Molly O’Shea

Molly O’Shea

5,411 Twitter followers

Follow

investing in autodidacts ~ writing @Sourceryvc newsletter on top weekly VC deals & tech signals

Posts

Defense startup advice, brutally simple: 1) “Just don’t build another drone company.. The govt’s just not gonna buy that many" If you’re serious: 2) “Learn procurement, or hire people who already have.. They're all coming from Palantir, Anduril, Primer—maybe Scale—but a very small number of people." Real talk with Ross @fubini of XYZ VC

Ross @fubini says “There are only ~40 people in the entire US that are able to sell products to the government, period.” "The most rarefied skill is the ability to do that effectively.. you're: - @ssankar, Palantir - Matt Steckman, @anduriltech - Zach Shore, @hermeuscorp -

At 24 years old, SpaceX is already one of the largest & most *capital-efficient* companies ever built: SpaceX: ~$12B raised → $1.25T Val (target $1.75T IPO) OpenAI: ~$170B raised → $840B Val (target $1T IPO) SpaceX Financial Profile (Over 1 Year): 2025: $350B → 2026: $1.25T Valuation March 2025: $350B val, SpaceX had raised only ~$10B over 23 years, remarkably modest for its scale & valuation, +was already cash flow positive FY 2025: Generated about $8 billion in profit on $15-$16B of revenue, driven primarily by @Starlink's satellite internet service, which accounts for between 50% - 80% of total revenue (Reuters) February 2, 2026: $1.25T valuation, all-stock acquisition of xAI. Deal valued standalone SpaceX at ~$1 trillion & xAI at $250 billion. Widely reported as the largest M&A transaction in history. March 2026: @elonmusk announces SpaceXAI + Tesla TERAFAB Project, goal to reach a trillion watts of compute/year 2026: Targeting ~$1.75 trillion IPO Note: @xai (now part of @SpaceX) has reportedly raised ~$42B total (PitchBook). Combined, that’s ~$54B total capital against a ~$1.25T valuation. Figures based on recent public reporting; estimates may vary. Christian Garrett (@CGarrett_15) of @137ventures twitter.com/MollySOShea/status...

Excited to have @elonmusk on the pod at some point (soon!) — can someone do a warm intro for me?

Excited to have @DarioAmodei on the pod at some point (soon!) — can someone do a warm intro for me? Jason at Allin dot com

BREAKING: Nominal Hits $1B Valuation — Founders Fund Preempts $80M B-2 Acceleration Round Just 10 months after @Nominal_io's $75M Series B led by Sequoia's Alfred Lin CEO Cameron McCord & Trae Stephens (Founders Fund + Anduril) join Sourcery to discuss: - $155M raised in 10 months, nearly $200M total funding - Early validation at Anduril - 4 of the 5 largest defense primes are now customers - Reducing major hardware test campaigns by 50–60% (which can cost ~$3M per day) - Strategy: platform expansion, potential M&A, and aggressive hiring - Anduril LORE All systems Nominal. @CameronLMcCord @traestephens @Alfred_Lin 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Trae Stephens & Cameron McCord (01:11) Nominal raises $80M from Founders Fund (03:32) Why Founders Fund made the investment (05:22) Palantir, FF, Anduril: Trae is a "Slashie" (07:14) Nominal: the GitHub for hardware testing (12:33) Why Sequoia believed Nominal’s TAM was much bigger (15:36) Inside Nominal’s growing defense customer base (17:32) Why government hardware testing still relies on Excel and MATLAB (22:22) Cutting hardware testing time by up to 60% (26:55) How AI changes hardware development (37:22) Why the government is backing new defense tech companies (33:35) Nominal's sales strategy (45:44) Competing with legacy software giants (46:24) Recruiting top engineers (50:56) Early Anduril LORE: Stories from the desert

@CameronLMcCord

Ambition is timeless. Tools are not. Today we are announcing an $80M acceleration round at a $1B valuation led by @foundersfund, with participation from @sequoia @generalcatalyst @Lux_Capital @RedGlass @lightspeedvp Avenir, and @Haystack. In the last year, we grew revenue 7x,

Sequoia stewards are built different. @Alfred_Lin pre-stage: - tequila shots - 50 pushups Interview coming soon..

My ‘Reddit-only’ brother shared this in the family GC I can confirm it has crossed the chasm twitter.com/MollySOShea/status...

BREAKING: Naveen Rao (@NaveenGRao) CEO & Co-Founder of Unconventional AI on Brain-Inspired AI Chips ICYMI Rao Founded: - Nervana, acq. by Intel for $400M+ - MosaicML, acq. by Databricks for $1.3B (fmr Chief AI Officer, Databricks) Unconventional AI raised $475M Seed at $4.5B valuation to build biology-scale efficiency to artificial intelligence. Recorded & hosted Jan 20th in Palo Alto by Playground Global's (@Playground_VC) General Partner Peter Barrett, this Sourcery discussion features: - Naveen Rao, CEO & Co-Founder (@unconvAI) - Konstantine Buhler (@Konstantine), Partner at Sequoia Capital & Early Investor - Molly O’Shea, Sourcery (Moderator) Rao's 'Un-Seed' financing round was co-led by @a16z & @lightspeedvp Venture Partners, w/ participation from @sequoia, Lux Capital, DCVC, Databricks, Jeff Bezos, & more (Rao invested $10M of his own at the same terms) Highlights: 00:00 Introduction to Unconventional AI 01:01 Playground 02:57 The Future of Computation and Moore's Law 04:38 The Evolution of AI and Computation 05:59 Naveen's Journey: From Nervana, Mosaic ML, Databricks, to Unconventional AI 07:33 The AI Supercycle 12:31 Layers of the AI Stack 15:31 Conviction in Unconventional AI 31:01 Building a Team 36:01 Understanding the Scale of the Problem 37:11 Capital vs. Power Bottleneck 38:37 Founder Principles 41:33 Sequoia Investing Principles 45:00 Circular AI Deals and Market Dynamics 46:33 Professional Race Car Driving 50:58 Q&A Session: joules/token, neuromorphic, recurrence 01:08:33 Final Thoughts

BREAKING: How Elon Builds Trillion-Dollar Companies Shaun Maguire (@shaunmmaguire), Partner at Sequoia: "I first invested in 2019.. cumulative invested probably $1.2 billion, & across all the different funds, that position's worth about $12 billion today.. in the $800 billion valuation. And so hopefully, in the IPO it's worth a lot more." Shaun & @sequoia have backed 5 of Elon's companies: SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, & X. This interview is a behind-the-scenes look inside Elon’s operating system — from one of the most technically fluent investors in Silicon Valley. This was so much fun, I hope you enjoy! Highlights: (00:00) Shaun Maguire, Partner at Sequoia Capital (01:10) SpaceX Upcoming IPO & data centers in space (05:00) The math behind space-based data centers (07:05) Breaking down Starlink from first principles (12:10) Economics of Starlink vs legacy telecom (14:41) Starlink + self-driving cars (16:29) Starship, direct-to-cell, & the next decade roadmap (19:38) SpaceX investment size and returns so far (20:25) Why is Elon still underrated? (21:33) How SpaceX went from contrarian to consensus (25:39) Why does Elon keep a tight investor circle? (27:06) Why does the market still underestimate xAI? (29:47) AI capex, liquidity cycles, & why spending is rational (32:11) Staying private vs going public: what makes more sense (35:47) Mission-driven cultures vs post-liquidity slowdown (37:53) Preparing founders psychologically for liquidity events (40:33) Why this may be the healthiest wealth creation cycle

Loading..