Bryan Kim

@kirbyman01

Partner @a16z | Investor in @elevenlabs, @function, @cluely, @trymirage, @slingshotai_inc, @partiful & more | Growth @Snap & CFO @livebungalow

San Francisco, CA Joined May 2020

23.1KFollowers

2.2KFollowing

3.4KPosts

199Media

9KLikes

@kirbyman01 reposted

@cory

i first met zain in july 2025. he was living in the tenderloin in sf paying $35 a night for a room. i remember really liking him and thinking the world would know his name soon...

he did z fellows shortly after (and moved out of the tenderloin). he joined two other experiences we hosted as well that fall. every time we spent more time together....i felt like the world still hadn’t caught up.

my favorite thing in the world is helping people before the world knows their names. a year or so later, zain is still the underdog....but i’m excited for people to see what he’s been working on. keep it up zain!!!

Zain Javaid@zainmfj · Oct 5

Introducing Core, The Personal Al Computer

The most powerful technology humanity has built should belong to you

Order today: ghost.ai

2:24

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@kirbyman01 reposted

@jamdac

- Be Zain
- Start investing at 7 with $100 from your parents
- Begin coding at 9 after learning about Jim Simons
- Raise a $20k fund at 12 by going door to door in Catskill, NY; outperform the market
- Take yourself to NYC at 14 and land an internship at a quant fund
- Dropout before starting Yale
- Move to the Tenderloin
- Ghost
- Inspire a group of hackers + visionaries to take on the world
- Core

Zain has a track record of excellence. He is wise far beyond his years, and I learn something unique every time we sit down for a protein snack.

It was obvious to me that it would be unwise to ever bet against @zainmfj's slope. Even among cohorts of high-agency and high-IQ individuals, Zain is off distribution. And when I asked @cory and @AndreaShuyuWang who were thethe spikiest Z Fellows / SV Angel future stars, Zain came out on top.

We're so excited to lead @ghostai's seed and even more excited for Core.

@joshelman @kirbyman01

Zain Javaid@zainmfj · Oct 5

Introducing Core, The Personal Al Computer

The most powerful technology humanity has built should belong to you

Order today: ghost.ai

2:24

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@kirbyman01

"I'd work with with him in a heartbeat" was what the fund manager who @zainmfj worked for when he was just 14 yo told me. Zain is one of the highest agency founder I have ever met, so I knew I had to work with him.

I am incredibly bullish about the future where everyday people own the intelligence stack, starting with the hardware at @ghostai. Knowing where Zain started - building an agentic software product out of a daily-rated Tenderloin bedroom - it's been eye opening to see the migration and expansion of the ambition.

Very excited for the launch! 🚀

Zain Javaid@zainmfj · Oct 5

Introducing Core, The Personal Al Computer

The most powerful technology humanity has built should belong to you

Order today: ghost.ai

2:24

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@kirbyman01 reposted

@zainmfj

Introducing Core, The Personal Al Computer

The most powerful technology humanity has built should belong to you

Order today: ghost.ai

2:24

1.1K 858 787 12.3K 4.1M 8.3K

@kirbyman01

It's been incredible to see the company grow from 6 people at Series A to today, all the while maintaining (actually accelerating) the pace of innovation and kindness that defines so many of the team members. Forever long 11.

Mati Staniszewski@mati · Sep 30

We just closed an employee tender offer which values @ElevenLabs at $22BN, up 2x from our Series D in February. The tender was led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price.

A few words on how we got here ↓

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@kirbyman01

@ElevenLabs, @higgsfield_ai and @trymirage crossover! My heart is full 🫶🏼

Alex Patrascu@maxescu · Sep 25

I generated over 1,000 songs with ElevenMusic over the last week.

And this video was supposed to be a head-to-head showcase with Suno, but there's no point in that.

I am convinced that there's no competition right now, and ElevenMusic 2.5 is the best AI music model.

Visuals: Higgsfield
Motion graphics: Tesseract, by Mirage
Orchestrated with GPT-6 Astra

As a reward for reading all the way to the end, I'm giving away many codes for 3 months of Pro subscriptions in partnership with ElevenMusic!

Comment with your best AI songs, and I'll DM you the discount code. Make sure you have your DMs open.

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@kirbyman01

This is wild. Incredible to see how much cheaper real workloads are getting

ElevenLabs Developers@ElevenLabsDevs · Sep 23

Realtime sentiment analysis with Jev and ElevenLabs.

Each phrase takes on the color of the emotion it carries while the caller is still talking. Six meters on the right track the mood of the call.

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@kirbyman01

AI is as big or bigger than internet. So it must be for the benefit of the 99% of people. “AI on your own terms” is an important concept, often overlooked at the frontier edges.

@zainmfj and team are building the key unlock towards that vision. Proud to be working with the team!

Zain Javaid@zainmfj · Sep 23 Open quoted post →

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@kirbyman01

Founders will win big by embedding the frointier into consumer products. Jev is a great example!

Josh Elman@joshelman · Sep 18

Already Jev-pilled

What really has me excited is the next wave of consumer startups that can build new smart things.

Whenever faced with many options (travel ideas, books to read, …) you can now get hyper fast sorting of which may be the best fit!

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@kirbyman01

Zerg

martin_casado@martin_casado · Sep 12

Terran

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@kirbyman01

@Carles_Reina is the best AI native GTM leader and stoked to work with him at @hilbertsai 🫶🏼

Hilbert@hilbertsai · Aug 18

In this episode of #HilbertSpace, we sit down with @Carles_Reina, managing partner of Baobab Ventures and a key leader behind ElevenLabs’ global growth. We unpack what it actually takes to build and scale a company across markets, and how AI is changing the way teams think about GTM. youtu.be/wKpOGF6D4gs?si…

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@kirbyman01

Must listen for anyone in the field of Growth. When I started the Growth function at Snap, @alexschultz was the canonical practitioner that we took much inspiration from. Excited for this episode at @hilbertsai to be out!!

Hilbert@hilbertsai · Aug 3

We sat down with @alexschultz , now Chief Data Officer at Meta, for a conversation unapologetically about growth. The craft, the measurement, the mistakes, and where it all goes in the age of AI.

Full episode here: youtu.be/7XnxSuAqE18

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@kirbyman01

Getting information does not equal learning.

Nir Zicherman@NirZicherman · Jul 28

Large language models are bad teachers, despite hundreds of millions of people using them to learn every day. Here are a bunch of reasons why:

1. They overwhelm you with huge blocks of text
2. They put the burden on you to decide what to do next
3. They veer off course without trying to keep you on track
4. They don't explicitly build and stick to a learning path like a teacher does
5. They force everything to happen inside of their experience
6. They speak robotically and pedantically
7. They don't easily let you create and manage helpful learning resources
8. They don't quantify your progress
9. They often attempt to create visuals via text, emoji, or ascii art circa 1999
10. They obfuscate how they know what they know

Oboe on the other hand:

1. Breaks everything down into clear, digestible chunks
2. Drives the conversation forward while allowing you to interject or ask questions
3. Has an opinion, like a good teacher does, of where to lead you
4. Creates a learning path, makes sure you see it, and evolves it as needed
5. Allows you to share and consume what you create in Oboe elsewhere, including podcasts
6. Speaks to you like a friendly, helpful tutor
7. Lets you create tons of artifacts, from diagrams to worksheets, from quizzes to songs
8. Helps you understand how much you're progressing across all your chats
9. Creates beautiful, modern, clear visuals only when it would help the learning process
10. Shares exactly what its sources are and how they tie into the material.

Check out our newest version:

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@kirbyman01

Made my week 😄 @ElevenLabs

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@kirbyman01

Made it!! @ElevenLabs’ pop up shop in NY. Was lovely to see the line out the door! 🔥🦾

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Mati Staniszewski@mati · May 31

Homecoming. Surreal!

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@kirbyman01

A must listen for all the growth folks (including founders!). @mrdanieldanker is a pioneer in adopting AI native growth strategies. 🔥🙏🏼

Hilbert@hilbertsai · Apr 22

In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Danker, EVP of AI Acceleration, Product and Design at Walmart, to unpack why sustainable growth is more complex than it looks and how AI is finally giving retailers the tools to get it right.

Full episode here: youtu.be/RsBojAIR60A?si…

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@kirbyman01

There really hasn't been much change in how people use email - arguably one of the most important comms channel for us. Excited for @ngavini and the team for this launch!

extra.email@extradotemail · Apr 21

Email hasn’t changed in 20 years. We rebuilt it.

Meet Extra: your life’s new inbox.

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@kirbyman01

Be kind (incl. to AI)

sourcery@sourceryy · Apr 20

.@kirbyman01: you should be nice to Waymo:⁣
⁣
"I say, 'thank you' every time I get out."⁣
⁣
"In case that's a highest form of AGI—what's the downside of being nice to them? Or having them know you've always been nice to them."

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@kirbyman01

PERSONAL UPDATE: After 5+ years, I am leaving @a16z to start a fund! This was the toughest career decision of my life. I learned from the best partners and was privileged to work with incredible founders. So why leave? It is simply time to build. More to come on this.

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Bryan Kim (@kirbyman01) — posts, photos & videos | PeekX