Giant Ventures

For CEOs & tech leaders, these are some of the interesting things we've been reading at Giant House in the last few weeks... - Giant partner Will Dufton has launched a Substack to record his observations on frontier technology and the growth equity markets. - Deel co-founder & CEO Alex Bouaziz shares the secrets behind Deel Speed and how they got to a $17B company: from M&A to hiring for optimism. - QuantumLight offer their playbook for hiring at Revolut - a goldmine of tips. - Gokul Rajaram argues that all great founders need to hire a “Near-Peer”: someone you’d work for yourself. - iPhone & iPod inventor Tony Fadell spoke about what he learnt from Steve Jobs (including why 'saying no' was one of his biggest skill) Read it & subscribe below!

"We hire happy people" almost became a Deel company value. Alex Bouaziz landed on "default optimism" instead, and he believes it's a big part of what built the $17 billion company he co-founded. In our second Giant Ideas episode with Alex, he shares his wisdom so far: 1. Hire for default optimism. You spend more waking hours with colleagues than with your family, so work with people who make you happy to be there. 2. Energy sappers don't last. The way Deel is built, it becomes obvious quickly whether someone fits the culture. 3. Be at war with yourself, not your competitors. The intensity that matters is against your own standards for customers. 4. Genuine care has to be deliberate at scale. Empathy fades by the 300th support ticket of the week, and you're handling people's payroll. 5. Most founders don't know they'll succeed. The ones who keep building and iterating get there eventually, even when a first business fails. 6. Remote work is generational. Alex hired his first employee from a Reddit post and knew him only by his username for two years. "The same way I can win a League of Legends game with four strangers, I can build a great company with anyone." A must listen for anyone deciding who to hire next. Listen via link in comments.

At Ataraxis AI, everyday we work hard to push the envelope of AI science towards helping oncologists select the optimal treatment for every cancer patient. I am looking for a few excellent researchers and engineers to join my science team: - Member of Technical Staff, Foundation Models - Member of Technical Staff, Computational Pathology - Member of Technical Staff, Research Engineer - Member of Technical Staff, Translational Science What are we looking for? Brilliance, dedication, and a real passion for research and engineering. What do we offer? Solving hard scientific problems, genuine impact, and working with a world-class team of like-minded colleagues. Apply here: https://lnkd.in/ewqDGzjW

We're proud to announce Cameron McLain as Chair of Agreena's Board, leading our next phase of growth. Cameron has been part of our journey since 2021. Now, as Europe's largest soil carbon platform, Cameron is stepping in to lead as we shift focus to profitable growth and international expansion. Bringing deep experience building frontier technology companies from seed to global scale at Giant Ventures, and a conviction that regenerative agriculture is one of the defining opportunities of our generation, Cameron will work with CEO Simon Haldrup, the Board and wider team to take Agreena to even greater heights. As this transition takes place, we also extend our deepest thanks to founding Chair Jytte Rosenmaj, whose belief, guidance and agricultural expertise has shaped us from our earliest days. We've proven that the economics of regenerative farming can be viable for farmers, and now we're taking it to the next level. The next chapter starts now. 🌱 #RegenerativeAgriculture #SoilCarbon #AgTech

Ataraxis AI just published a major study in Nature Communications - with a potential breakthrough for breast cancer prognosis. Led by Jan Witowski MD PhD (Ataraxis AI CEO) and Krzysztof Geras, with Yann LeCun (Ataraxis advisor, Turing Award laureate) among the co-authors. The study included +8,000 patients, and an incredible number of collaborators from hospitals, cancer centres, and AI labs across 3 continents. The test - built on AI-assessment of tissue slide images pathologists collect - showed higher accuracy than the standard '21-gene genomic assay' test. The test ALSO worked across breast cancer subtypes where no test currently exists. (It's also faster - taking under an hour vs. weeks) It is a great step forward for making breast cancer care more effective, accurate, and more humane. Read more via link in comments.

Exciting news from Field: they have signed new capacity deals, and are now a major player in UK energy storage. With 1.6 GW and +26 GWh of long duration storage, they will deliver major benefits to the UK’s energy system. With 16-18 hour duration these will be some of the longest duration batteries in the world. Long duration storage is critical to making full use of the UK’s renewable power - and making sure it runs continuously. Field, led by Amit Gudka, is now entering a new phase: from building and operating grid-scale batteries to delivering some of the UK’s most strategically important storage assets.

What do you need to be the fastest startup EVER to reach $100M ARR? Alex Bouaziz, co-founder and CEO of Deel, has a very simple answer: follow your customers. Build what they ask for, create a company for A-players (and never rush a hire), and make the culture one where you are constantly challenged. In this Giant Ideas episode, Tommy Stadlen sits down with Alex to discuss how Deel (now at $1B+ in revenue, with 7,000 employees across 150+ countries) was built on 3 YC pivots, 13 acquisitions, and... sponsoring Arsenal. Link in comments.

What do nuclear fusion, inventing the iPhone, quantum computing, and self-driving cars all have in common? They're all giant ideas building the future with frontier technology... and they're all on our podcast, Giant Ideas - now on Instagram! 🔮 We've spoken to technology visionaries like Waymo founder Sebastian Thrun, Robinhood founder Baiju Bhatt, Form Energy founder Mateo Jaramillo, Inertia founder Jeff Lawson, Cityblock Health founder Toyin Ajayi. 🌏 Politicians including New Zealand former PM Jacinda Ardern, US Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang, Former Deputy PM Nick Clegg (former Meta President) 🧠 AI thinkers like Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn & Manas AI co-founder) and Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. 🌟 Cultural leaders like Sophia Amoruso, Alain de Botton, and award-winning architects Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Engels. 💵 Financial leaders like Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, Lightspeed founder Barry Eggers, and Floodgate's Mike Maples, Jr. ✨ Plus the chef running the world's best restaurant (Ikoyi), Olympic-winning athletes (Alistair Brownlee OBE) and more... All their fascinating 60 second insights are live on Instagram, linked below!

Wow! Super excited to have received the Royal Academy of Engineering Young Engineer of the Year Award. It means a huge amount that work I do for the sheer joy and love of engineering has been recognised in this way. More than anything, this feels like an award for the whole team at Matta. Every day I get to work alongside incredible engineers across so many disciplines, and I’m constantly inspired by what we’re building together. Thank you to Sebastian Pattinson, Tim Minshall, Andrew Churchill OBE FREng and Lord Robert Mair for all the support you’ve given me along the way. Congratulations as well to the other incredible recipients: Brogan MacDonald, Laura Tuck, Aakeen P.. and Alexia Williams MBE. Excited to meet you all at the ceremony!