A Termsheet Falls Through While Users Argue About Dosa

What people were saying

Today had two conversations happening at once, and they barely acknowledged each other.

Upstairs, there was money. @aashatwt rattled off the week's raises in a single breath (retro, owner, Instinct at $350m, wonderful at $550m) with the tone of someone who has stopped being surprised by numbers. Then @alexrkonrad resurfaced his scoop about Town's round at $1B, and how Index pulled back a lead termsheet after a complaint from Instinct. He described it as the story that set VC group chats ablaze, which is either a metaphor or a very accurate description of how VC group chats work.

Downstairs, people were just using the thing. @shlokafc wrote the day's most detailed field report after a week of use: rambling voice notes that turn into actual plans, flights verified on the airline's own site instead of a summary of a summary, screenshots as receipts so you never have to ask where a claim came from, and (the detail that clearly mattered most) booking through his own HSBC portal to keep the 6x points instead of getting quietly funneled into someone else's checkout. He also mentioned standing tasks watching a flight and tracking card offers, pinging only when there was money in it.

The praise

@tr1ckastley went with the concise version at 1am. @abhi_s_tanwar said he finally gets the hype, called the UX 10x better than Poke, and guessed there is best-in-class browser automation under the hood. @abhinavguptaIAQ was one evening in and already handing over pointless admin tasks. @Sanyam0605 got an invite and announced he was about to find out what the fuss was.

The pushback

Two flavors, both from builders. @tanmays posted an uncut demo of his own assistant placing a Swiggy order with a credit card and an SMS OTP, arguing his approach keeps card details in a local vault the model never sees. Roughly 4.5 minutes for a food order, which is honest of him to include.

@alexfmac drew a sharper line: Instinct is great when supply is ungated, less useful when a human gatekeeper is the whole point. His example was securing four sold-out bibs for the Marathon du Medoc through chateau relationships, which no browser automation is going to brute-force.

Notable anecdotes

@anmolm_ said it is as good as advertised, and the replies immediately ignored the product to interrogate why a man from South India landed in NYC and ordered dosa.