🚀 Nvidia Crushes Q1 | SpaceX IPO Incoming | Google's IO Reality Check

📊 Nvidia Delivers Another Monster Quarter

Jensen Huang framed Nvidia's latest earnings in characteristically bold terms: "The buildout of AI factories—the largest infrastructure expansion in human history—is accelerating at extraordinary speed."

The numbers backed up the narrative. Nvidia reported revenue of $81.62 billion, representing an 85% year-over-year increase from $44 billion in the prior year period. Net income surged to $42.96 billion, nearly reaching the $43 billion threshold and more than doubling the $18.8 billion figure from a year earlier.

Despite the strong results, the stock traded relatively flat in after-hours action—a sign that at current valuations, even spectacular growth gets priced in quickly.

"Agentic AI has arrived. Doing productive work. Generating real value. And scaling rapidly across companies and industries." — Jensen Huang

The key concern among investors remains forward-looking guidance and whether Nvidia can sustain this pace. With GPU consumption described as "through the roof" and AI demand "far exceeding supply," the fundamental picture remains robust—even if the stock's muted reaction suggests caution at 19x forward earnings, a multiple below the S&P 500 despite Nvidia's 80% growth rate.

🚀 SpaceX IPO: The Biggest Ever

Goldman Sachs is reportedly leading what could be the largest IPO in history, with SpaceX expected to raise approximately $80 billion. The prospectus could arrive as soon as this week, marking a significant milestone for Elon Musk's space venture.

The selection of Goldman as lead left surprised some observers, given Michael Grimes' long history working with Elon at Morgan Stanley. Nonetheless, Goldman's selection signals confidence in the bank's ability to manage what will be an unprecedented public offering.

Venture returns at scale: According to reporting from Katie Roof, Founders Fund and Valor are set to generate more than $60 billion in gains from their SpaceX holdings. Sequoia is positioned for over $20 billion in returns, while D1 Capital's position could yield approximately $20 billion as well.

These figures represent generational outcomes for the venture firms involved—validating early conviction in a rocket company that spent years blowing up prototypes before finding its stride with Starlink and space data center ambitions.

"Megafunds are too big to generate returns. They're basically just fee collectors." — A skeptic, before SpaceX

The Wall Street Journal visualized the scale with a striking chart: SpaceX's $80 billion raise dwarfs every other blockbuster IPO from the past seven years, making Saudi Aramco's $25 billion offering look modest by comparison.

🤖 Google I/O: Mixed Reception for Gemini Updates

Google's annual developer conference unveiled several product initiatives, but the reception among developers and investors was notably lukewarm.

Key Announcements:

• Intelligent Eyewear: Google partnered with Samsung, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker on AI-powered glasses launching this fall
• Gemini Flash 3.5: An incremental model update focused on speed and efficiency
• Anti-Gravity: A coding assistant platform that drew comparisons to Cursor and faced scrutiny after a demo video showed the team using Codeecs internally
• Gemini Omni: Video generation capabilities demonstrated in slick product videos

The Developer Verdict: Underwhelming

On Cursor's coding benchmark, Gemini Flash 3.5 ranked below Composer 2 while costing approximately four times more. This pricing and performance combination disappointed developers who had anticipated a more competitive offering.

The broader concern: Google's position in the hottest category—coding agents—remains weak. Cursor, Codeecs, and Anthropic's Claude dominate developer mindshare, while Anti-Gravity struggles to gain traction despite Google's massive distribution advantages.

"Google Cloud is doing great, but the hottest thing—coding agents that automate work for enterprises—is taking off like a rocket, and Google isn't there."

The irony wasn't lost on observers when Anti-Gravity's launch video briefly showed a folder labeled "Codeecs" on a team member's screen, suggesting Google's own developers prefer competitor products.

💼 Figma Raises $200M at $5.5B Valuation

Dylan Field returned to discuss Figma's continued growth and the company's latest fundraising round: $200 million at a $5.5 billion valuation, led by TCG.

Q1 Performance Highlights:

• Applications growth of 2.5x year-over-year
• Organic growth accelerating as a percentage of total growth
• LLM recommendations driving significant new user acquisition

Field emphasized that when users ask AI assistants "What bank should I use for my startup?" or "What design tool is best?", Figma frequently tops the recommendations—a modern distribution channel that rewards companies with strong organic advocacy.

Staying Sane in the Age of AI

Field shared his framework for navigating the current moment: "In the age of AI, those who stay sane win."

He described the phenomenon of "AI psychosis" rolling through different professional communities—from equity researchers to designers—as generative tools create initial shocks before users recalibrate to what AI can genuinely deliver versus initial hype.

The key insight: AI-generated design is becoming as easy to identify as AI-generated text. Users increasingly expect tools that augment rather than replace human creativity, with context-aware assistance that respects existing design systems rather than generating disconnected "slop."

🏦 Mercury Raises $200M Series C Led by Thrive Capital

Immad Akhund announced Mercury's $200 million Series C at a $550 million valuation, led by Thrive Capital. The modern banking platform continues its remarkable bootstrapped growth trajectory.

Key Metrics:

• 2.5x growth in Q1 applications year-over-year
• 500%+ ARR growth over the past 12 months
• Approximately 99.5% organic growth, with minimal paid advertising spend

Mercury's distribution strategy relies heavily on word-of-mouth and LLM recommendations—similar to Figma's approach. When founders ask AI assistants for banking recommendations, Mercury consistently surfaces as the top choice.

Product Expansion: Mercury recently entered payroll through the acquisition of Central, bringing another critical financial workflow in-house. The company's roadmap includes Mercury Command, an AI-powered interface for complex workflows like onboarding new employees, setting up payroll, and issuing corporate cards—all through conversational commands.

🔐 Socket Announces $60M Series C at $1B Valuation

Feross Aboukhadijeh shared news of Socket's $60 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation, led by Thrive Capital, as the software supply chain security company rides multiple tailwinds.

The Perfect Storm:

• AI-generated code pulling in open source dependencies at unprecedented velocity
• Frontier models like Mythos discovering thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities across major operating systems and libraries
• Attackers exploiting the software supply chain to compromise thousands of organizations through single vulnerable components

Socket grew 500%+ in ARR over the past year, driven by software supply chain attacks becoming a board-level concern at companies across industries. The cryptocurrency sector adopted Socket early due to irreversible financial exposure, followed by AI labs and San Francisco tech companies.

Recent high-profile incidents—including three major supply chain attacks occurring on the same day during Socket's quarter-end—underscore the urgency of the problem Socket addresses.

🏃‍♂️ Marcus Malone: Building Minted New York Bootstrapped to Millions

Marcus Malone, founder of performance running brand Minted New York, discussed building a modern DTC brand in the age of hype drops and bot attacks.

The Origin Story: Malone started posting fashion and fitness content on Instagram and TikTok during COVID while working at a regional bank. His discipline: three videos per day for 365 straight days, treating content creation as a reps game until the algorithm rewarded consistency with reach.

By month eight, Minted New York hit the revenue threshold Malone had set with his father as the trigger to quit his banking job—reaching it in just five minutes during a single product drop.

The Bootstrap Approach: With a team of just three full-time employees (plus part-time help from family), Minted operates 99.5% organically with virtually no paid advertising spend. Each product drop involved "betting the farm"—running the bank account to zero on production and hoping the release performed.

The Saucony Partnership: After building credibility in the running community, Saucony approached Malone in late 2022 for what became a multi-shoe collaboration. The latest drop this week sold out so quickly that Malone had to manually review orders to identify and cancel bot purchases.

His anti-bot strategy: creating decoy product listings with correct naming structures priced at absurd weights (like 10,000 pounds) that broke the checkout process, while hiding the real product under non-standard metadata that human shoppers could find but bots missed.

"I had to call on people who've either bought in the past or are current botters to try to get a little focus group together to figure out how I could jam up the bots."

💭 Final Thoughts: Distribution in the LLM Era

A common thread emerged across multiple conversations: LLM recommendations are becoming a critical distribution channel.

Both Figma and Mercury noted that when users ask AI assistants for product recommendations, their brands surface consistently—not because of deliberate SEO optimization for LLMs, but because years of positive user sentiment, Reddit discussions, and authentic recommendations now feed into training data.

This creates a compounding advantage for companies that prioritized organic growth and genuine customer love over paid acquisition. The companies that built authentic advocacy before the LLM era now benefit from being the default recommendations when millions of users ask AI assistants for advice.

As one founder put it: "It's really hard to game the LLMs. If it's on Reddit, it's on X, if all the content is recommending your product, then that feeds into the algorithm. You can't just buy your way into that."

The playbook increasingly favors companies that:

• Build products people genuinely love and talk about unprompted
• Maintain strong organic growth and word-of-mouth engines
• Create content and community that generates lasting digital footprints
• Optimize for long-term brand equity over short-term growth hacks

In an AI-mediated world where recommendation engines parse the entire internet's sentiment, there may be no substitute for actually building something great.