Cyan Banister, once homeless, was an angel investor in Uber, SpaceX, and DeepMind

More than $3.5B has been invested through AngelList

AngelList was created to connect startups and angel investors. It’s evolved since its 2010 founding and has been used by companies like Uber and OpenSea.

Uber's first investors included StumbleUpon founder Garrett Camp

In 2010 when Uber went out to raise money, prominent investors including Mark Cuban and Gary Vaynerchuk passed. Vaynerchuk actually said no twice.

Many startup founders pull out-of-the-box stunts to get their businesses off the ground

Do you know Airbnb’s founders used cereal (yes, as in the breakfast food) to secure their initial round of funding? Or that PayPal’s founders once gave out free money to get people to sign up for the platform? These stories might be crazy, but they’re not uncommon.

A successful angel investor can multiply their investment by 3 to 10 times

Angel investor Naval Ravikant explains what it takes to be successful in his field, from building an authentic brand to developing the judgment to choose which startups to back.

Sahin Boydas was 2024’s most active angel investor

Others who were among 2024’s top angel investors in terms of their number of angel investments in unique companies included Google’s Jeff Dean, Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko, and more.

Airbnb's Brian Chesky explains 'Founder Mode' and how he took back control

The short-term rental CEO learned hard lessons through the pandemic, specifically around a culture focused on management and not building products. In the fall of 2024, Chesky gave a well-received speech at a startup conference that prompted debate in the startup world. He summarizes the talk here.

Meet the investor running his life with AI

Daniel Ha is a venture capitalist who built a suite of AI agents to boost his productivity, both professionally and personally. At his VC firm, a troupe of agents gathers data on startups and analyzes it from competing perspectives to produce a confidence score. When his dad was diagnosed with cancer, Ha used an oncology-trained AI to help him understand the condition.

Y Combinator tends to outperform many other Silicon Valley startup accelerators

In a podcast episode, Garry Tan—CEO of startup accelerator Y Combinator—speaks about how YC has a better track record than the rest of Silicon Valley at placing bets on startups. Learn how Tan earned his first million dollars, as well as lessons from other successful businesspeople, including Y Combinator’s Paul Graham.

A 'unicorn' is a private company with a $1B-plus valuation

Just like a horse with a spiraling horn on its head, private companies with a more than $1B valuation are rare creatures. But unlike the mythical creature, this type of “unicorn” is occasionally spotted in the wild. Unicorn companies include SpaceX, OpenAI, Skims, and more.

Venture firm a16z's crypto canon

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a leading venture capital firm with deep expertise in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. For 10 years, the firm has built its internal knowledge in the area, and archived a wide range of explainers exploring everything from fundamentals to emerging crypto trends, and much more.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang once saved Nvidia from bankruptcy with a multi-million dollar Hail Mary

Nvidia is now known as one of the top companies contributing to the AI boom, but back in the 1990s, it almost failed. One last-ditch effort conversation that CEO Jensen Huang had with an investor saved the company.

The main bank serving Silicon Valley startups and venture capitalists collapsed in 2023

Silicon Valley Bank—the 16th largest bank in the US—served many tech startups in the area as well as many venture capitalists. The bank collapsed in 2023—in a single day, bankers took out $42B.

Overcoming industry skeptics, SpaceX provides low-cost, high-publicity spaceflights

From recovering and reusing rocket components to launching a mannequin and Tesla into orbit to the tune of David Bowie's "Starman," Elon Musk drove public interest and government contracts to his company as he transformed space launches into spectacles.

The woman who coined the term ‘girlboss’ now has a VC firm called Trust Fund

In 2006, Amoruso founded the clothing company Nasty Gal, then later wrote a memoir called “#Girlboss” about her company’s meteoric rise. Later, she launched other ventures, including her “Business Class” business coaching series and the venture capital fund “Trust Fund.”

Nonprofit VC funds invest in startups, but have donors instead of LPs

Examples include Andreessen Horowitz’s TxO (Talent x Opportunity) Initiative and Fifth Star Funds, which allows donors to write “Friends & Family” checks for Black tech founders.

Burning Man’s countercultural messages have influenced Silicon Valley’s work culture

Burning Man is famous for attracting tech leaders like the CEOs of Tesla, Meta, and Google. Some experts believe the festival's ethos and principles of participation, communal effort and radical inclusion have given rise to Silicon Valley's communal work culture.

Learn about Palantir CEO Alex Karp's background—including his history of social activism

Palantir has been criticized for its close proximity to conservative politics, including the company's partnership with ICE, cofounder Peter Thiel's long track record of large donations to Donald Trump's campaigns, and the company's support for Israel. But its leader, Alex Karp, is a self-proclaimed progressive with a PhD in social theory. For many, Karp's background and leadership are a paradox for Palantir.

Cathie Wood is one of the most famous modern figures in ETF investing

Cathie Wood is the fund manager and stock picker behind Ark Invest and its flagship Ark Innovation ETF. Her strategy centers around disruptive technology, and she’s made bold bets on cryptocurrency and companies like Tesla, Robinhood, and Nvidia. Wood has a loyal following of retail investors who watch her daily trades religiously.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake

Explore Bessemer's anti-portfolio of missed opportunities

From Pinterest to Yelp, Bessemer Venture Partners—one of the most well-known VC firms—has invested in many successful companies over the years. But the firm has also kicked itself for passing on a few great opportunities, like Apple and Google. Check out the other companies in Bessemer's "anti-portfolio" here.

One dad, one hundred babies

A look at the companies offering surrogacy to the ultrarich—including Chinese men taking their reproductive cues from Elon Musk.

Tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson's mission to live forever

Johnson has invested millions of dollars into developing a biohacking program he believes will extend his life beyond typical expectations, relying on medical professionals to reduce his "biological age." Most notably, he drew significant public attention with reports of blood-swapping with his teenage son.

Bezos' wealth primarily stems from his Amazon ownership stake

Three decades after founding Amazon, Jeff Bezos has built a sprawling empire of business and financial interests. A chart from Visual Capitalist details his many business interests outside of Amazon, including his ownership of the Washington Post; his private aerospace company, Blue Origin; and his personal stake in companies ranging from Airbnb to Uber and Google.

Dissecting the legend of Sam Bankman-Fried

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, rose to fame as a crypto visionary and was hailed as a genius. But he had a quick downfall in late 2022 when reports surfaced, implicating him in massive fraud.

Whitney Wolfe Herd is considered the youngest self-made female billionaire

Whitney Wolfe Herd founded dating app Bumble in her 20s after cofounding Tinder. She was inspired to create Bumble partly due to an experience she had with female friends who made fun of her for making the first move with a man she went on a date with.

WellHub is a startup serving roughly 4 million people in 11 countries, providing broad wellness benefits to employees

Valued at $2.4B in 2025, the company helps workers get gym access and meditation apps, in addition to basic healthcare. Listen to the founder of the company, Cesar Cevalho, explain how he scaled the company with Jeff Berman.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

The 2026 Ebola outbreak in the DRC is spurring new Ebola vaccine development for the Bundibugyo species.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

Brian Wilson wrote the Beach Boys' 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.