5 themes I want to invest in

If you’re new here: Hi, I’m Ryan Hoover, founder of Product Hunt and early-stage investor at Weekend Fund. I also helped write Hooked and occasionally publish essays. This newsletter highlights my latest experiments, essays, and curiosities. If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe along with 25k+ others here. :)

1. Common startup advice: "Build for yourself." Perhaps more investors should "Invest for yourself." I shared 5 themes I selfishly want to invest in: (1) Distributed Living, (2) Edge Health, (3) People Investing, (4) New Work, and (5) Weird Consumer. Full essay here.

2. We just backed a founder for the second time. It’s just him, pre-idea, pre-everything. I’d love to support more founders at the earliest stages. Shoot us an email at [email protected] if you’re looking for a $200K first check to go all-in. Include your LinkedIn and 3 sentences or less on what you’re building and why.

3. I’ve used many AI note taking tools. Granola is my favorite. It works in the background and summarizes the call. I primarily use it to save time sharing post-pitch notes with Vedika and to reference specific details when doing diligence on a company.

4. According to Hiten Shah, the age of AI agents has already begun. We often see a ton of skeuomorphic ideas emerge using new technology. The most exciting applications of AI will likely look very different, unlocking new behaviors.

5. Last month I did another DEXA scan via BodySpec. The results were a little surprising. My body fat percentage decreased 2.3 percentage points since my prior scan in mid-2024 (not included in the below screenshot as it was scanned with a different service). My lean mass went up and fat mass went down. In theory, that’s good but it made me question if I’m getting adequate calories, potentially entering RED-S (h/t Neesha), affecting my bone density, testosterone, and other key biomarkers. I share this as an example of how important it is to get a holistic picture of your health (this is why I also get bloodwork done through Function Health).

6. Shoutout to Robbie and team from Othership. I’ve visited the sauna and cold plunge three times in the last week. The 7am class is an energizing start for the day.

7. Naval recently joined Chris Williamson’s podcast. It’s three hours long. Enjoy.

8. I asked Twitter: Who will gain more leverage from AI tools relative to their baseline effectiveness? A more nuanced take: Everyone will soon be able to cover more things outside their domain expertise, collapsing roles. More on this from an essay published last year.

9. Codenames is one of my favorite board games. It’s easy to learn, quick to play, and well-balanced. I’m always looking for other recs so reply with your fave if you have one to share. 

10. I like Nadia’s writing. She just announced her latest book, Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading.

12. Ye quietly released “v1” of Bully on YouTube. It sounds more like the old Kanye.

13. Bon Iver’s new album is a gem. Half the tracks are available now. Full release tomorrow.

14. Like everyone else, I jumped on the Studio Ghibli train. ChatGPT’s new image model is yet another inflection point in AI, an example of technology maturing from toy to superpower. Previous versions of its generative image models struggled to accurately display text and hallucinated extra fingers. Today it can instantly generate images that would have previously taken several hours for a skilled professional to create.