Founder Mode - 14 May 2026

Hi there,

Welcome back to Founder Mode!
I’m watching the Helix-02 humanoid do an 8 hour shift live and it’s entertaining, you might like it too plus the comments are wild.

Last week, I hosted the World AI Conference - Future Tech Demo Day and if you missed it, quick catch-up on what some of the teams pitched. Another exciting demo day that I’ll like to personally invite you to join, the KTSC Travel Tech Showcase brings together the ecosystem and featuring leading Korea startups in the space.

Thanks for reading, and let’s dive in!

🔥 Top Finds

380,000 Vibe-Coded Apps Are Leaking Data. Yours Might Be One
If you or anyone on your team has shipped a vibe-coded internal tool, dashboard, or customer-facing feature, time to run an audit. Make sure to do the basics: add auth, check permissions, don't trust input. The cost of a data breach can be huge. And if you're looking for startup ideas, security review tooling for AI-generated apps is a s-tier idea.

Cognition's Devin Hit $445M ARR in 18 Months. How Scott Wu Saw It Coming
Cognition's Devin went from 13% on SWE-Bench at launch to 90% today, hit $445M revenue run rate in its first 18 months, and counts the US Army, Goldman Sachs, and Mercedes-Benz as enterprise customers all because Scott Wu bet on agents before the consensus said it was possible. This is a great breakdown of one of the fastest-growing companies in history by any measure.

A Primer On The Agentic AI Economy
Chamath dropped an 84-page deep dive on the agentic AI economy this week. It's an insightful take about where capital is moving and why. AI already writes 75% of Google's new code and 30% of Microsoft's. Daily Claude Code commits on GitHub crossed 134,000 in early 2026. And yet fewer than 10% of companies have agents deployed at any real scale.
He maps a five-layer framework, what an agent actually is, where the technology is heading, and who's positioned to win at each layer.

Tokenmaxxing: How Top Builders Use AI To Do The Work Of 400 Engineers
In this episode of Lightcone, you’ll get a break down the rise of AI coding agents, "tokenmaxxing", and the emerging workflows behind tools like Claude Code and OpenClaw.

🎯 Opportunities Radar

a16z speedrun

a16z Speedrun is an elite 12-week accelerator program by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) tailored specifically for pre-seed and seed-stage startups in AI, games, and tech. It provides $1m in funding, over $5m in partner credits (AWS, OpenAI, etc.), and hands-on, intensive mentoring to accelerate product development, customer acquisition, and fundraising. Open to startups worldwide

Deadline: 17 May 2026

Wuxi & Nanjing Honey Peach Tech Immersion

A curated 5-day immersion is designed for ambitious founders, executives, investors, and innovation leaders who want to go beyond surface-level visits — to deeply understand China’s market, connect with decision-makers, and unlock real commercial outcomes.
Do reply to this email if you have registered your interest, so that we can take note on our end.

Find out more: https://transfong.com/ai-immersion

Deadline: 30 June 2026

SLINGSHOT 2026

Asia’s deep tech startup pitching competition is back with its 10th edition! Compete for attractive grant prizes, connect with top investors, and showcase your innovation at SWITCH 2026.

Deadline: 30 June 2026

Entrepreneurship World Cup

The Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC) is one of the world’s largest and most international startup competitions and support platforms. Since its launch in 2019, it has attracted over 420,000 entrepreneurs from 191 countries and regions, covering every stage from early ideation to growth-stage startups, with a total prize pool of USD 6.5 million.

Roadshows: 21 May, 4 June, and 18 June 2026
Global Finals: November 2026

P.S: For startups applying through StartupX, there will be an opportunity to access the Green Lane pathway. If you are interested, please reply to this email and let us know, so we can advise on the next available Demo Day and support your application through the appropriate pathway.

🛠 Tool of the Week

Qwen 3.6 35B

Runs on Apple Silicon (M5 tested). Completes routine agentic tasks correctly, 2x faster than cloud API for eligible workloads. Free / self-hosted. Worth testing if you're paying significant API costs for email, summarization, and scheduling tasks.

💬 Founder Mode Quotes

🙂 Fun Mode

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