Slow Ventures

The biggest skill gap in tech isn't technical. Last November, we hosted founders at the Four Seasons in San Francisco for something nobody expected from a VC firm: Etiquette Finishing School. It was oversubscribed. National press covered it. It helped inspire what became Amazon's #1 Business Image and Etiquette book. This week, we brought it to New York. Bigger, sharper, and with a lineup we're proud of: → Matt Mullenax and Matt Teri on grooming and putting your best foot forward letting scent be your first impressions → David Litwak (Maxwell Social) & Andrew Yeung (Next Wave NYC) on How to host events people actually want to be at, and why technical founders have earned their reputation as the worst guests in the room → Amelia Miller (ex-VP Insight Partners) on navigating AI etiquette. AI will tell you what you want to hear. That's not the same as what you need to hear. Understanding the bias built into every interaction. → Kevin Colleran & Yoni Rechtman (Slow) + Aaron Harris (ex-YC Partner) + surprise guest, Brian Kelly on fundraising etiquette. The unwritten rules nobody teaches you and the psychological behavior of investors and how to tap them to your advantage → Pilar Briton & Geoffrey Chen on Fine dining etiquette: Alcohol, caviar, and the rules of the meals where deals actually get done Here's why this matters: We're entering an era where the technical barrier to building is approaching zero. Anyone can ship an app over a weekend. The defensible skill set is shifting FAST toward the things that can't be automated: Reading a room, building trust in person, and making someone feel like the most important person at the table. The founders who win the next decade won't just be the best builders. They'll be the ones who know how to walk into any room (a boardroom, a dinner, a stage) and make people want to follow them. If AGI takes over, all there is left is etiquette.

In January we published a framework arguing AI forces an architectural reset in cybersecurity. Not because the incumbents are bad companies. Because the assumptions they were built on become liabilities in an AI-native threat world. Since then: Crowdstrike down 16.6%. Palo Alto down 18.9%. Anthropic published the same diagnosis this week. The market is starting to price the diagnosis. The harder and more interesting question is what the new primitives look like and who can realistically build them.

The $1.5T cybersecurity market was built for a world that assumed visibility and control. AI is breaking both. Enterprise environments are getting exponentially messier: more apps, more agents, more integrations, faster release cycles, and entirely new attack surfaces like MCP and operator models. Every agent acting on a user’s behalf is a new trust decision. Every AI-generated code push is a new vulnerability surface. We saw this early, which is why we seeded Sublime Security in 2023 to build the programmable security layer pre-AI. But the attack landscape doesn't stop there. The conversation around what breaks next matters. Yoni Rechtman is bringing together security leaders, founders, and investors in NYC for an evening of panels and a fireside chat with Robert Bair, (Anthropic’s Head of Cyber and National Security Policy). Event is limited for approved guests building in the space. See reply for the application.

NYC founders, don't neglect your human skills and get replaced by AI. Sharpen your human fundamentals, learn from the experts, and stand out in today’s fundraising environment at Slow’s World Famous Etiquette Finishing School next week: > Physical Grooming and Style with Matt Mullenax (Founder of Huron) > Hosting the Perfect Event with David Litwak (Founder of Maxwell Social) and Andrew Yeung (Fibe, Partner at Next Wave NYC, ex-Google and Meta) > AI Etiquette: Putting AI/Human Relationships in Their Place with Amelia Miller (Human-AI Relationship Coach, ex-VP at Insight Partners) > Fundraising 101 with Kevin Colleran (MD at Slow), Yoni Rechtman (Partner at Slow), and Aaron Harris (Magid & Co, ex-YC Partner) > Fine Dining Etiquette with Surprise Guests See reply for application link.

The biggest shift AI is creating isn't about replacing jobs, it's about inverting entire systems. Think about it: code, phone calls, hiring, writing. These were all bottlenecked by our limited ability to produce them. We built entire social and business systems around that scarcity. AI just flipped that. Production is now abundant. Attention and review are now scarce. As Yoni Rechtman puts it on Newcomer: "AI is really good at inverting any kind of system that relies on scarce production and abundant attention." The companies that win next won't be the ones producing more — they'll be the ones who figure out how to process and filter the flood.

Sure, AI can code your product, write your emails, and build your deck. But AI cannot walk into a room and make people trust you. That’s a human skill, and most founders are overlooking it. We’re fixing that with our world famous Etiquette School on March 31 in NYC. Thank you for making our inaugural edition a great success Carter Abdallah, Sunil Rajaraman, Gil Akos, Geoffrey Chen, Rya Jetha, Lisa Bonos, and Katherine Li. Founders and panelists flew in from three countries for a three-hour crash course in presence, poise, and the social skills nobody teaches at accelerators. Spots are extremely limited. Apply here: https://luma.com/9as8fetx

The startup ecosystem is built for speed: accelerators, EIRs, incubations all push founders to move fast. But for experienced operators with domain expertise and a network, the question isn't whether you can start a company. It's whether you should commit the next decade to this particular idea. We're hosting a small symposium in San Francisco on March 26 to explore what actually matters at the earliest stage of company-building, with investors who run many of these programs themselves. If you're navigating the idea maze, you should walk away with a clearer framework for what path is actually worth your time. Limited to approved guests. Apply here: https://luma.com/5e8m6yya

Gad Allon and I are co-hosting breakfast next Thursday in Soho with our friends at Slow Ventures to make new friends with others interested in the supply chain for Physical AI. Despite what you might've heard to the contrary, America’s industrial bottleneck is not workforce, it’s workflow. AIC is building software to transform critical supply chains at wartime speed. Excited to geek out with others interested in the space where rubber meets road for Physical AI. Good coffee. Great conversations. Best way to start your day. Invite only, RSVP required: https://luma.com/agbecmiy

Today we’re sharing some big news. Ando raised a $4M seed round, led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Blitzscaling Ventures, Zero Capital, Monochrome Capital, Gaingels, Mana Ventures, Fireroad, and additional investors. Hourly work powers a huge part of the economy but scheduling is still a mess. Too often, staffing doesn’t match real demand, shifts change at the last minute, and workers are left trying to juggle childcare, commutes, school pickup, and second (or third) jobs. That chaos is expensive for businesses and brutal for workers. Ando exists to make hourly work more predictable. We use AI to forecast demand for each location and help teams build schedules that fit real people. We’ve been in the field with enterprise customers for over a year, and the early traction is encouraging: - 90%+ daily demand accuracy  - 100% conversion from presentation → pilot → paid platform - 100% retention so far In some locations, customers have seen $60K–$80K in incremental revenue (results vary and aren’t solely attributable to Ando) Most importantly, this is about treating workers’ time like it matters. If you’re working multiple jobs, a last-minute schedule change isn’t a small inconvenience, it can blow up your week. This funding will help us expand our forecasting and scheduling platform and scale deployments with enterprise customers. Grateful to our investors, advisors, customers, and team. And if you’re an operator or leader living this problem every day, I’d love to connect. Full release below. https://lnkd.in/gyYjqmts #Ando #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #WorkforceAI #FutureOfWork #LaborTech #RestaurantTech #RetailTech