Founders & Operators SF | Anthropic & Bibi | Upcoming Events

In today’s weekly update from Stephan and the Founders & Operators ecosystem: F&O goes SF, Anthropic & Bibi, bearish boomers, and where to meet us in the coming weeks. 

Stephan is landing in San Francisco today and injecting some NYC F&O energy into the city. Come say hi and if you have relevant intros, do ping him. We’ll be doing an SF version of our popular rooftop social next Thursday at Shelby’s. We’re also planning a RegAI Founder & Investor Dinner.

No-phone policy: As of this week, use of a mobile device is strongly discouraged at our events, with the exception of reasonable use, such as exchanging contact information, snapping a photo for your socials, or taking a quick note on something you learned. Hosts may need to use their phone for event admin purposes, but will try to set a good example regardless. Let us know if you agree or disagree. Our goal here is to emphasize a culture of presence.

We will not bore you with another readout from Anthropic’s IPO filing. We just have one comment that you may not have seen elsewhere:

On the geopolitics AND financing of AI, Tuesday’s election in Israel was huge. A clear Netanyahu win would have dramatically increased the odds of another major US-Israel-Iran escalation. In our book, this could be the hair that breaks the camel’s back. It would send bond yields and energy costs up from where we are today, and might prove a tipping point to the AI trade and the global economy.

With an uncertain outcome and a hung parliament (and Arab parties as potential kingmakers), the risk of a major US-Israel-Iran escalation has decreased from a 35% to a 25% scenario in our analysis. That is still a sizable risk. In fact, a major geopolitical escalation is probably one of the few factors that could still derail the Anthropic IPO. The fates of Bibi and Dario are intertwined.

The internet seems to be confused, or maybe just gullible. Yes, ‘Elon said neoclouds will go under’. What is interesting is that Chamath and the All-In Gang are piling on, so there is a coordinated strategy in place to push that narrative.

However we would love for content creators and LinkedIn reposters to be a bit more discerning here. ‘Elon said’ is not (always) gospel, and in this particular case, SpaceX has an interest in dunking on smaller compute providers to increase their own market power in the race for compute (‘competition is for losers’ after all).

Elon is not an impartial or hyper intelligent observer laying out an objective scenario here, he’s an entrepreneur talking his own book. And that’s totally fine, it’s just that some of the discourse we’ve seen is naively taking his comments at face value. So we encourage you to make up your own mind.

This points to a broader issue in our online discourse: It is easier, faster and cheaper to be an aggregator: easier to ride an online trend and quote some ‘known figure’, than to establish and argue for an original point of view. Something we’re trying to avoid in this format. Let us know when we fall short. 

Torsten Slok is a bit older than you, with a receding hairline, and doesn’t know too much about AI. He’s a boomer who regularly shows up on CNBC, so take his analysis with a grain of salt. But as Chief Economist at Apollo, his word carries weight. When his latest research note on Saturday argued that there are no signs of an AI payoff outside tech, it ruffled some feathers and delivered Halloween scaries to the AI bulls.

His main macro argument is: Revenue per worker is moving up in tech but not in other sectors, and profit margins are going up for the Mag 7, but not for the rest of the S&P 500 as of Q3 2026.

That is inherently a backwards-looking argument, and given the oft-cited adoption gap in AI, it is not entirely surprising. Still, there’s a question around when we’'ll see the tangible bottom line impact of AI outside tech, AI, and VC-backed startups, and we expect that conversation to grow louder in the coming months in some corners of the internet (and CNBC). The role of the AI skeptic has been getting increased airtime in a number of places, so let’s see which way the tide turns from here.

You’re welcome to join our WhatsApp Group Chat to continue the conversation, share resources, ask for help, and more. We want to keep it small and helpful, so we prioritize admission for friends who have attended an event before.

Want to partner with us, or join the team as Head of Content or Community Ambassador? Drop us a line at [email protected]. We are particularly interested in working with new partners in SF and the Bay Area, and people interested in helping us build out our SF Chapter.

We’re thankful for this epic community of 2200+ founders, operators and investors. We appreciate every single one of you.

See you IRL,

Stephan, Jacqui & the F&O Team