former founders, Github CEO, Stripe culture
opportunities at breakout startups, early teams hiring, and co-founder searches
✨ Hey there this is a free edition of next play’s newsletter, where we share under-the-radar opportunities to help you figure out what’s next in your journey.
Co-founders and people to jam with:
Kevin was the head of business operations at Stytch (Series B Benchmark-backed SaaS). The CEO of Stytch described Kevin as “the top 5% of people he’s ever worked with.” He’s exploring new AI tools and is looking for a co-founder (ideally someone technical in SF). You can reach out here: kev.hedrick@gmail.com.
Moritz is a software engineer who previously founded Benchflow.ai and RemoNote (raised $2.8M from GC). He’s now exploring new opportunities (everything from b2b SaaS and regulatory compliance for aerospace) and is looking for people to work with. You can reach out here: wallawitsch@gmail.com.
Mustafa is a researcher at the Alan Turing Institute’s AI defense lab. He wants to work on solutions to the “generative AI” content problem (e.g. copyright access). You can reach out here: mustafa.y36@gmail.com.
Alex has a social audience of 750,000+ people. He previously sold a company and worked at Goldman Sachs and Zipline. He’s looking for a kind, high agency co-founder/brainstorming partner as he’s been exploring a diversity of projects (satellite applications, consumer, AI, rollups, etc.). You can reach out here: digitaltimer@protonmail.com.
Kevin previously worked at Consensys MetaMask and Mozilla Firefox. He's looking to build something new in theAI + crypto space, and is looking for like-minded collaborators. You can learn more and apply here: greetings.keving@gmail.com.
If you’d like to meet more people, you may like friends of next play. You get access to a private Slack community where you’ll find like-minded peers who are looking for jobs and brainstorming new companies). You also get invitations to join co-working sessions, office hours with domain experts, and more. You can join here - hope to talk soon!
Early teams:
Sammy from Morrow is building a cap table manager (like Carta) for non-tech businesses. They are hiring a founding product lead. You can learn more here and reach out here: sammy@usemorrow.com.
Tom from Didero is building AI agents that help automate supply chain and procurement workflows. They are looking for software engineers and a product designer (ideally NYC based). You can learn more and apply here.
Dan from Untitled is building the “operating system for music” (an all-in-one tool to help musicians maximize the time they are spending doing creative things as opposed to administrative work). They recently raised $22.6M from a16z, GC, and others - and are hiring software engineers (as well as open to general applications). You can reach out here: dancho@untitled.stream.
Beto previously worked at Uber, Cisco, and App Dynamics. He’s helping source a founding “Chief Engineer” to join a kids/teens health tech app launching this summer. The stealth founder previously lead a health tech exit and is looking for an engineer with Strong Unity and game development experience. You can reach out here: betoc@me.com.
Lighthouse is building a platform to help people get US work visas efficiently. They are hiring an engineer, a designer, and an operations associate. You can learn more and apply here.
Cole and Luke are building AI tools for artists and animators. They’re hiring, especially someone with experience using tools like Unreal Engine and Blender. You can reach out here: pearsallprojects@gmail.com.
A stealth startup is building AI infrastructure for observability. They are hiring a founding software engineer to work closely with their CTO who spent a decade at Databricks leading AI engineering. They’ve already closed several enterprise deals. You can reach out here: sriram@kearnyjackson.com.
Langbase is hiring full-stack engineers, devops, and generalists. They are building a serverless AI developer platform. You can learn more and apply here.
Ishan from Selix is building an ai agent for sales prospecting. They have recently closed several 5-figure deals, and are hiring, especially a founding engineer. You can learn more here and apply here: ishan@sellscale.com.
Neel from Popcorn is building a global phone plan with no roaming fees, or headaches for $69/mo. They are hiring founding roles including a chief of staff, product designer, and software engineers. You can learn more and apply here.
Infinite Machines is building new personal electric vehicles. They are hiring in operations, sales, creative, and engineering. You can learn more and apply here.
Hyperline is building a finance operations automation platform. They are hiring a BDR, account executive, and partnership manager. You can learn more and apply here.
We’ve had many startups reach out to us because they are looking to hire former founders (people comfortable dealing with ambiguity, owning new areas of the business, etc.). If this sounds like you, you can fill out this form and we’ll try to connect as many people as possible.
Scaling startups:
Allison from Valence is hiring for several roles, especially senior software engineers as well as a strategy and operations associate, product manager, and account executive. Valence is a generative AI work coach that’s used by many of the Fortune 500 - they have more than 3x’d revenue in the last 12 months. You can learn more here and reach out here: allison@valence.co.
Nick from AirOps is building an AI “content orchestration platform” that helps brands optimise SEO and create content. They are hiring for many roles: account executive, product manager, data analyst, prompt engineer, product designer, software engineer, and more. You can learn more here and reach out here: nick.casale@airops.com.
Don from Attio is planning to double their engineering team in Europe. Attio is an ai-native CRM. They are also hiring for many other departments (sales, support, etc.). You can learn more here and reach out here: don@attio.com.
Lydia from Moxie is hiring an AI-focused product manager. They are building a platform that makes it easy for people to start and run MedSpas. They’ve helped more than “300 aesthetic entrepreneurs, many of which are female, first-time business owners.” You can learn more and apply here.
Kevin from Ondo Finance are hiring for a wide variety of remote web3-focused roles (like engineering, product management, design, marketing, and more). Ondo is currently the market leader in tokenized treasuries and recently announced a partnership with Blackrock. You can learn more here and reach out here: kevin@ondo.finance.
Shannon from Noyo is hiring a marketing manager. Noyo is the leading benefits infrastructure company, enabling data connectivity across the benefits ecosystem. You can learn more and apply here.
Merrill from Graphite is building an ai-powered code review platform. They 20x’d revenue last year and are hiring for several roles across engineering, product, design, and GTM. You can learn more here and reach out here: merrill@graphite.dev.
Sana is building ai-powered knowledge tools for businesses. They are hiring dozens of GTM people. You can learn more and apply here.
Josh from The Browser Company is trying to build a new browser. They are hiring a prompt engineer. You can learn more and apply here.
Pitch is an ai-powered presentation building platform. They became profitable last year. They are hiring across marketing and engineering. You can learn more and apply here.
Here’s a list of Sequoia-backed companies that are open to hiring remotely.
Investing and other:
Jessica from Work-Bench is building an unconventional venture capital fund that specializes in helping early stage companies scale their GTM. They are hiring a head of growth, who’ll be responsible for building a demand generation engine to help reach more founders. You can learn more here and reach out here: careers@work-bench.com.
Nat previously was the CEO of Github and now invests in leading AI companies. He’s hiring full-time engineers and computer vision researchers to help “read hundreds of ancient scrolls buried by the euroption of Mount Vesuvius 2000 years ago.” You can learn more here apply here: jobs@scrollprize.org.
Entrepreneur First is hiring an associate. You can learn more and apply here.
Pioneer Fund, a fund of 450+ YC alumni, is hiring a community manager. You can learn more and apply here.
Featured resources:
We asked people like Lenny Rachitsky (Airbnb), Lauryn Isford (Notion), Claire Butler (Figma), Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt), Charley Ma (Plaid), and 20+ others to share with us their most useful career-related advice. We put their answers into this guide here.
How to not suck at your job: a very direct/blunt perspective on how you can be more effective at work.
What I miss about working at Stripe: an essay sharing some behind-the-scenes learning from Stripe’s iconic culture.
Note:
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