top of page

🦞 Temp:


One Fluent Operator Can Now Move Billions — And Why You’d Better Find One
Eighty-two days. That’s how long it took for a solo-built AI agent framework to go from non-existent to acquired by the most powerful AI lab in the world. Six months. That’s how long it took a single founder using AI-native tooling to build Base44 and exit for $80 million in cash. Meanwhile, frontier labs are offering compensation packages that stretch into the hundreds of millions for individual AI researchers. On paper, it looks irrational. In reality, it’s the first clea

Rich Washburn
Feb 164 min read


The Rise of Machine Capitalism: There’s an App for That
Somewhere between a vending machine in Anthropic’s lobby and a meme painted on a Memphis rooftop, capitalism quietly booted up a new operating system. We used to say “AI is coming for your job.”Now it’s coming for your org chart. The Dawn of Machine Capitalism Let’s start with a vending machine.A simple, stupid, beautiful vending machine. Anon Labs gave an AI $500 and said, “Go make a profit. ” No human babysitter. No preloaded logic tree. Just a digital brain, an API key, an

Rich Washburn
Dec 27, 20253 min read
bottom of page