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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisDoes anyone know what AI-native HR software really means? 2025 was the year every SaaS company shipped AI features. The features were bolt-ons: a chatbot in the corner, a summary button, and a sidebar that could read the manual back to you. Nothing changed underneath. 2026 is different. Companies like Winslow are building ground up products on totally new principles and architectures. 100% conversational 100% agentic 100% extensible 100% designed to help everyone get work done What you and your employees think of as HR software will never be the same. I included a quick cheat sheet here when evaluating if your HR vendor is really becoming AI-native. For an in-depth dive on what AI-native really means, read our core thesis: https://lnkd.in/gw2smtfG
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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisNobody has ever loved their HR software. When we talked to 250+ HR professionals this year, it became clear that legacy platforms are clunky, rigid, and built to create work, not remove it. The same wish list came up over and over. - Get my time back from busywork. - Let me build what my org actually needs instead of waiting on someone's roadmap or begging IT for resources and budget. - Kill the friction my employees feel at every turn. So today Dalton Wais and I are launching Winslow — the first truly AI-native platform for payroll, benefits, HR, and operations. We set out to design HR software that would let HR teams actually build what they wanted. Along the way, we realized Winslow could be so much more. It does everything you'd expect - payroll, benefits, employee data, workflows. But Winslow is also an AI employee, available to your whole team 24/7 in Slack, Claude, Codex, and our app. Ask for what you need - it gets done. → Want a Slack ping every Monday with the week's birthdays and work anniversaries? Just ask. → Onboarding a new engineer? Drop their offer letter into Claude and Winslow takes it from there. → Built a dashboard in Lovable using your Winslow employee data? Share it with your team right inside the app. All of it runs on the most robust MCP toolset out there, wrapped in a deep permission and security layer on SOC 2-compliant infrastructure. The goal was simple and a little audacious: rethink HR and payroll not as something that could suck less but as something every employee might actually fall in love with. It's pretty awesome. And honestly? It feels a little magical. None of this type of thing is possible alone. Thanks so much to huge investor support along the way from Mark Linao from Progression, Erin M. Faverty, MA COML and Cara Brennan Allamano at PTP, Frazer Anderson Dave B. Blundin and Camilo Román Cepeda at Link Ventures, Ben Casnocha and Lindsay M. Pettingill at Village Global, Kate Beardsley and Jessica Peltz-Zatulove at Hannah Grey VC, Brian Shin at VitalStage Ventures, Stu Smith for doubling down, and countless other angels, advisors and critical figures like Adam Lurie who’s been ride or die through the whole process, Elaine Davis our OG advisor, Elliott Dykes our relentless supporter, Brett Ungashick who got it before almost everyone else, and Jessie Schofer who we've had more spirited convos with than anyone else. We can’t wait for everyone to try Winslow out. Whether you need to run your first payroll or you’re 50 people and running from the crazy prices of a PEO, we have your back. Feel free to reach out on the website or here. For today, if you like what you see please give us a repost, comment or some love. #HR #FutureOfWork #AINative #HRIS #PeopleOps #HRTech #payroll
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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisApply for the Riordan MBA Fellows Program! Deadline is May 31, 2026. Are you a recent college graduate considering an MBA?https://lnkd.in/gMWmqm9N
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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisWhat even is linkedin
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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisSuccessful founders find mentors. Only 2 weeks left to find yours. Applications close March 11th across 6 FoundersBoost chapters globally. Los Angeles | SoCal B2B (in Glendale) | NYC | Newcastle | Italy | Malaysia If you’re building at seed & pre-seed and want: • Direct access to experienced operators • A high-caliber founder cohort • Structured execution and accountability • Real investor preparation • No fee nor equity taken Now is the time. Apply Link is in the image & comments. #accelerators #VC #funding #growth #scale FoundersBoost #LongLA #NYC #GlendaleTech #Newcastle #Italy #MalaysiaTech
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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisYour 46 browser tabs are a tax on your time. Think about how you buy most of your retail online. You probably go to Amazon. Logically, you might save a few cents elsewhere, but you don't care. You’re buying confidence and convenience that the mental load of "choosing" is over. Kayak, Google Hotels, etc. felt like magic 15 years ago, but those websites had an unintended side effect by training us to treat booking travel like a competitive sport. We’ve all been there: 46 tabs open, days/weeks of price monitoring, anxiety over getting a good deal. This is the "Search Cost" and it's usually higher than the savings. At Safara we’re evolving away from the "search engine" model and toward a "decision engine" model. Our goal is to give you the confidence to stop looking so that the time that you do spend in disco/search mode is at least spent on the fun stuff.
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Mark Linao shared thisIf you’re in the LA area and want to connect with founders, builders, and creatives, this is a great excuse to plug into the community. Come hang in Glendale for the FoundersBoost x Techstars Happy Hour for an evening to talk innovation, startups, and what’s being built. 🍹 Good people. Smart conversations. No panels, just real connections. 👉 Details here: https://luma.com/fbmixer Would love to see some familiar faces (and meet some new ones). #GlendaleCA #EastsideLA #StartupCommunity #LAEvents #Tech Blake Caldwell Audrey Wu Simon Yu, MBAFoundersBoost & Techstars Happy Hour Mixer, Fall 2026 · LumaFoundersBoost & Techstars Happy Hour Mixer, Fall 2026 · Luma
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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisRecruitment is officially open for the Riordan MBA Fellows Program! We provide early-career professionals with the preparation, mentorship, and resources needed to become strong MBA candidates. Learn more through one of our upcoming informational sessions: https://lnkd.in/gGuAtQrx Help us spread the word by sharing this post with your network!
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Mark Linao reposted thisMark Linao reposted thisI am co-directing the FoundersBoost SoCal B2B Accelerator in Glendale this April — Apps Closing March 11th FoundersBoost SoCal B2B Accelerator is a No-Fee, No Equity Taken | Part-time program offering mentorship and connections to help SoCal B2B pre-seed & seed startups from all backgrounds prepare for accelerators, investment, and growth. Their 600 alumni have raised $400M+ and joined top accelerators like Techstars and YC. Apply by 3/11 - https://lnkd.in/gzJ9xAG9
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisFolks, it’s working. Too busy to post. Hate using 🤖 to express myself. So it’s been a minute. It’s working. The Argentsite Network has been getting pummeled by agents, bots and crawlers. The traffic is turning into new citations and mentions for our customers. And that’s turning into referral traffic for our clients. Neil, Prashant & the crew have figured it out. It’s working. Have a website? Those are great for people. You need an Agentsite. They’re better for bots. It’s working for Shipium. It’s working for Skyp. It’s working for Christian Umbach, Autopilot and for his clients. It’s working for others who I can’t name. Want in? https://agentsite.network/
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisLast week's settlement is a victory for kids, parents, and advocates who have spent years pushing Meta to make real changes to its platforms. While progress is being made, this agreement doesn't fully address Meta's addictive features: Auto-play, engagement-based algorithms and endless scroll are the fundamental engines of key harms young people experience on its platforms. Ultimately, for kids to truly be protected online, we need permanent, industry-wide standards requiring all platforms to be safe by design. Until there are strong, enforceable laws on the books that force tech companies to change how their products are built, companies like Meta will continue to have financial incentive to put profits above the safety of our kids. Courts and Attorneys General across the country have repeatedly made it clear that they stand with survivor parents, who have spent years leading the push for reform. Now it’s time for Congress to act. At the end of the day, Meta needs to be accountable for quantifiable increases in child safety - not just its efforts to do so.
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisWhat a week for Pasqal ! The French champion in quantum computing is now trading on Nasdaq. 360m$ in cash from our SPAC combination to fund the next phase of our expansion. Neutral atom technology was invented in France 🇫🇷 and Pasqal team is bringing it to customers today. That’s what makes this moment quite unique: it is not a science project anymore, it’s a company building next gen computers and bringing real value to its clients, now. I joined two months ago, and I have watched the whole team put a huge amount of work. Congratulations! I am thrilled to be part of this journey and I can’t wait for what comes next. Stay tuned! PSQL
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisThese two photos were taken almost exactly 10 years apart. The kid on the left lived to hang with friends and fit in with crowds he didn't belong in. His purpose was finding security in things and people he thought were cool. And it slowly turned him into something he was never meant to be. Lazy. Unambitious. A stoner. The guy on the right is on his second business venture. The first one did well enough to provide a really great first five years of marriage for my wife and me. ChurchAI is on pace to do even better. But the difference between these two guys isn't discipline. It isn't ambition. It isn't business. The difference is the Lord. The first guy had a relationship with his parents, who had a relationship with the Lord. Faith, but secondhand. The second guy goes to the Source. My identity isn't in the things of this world anymore. It's in Jesus. And that means no amount of success gets to define me, and no amount of failure gets to either. Who I was meant to be was settled a long time ago. If you're still the first guy, I'll just say this: the crowd can't tell you who you are. The One who made you already did. #testimony #Faith #Jesus #Entrepreneurship
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisThe most valuable part of a 360 may not be the feedback itself. I start most coaching engagements with one. First, we explore how someone sees themselves as a leader: their strengths, limitations, patterns, and current operating system. Then we layer in the perspectives of the people around them—direct reports, peers, investors, and sometimes clients. This reveals where a leader’s self-perception aligns with their impact and where it doesn’t. You can’t meaningfully change how you lead without accurately understanding where you’re starting. But a 360 can also change the team around the leader. When a leader actively seeks candid feedback—and engages with it without becoming defensive—it signals that feedback is safe and useful, not something to avoid. That can create greater capacity across the team: ➤ More candid conversations. ➤ More reflection on personal impact. ➤ More ownership of problems. ➤ More willingness to name what isn’t working. ➤ Less expectation that change is only someone else’s responsibility. The team gets to see that examining your own contribution isn’t weakness. It’s part of the job. The feedback may change the leader. But the process itself can begin changing the culture.
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisA lot of people and brands claims to reach Gen Z. What matters are results so here is what our last 10 campaigns at XSET did. 552M impressions. 164M video views. 26M engagements. 215% average overdelivery against guarantee. CPMs about 65% more efficient than plan. Some recent brand campaigns tell our story. A major technology company: we guaranteed 40M impressions and delivered close to 100M. Less than 5% came from paid acquisition. A major movie studio: we guaranteed 12.5M and delivered more than 43M. A large snack brand: roughly 2.5x the contracted media value. An independent Kantar study showed statistically significant lift across nine brand measures, with core KPIs between 4.6x and 8.5x industry benchmarks - including 8.5x on purchase intent. Impressions and views matter, but ultimately brands want to have outcomes XSET now generates 100M+ video views every month and works with 20+ Fortune 500 brands. That performance comes from six years of genuine interaction inside gaming and creator culture. You can buy distribution. You can't buy the relationship XSET and our creators have with the community and culture. We started XSET on a thesis that gaming is much bigger than gaming. It is a connective tissue between sports, music, fashion and entertainment. It is a major force in driving creator lead media globally and we are proving it. The most prominent example -MrBeast started as a Minecraft creator and has evolved into one of the biggest stars in the world. He is the first but far from the last. Creators aren't a new marketing channel they are media -XSET is aggregating and creating the media through which this generation decides what matters, what's next, what to watch and what to buy. We let the results do the talking for us.
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisI'm always very proud of my teammate and wife Paris Hilton who's shown for over 25 years that she's one of the most innovative businesswoman of our generation who's constantly on the cutting edge of each technological shift from understanding the concept of personal branding to social media to the blockchain to now AI. As importantly she's the rare of example of someone using her platform to leave the world a better and more sparkly place than she found it thru her advocacy efforts. If you didn't have on your 2026 bingo card Paris Hilton sharing a cover with Dario, Elon, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison for Time Inc. Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in IA...well then time to update it I guess! https://lnkd.in/euv_8Bbp
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Mark Linao liked thisMark Linao liked thisIt’s Friday and it’s great to be alive! This week, my husband, Michael Brigham, and I celebrated 17 years married. With all the Dolly tributes, it got me thinking about her relationship with her husband and how supportive he must have been over the 50+ years they were married. I wonder if she died from a broken heart. We don’t talk enough about the importance of finding the right life partner. We talk a lot about co-founders and how that can make or break you. But I think what’s most important is who you come home to every night. Who hears the same stories and worries over and over again and tells you that you’re in the right space, doing the right things with the right people, at the right time. The one who gives you the high fives when no one is looking or can anticipate what’s going to tick you off and suggests going for a walk together, or dancing in the kitchen. The past year around the sun has been one of the most challenging and rewarding from health complications, to launching businesses, to changing jobs, and raising middle schoolers. Today and everyday I’m grateful I get to dance like no one’s watching and go to as many concerts as we can together. Cheers to the next year!
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Mark Linao liked thisExcited to support what Aviel Ginzburg is building with Foundations!Mark Linao liked thisI’m super excited to finally announce Mercury as the first of two new Foundations partners. In 2026, our board changed our mission from "making Seattle a better place to be a founder" to "making Seattle founders successful". That shift pushed us to think bigger and open an office in San Francisco, the literal center of gravity for AI (and arguably the future of all tech). We gave Seattle founders a home right in the center of the action whether they’ve relocated, are fundraising, or are simply in town for a few days. Mercury has followed a similar path. They started by building better banking for startups and have since grown into a broader financial platform designed to give founders more speed, control, and capability. In other words: superpowers. It’s what we’re both all about, and why we’re so excited to partner with them. Together, we’re helping ambitious founders build bigger companies, without letting geography or outdated infrastructure get in the way (it's true, we use it ourselves). Wild times are ahead. Don’t go without friends. LFG! 🚀
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