Flow State #4 - Mastering the Meta and Your Own Personal Tutor
Playing the right game is the most important thing + learning can be fun!
Before I get into this week’s Flow State, I’d love to just say a huge thanks to everyone who helped me out in 2025, especially with my move to London. I know my posting on here has been incredibly adhoc, so I’m hoping to really turn that around and hit the same levels of consistency that I had previously!
Now, without further ado, welcome to Edition 4 of Superfluid: Flow State where I curate the smartest takes on startups, AI, and capital allocation from the 75+ articles I read every week. I’ll give you the key insight from 4 of the best pieces that I consumed over the last week that you can immediately apply to your business (in <2 minutes).
Feel free to hit reply and let me know what you thought of this week’s article. I respond to every email.
Today's word count: 544
Read time: 2 min 30 sec.
Your Own Personal Aristotle by Mario Gabriele
I’m a chronic Wikipedia rabbit hole dweller. I love clicking through random hyperlinks, falling deep into biographies or obscure historical events, only to realise a month later that I’ve forgotten almost everything I read on that random Sunday afternoon. It’s high-volume consumption with zero retention.
This week, Mario published his annual productivity briefing and shared a Personal Aristotle Claude project. It’s designed to help him learn anything he wants, specifically tailored to his unique learning style. After a bit of intentional tweaking and iterating, I’ve adapted it for myself. If you’re someone who is constantly curious about the “how” and “why” of the world, I highly recommend giving this a go!
Hubristic Fundraising by Jason M. Lemkin 🦄
The leading game on the field in VC in relation to AI startups is to effectively “Kingmake” your way to success. Pre-seed to Series A rounds for startups with effectively no product/traction have never been larger at the moment, and I can’t help but think that this is a recipe for disaster across the board.
The default stance for every founder who raises one of these rounds is purely on the basis that the market potential is basically uncapped. That’s a perfectly fine take, and the size of fundraising usually helps attract top tier talent, enterprise contracts and earns some level of ‘credibility’, but in a market where everyone is playing that game, it devolves pretty quickly, which is what we’re seeing right now (e.g., co-founders of Thinking Machines that raised $2B seed round moving back to OpenAI).
I absolutely agree that you need to play the game on the field, but the current game in particular leaves no room for error. I’ve written a lot about this in my book The Fundraising Blueprint on what this all means for your startup, specifically the impact raising large rounds can have on your cap table.
Loyalty is Dead in Tech by Nikunj Kothari
As a fast follow to the previous article, loyalty is certainly dead in tech. Almost on a weekly basis, a co-founder leaves an AI startup to move to a large AI lab, or maybe spins out of an AI lab to start their own company, only to be hired back into the same AI lab they were initially at.
As equity valuations rise, and as base salary comp packages sky rocket, the incentive structures of waiting for your equity to vest before leaving no longer exist. The four-year vest was designed for a world where equity mattered more than salary. That world no longer exists.
Mastering the Meta by Fawzi Itani
Okay, I promise this is the last article on “playing the game on the field”. The best operators, investors, and players don’t just play the game better than everyone else, they change the game entirely by rewriting the rules.
In venture, that meant going larger when others maintained smaller fund sizes (e.g., a16z), or keeping a tight partnership when others expanded their team (e.g., Benchmark). The best zig when others zag.
The worst game to play is one where the meta is already being phased out and you just don’t know it yet. What works in venture and startups probably changes every 18 months, which means by the time you’ve mastered the current playbook, you’re already behind.
Forward this to a founder who needs better signal.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you thought about the format. Feel free to hit reply and let me know, I respond to every email.
Abhi