This week I met a founder building a billion dollar business that had the same quality I see in every builder at this level of achievement; speed to action.

I’m not talking about shipping products weekly, I’m talking about pace. See something, say something, do something. And when you feel hustle, you hustle. It’s like adding a little southern accent when you order a Topo Chico at Applebees… as humans, we adapt to our surroundings.

Harry Stebbings said if you meet someone at a dinner party, email them that evening. Otherwise, you’ll never do it. Jensen Huang said that no one creates urgency like Elon Musk. If there’s a problem, he goes straight to the source.

If I don’t do it now, it will never happen, and if it’s on my mind, I need to check the box and complete it. Maybe it’s my brain's faulty wiring; or maybe my nagging mother relentlessly asking me the same question like “did I clean my room” until I say fuck it, I’ll do it already.

Whatever it is, I find my pace... sets everyone's tone. My team knows it. I’ll ask in the morning; then in the afternoon, and at night, I’ll ask if I can test it the next day. I'm like that bratty girl from Willy Wonka "I want it now!"

And its because the truth is, in the first two years of a startup, you’re figuring everything out. Theres a hundred dials of which every one of them can turn independently… and until the right formula clicks, you should just keep turning more dials.

So find your pace, or create one that moves at the speed of action. Break things faster. Delete things that create even the slightest friction. And remember, if someone beat you to build the thing you know can help you win, it’s no one’s fault but your own.

So move faster. And if your team can't keep up, be the GM, and start making trades.

→ Every Founder Must Know: OpenAI acquired an 11-person podcast this morning. The real story is why.

→ The 81x: Kevin Durant took equity in WHOOP in 2017. This week, that bet paid off 81x.

→ The Co-Founder: Lexie Hull is 25, plays in the WNBA, co-founded a beauty brand, and just bought into a volleyball franchise.

John Coogan and Jordi Hays started TBPN in October 2024. Eleven people. Three hours of live broadcasting, five days a week. The guests: Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella. The revenue: $5 million in year one. On track for more than $30 million this year.

Yesterday, OpenAI acquired them.

When the news broke, Erik Torenberg, a16z General Partner and the founder who watched his own podcast network, Turpentine, get acqui-hired by a16z last year posted nine words:

"The future of marketing is buying creators/media properties."

I know the feeling. When I sold Malka for $75M to a public fintech, people immediately asked “but why?”. Attention is everything, but owning an audience is ever more valuable when you know who that audience is.

You see OpenAI didn't need distribution. They have a product used by hundreds of millions of people. Sam Altman can get any journalist on the phone. They have more capital than most countries. And they could have hired a hundred anchors, launched a studio, and built their own network.
But they didn't. They bought the one room that already had the audience.

OpenAI CEO of AGI Deployment Fidji Simo said the deal was about building "an independent place for constructive conversation about the changes AI creates." She also said TBPN's editorial independence is "foundational to their credibility" and explicitly protecting it is "part of the agreement." There's even a contract for it. They called it the "Editorial Independence Covenant."
Read that again. OpenAI signed a legal document promising not to control what they just paid for.

That's not spin. That's the mechanics of the deal. The moment TBPN becomes an OpenAI press release, no one watches. The trust that made TBPN worth acquiring is inseparable from the independence that protects it. Control it and you've destroyed it. The entire structure of this acquisition is built around that one constraint.

So what did OpenAI actually buy?

They bought the room where the people who shape the AI narrative already trust the hosts. Every week, Coogan and Hays interview the founders, investors, and operators building this technology. That audience showed up because TBPN was consistent, credible, and occasionally critical - not because OpenAI sent them.

You cannot build that with a marketing budget. You cannot hire your way to it. You cannot engineer credibility. Trust…..is earned. And these guys in short order, built trust with an audience that most media companies would balk out thanks to vanity metrics, when the truth is, this audience is the decision makers most advertisers dreamed of reaching.

OpenAI, with a $157 billion valuation and every competitive advantage available, looked at what eleven people built and said: we need that, and we cannot build it ourselves.

Coogan said it plainly on X: "This is a full circle moment for me as I've worked with @sama for well over a decade. He funded my first company in 2013."
The relationship started before the product. The trust predated the deal. That's the whole point.

You can build the most powerful technology in the world. You cannot manufacture the room.

OpenAI just paid to prove it.

Every founder reading this should be asking one question: are you still paying for reach, or are you finding the people whose audiences already trust them? Because the $157B company just told you with their checkbook which one is worth more.

If you have an incredible story to tell, partner with the storytellers who own the audience you want to speak to.

That's exactly what OWM was built to help you do.

Most performance supplements are built the same way: commodity formula, big-name face, marketing budget big enough to bury the competition. KRĒO went the other direction.

KRĒO is a liposomal creatine brand out of the Aurora Nutrascience family. The formula is genuinely different. Creatine encapsulated in fat-like particles for better absorption and fewer GI side effects, stacked with GAA to support natural creatine production and R-ALA for enhanced carbohydrate metabolism. NSF Certified for Sport. Vegan. Non-GMO. Built for tested athletes who actually read the label.

Instead of signing influencers, KRĒO brought in founding partners: Dani Speegle and Pat Vellner, two of the most decorated competitors in CrossFit. They're not holding a tub on a white background. They're in the product's origin story, using it in competition prep, building educational content around the science, and putting their names on the brand from day one.

That's the kind of deal OWM exists to close. We closed both of them.

If you're building in performance nutrition or sports science and want athlete partners who have actual skin in the game, this is what it looks like.

WHOOP closed a $575 million Series G at a $10.1 billion valuation this week, nearly tripling its prior $3.6 billion mark.

The News:

The round was led by Collaborative Fund with participation from Mubadala, Qatar Investment Authority, Abbott Laboratories, and a roster of individual investors including LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rory McIlroy, Reggie Miller, Niall Horan, and Karen Wazen, the Dubai-based creator and entrepreneur. WHOOP has 2.5 million members, a $1.1 billion bookings run rate, and went cash-flow positive in 2025. CEO Will Ahmed called this the company's "last private round." An IPO is coming.

The Operator Take:

The headline is the funding number. The story is Kevin Durant. Durant invested in WHOOP in 2017. Sportico confirmed this week that his stake is now up 81x. He didn't take an endorsement check. He took a piece.

Think about what that means. In 2017, Durant could have signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with a health tech company, gotten paid on a schedule, and moved on. Instead, he asked for equity. Eight years later, that decision has compounded in a way no endorsement contract could ever replicate.

LeBron and Ronaldo just made the same bet. So did Karen Wazen, one of the most-followed creators in the Arab world, now investing at the same table as sovereign wealth funds and global superstars.

The class of athlete-and-creator investors is growing because they've watched what equity does over time. They're not accepting flat fees anymore.

Endorsement checks get deposited. Equity compounds.

FORTA Cosmetics launched March 31 with one product: a $25 Lock & Go Setting Spray built to hold makeup through 16 hours of heat, sweat, and movement.

The News:

Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull co-founded FORTA with investor Sarah Guller, whose prior bets include Oura (now valued at $5B+) and Vuori ($4B+). They spent 2.5 years developing the formula.

The brand launched DTC and is seeding product to athletes across gymnastics, soccer, and volleyball through Faves, a platform described as "ShopMy for pro athletes." The destination: Sephora.

The Operator Take:

Hull is 25 and mid-career. She plays a full WNBA season. She also co-founded a beauty company. And this week she was announced as part of the 50+ person ownership group for LOVB SF, League One Volleyball's new Bay Area franchise set to debut in 2027. She's building a portfolio while she's still on the court.

That's the shift. Athletes used to wait until retirement to figure out what came next. Hull is running the playbook in parallel. Co-founder. Owner. Active player. All at the same time.

If your best offer is a flat fee, she's already moved on.

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