is bad. A Ferrari is an evil car because it doesn't get many miles per gallon.” A Trabant, the little East German car, is a bad car. "If you're evil, you're at least competent," he said. "Maybe you're actually kind of good because you're at least getting something done." He added that it is better to be good than evil. Even so, his ranking puts the evil man above the one who means well and fails. The Trabant had no fuel gauge. Drivers lifted the bonnet and pushed a stick into the tank to see what was left. The body panels were pressed from cotton waste and resin. A new one cost 7,450 marks, more than a year's pay for an average worker in the 1960s, and families waited around ten years for it. A used Trabant sold for more than twice the price of a new one, because you could drive it home that day. That was the bad part of East Germany. The evil part worked beautifully. By 1989 the Stasi had 91,000 full-time staff and 173,000 informants. Its agents wiped cloths on objects suspects had touched and sealed them in glass jars, so trained dogs could track them later. A state that could not build a fuel gauge could bottle the smell of a dissident. In the summer of 1989, East Germans packed their Trabants and drove to Prague. Thousands climbed into the garden of the West German embassy and slept on the palace staircase, a refugee on every step. Their cars stood abandoned in the streets outside. On 30 September 1989, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West Germany's foreign minister, stepped onto the embassy balcony. "We have come to you to inform you that today your departure..." The cheering drowned out the rest of the sentence. Thiel ranks the Stasi above the Trabant. East Germans ranked them the other way. Nothing redeems evil, least of all efficiency. Thiel has spent 15 years arguing that the West's great failure is slowness. But progress also has a direction, and choosing it is a moral act. Döpfner was asking about AI. Moralizing is how a society checks the direction while it can still change it. In 1989 East Germans had an evil state that worked and a bad car that barely did. They trusted the car to get them out.
Experience & Education
Honors & Awards
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Gold Stevie�� Award Winner in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category
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Italian
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