@lighthousehq_ for the world's best and brightest to build in the US 🇰🇷🇺🇸 the good in this world is a gift worth fighting for
San Francisco, CA
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In the age of AI, human ingenuity becomes even more valuable. The likes of @elonmusk @spacex, @nvidia, @anthropic, @OpenAI were founded in the U.S. for a reason.
Over the years, I've met thousands of talented founders, engineers, and technologists, and many left everything familiar for the chance to build something new.
So we sat down to hear their stories.
First Landing 👇
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When my NY friends ask why I struggle with dating in SF, I tell them of the men who non-ironically say they're seeking a "life co-founder" and that pretty much explains it all.
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I love when founders of very early-stage startups write up a 1-2-page memo vs a deck.
It often tells me who they are, what they're building, why they're building it and for whom in a much more thoughtful & concise way.
(Should I write an example one to illustrate & share?)
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My flight is super full so I ended up in a middle seat. A couple is seated on either side of me. I offered to swap if they'd prefer to sit next to each other, and they both declined. So now I'm just sitting awkwardly in between the two of them while they talk over me. Why. 😅
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My non-tech immigrant father just asked me if I've ever heard of @chamath. My worlds collide 🥴
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San Francisco is the only place I've lived where someone great quitting their job is met with genuine congratulations and excitement about whatever they may be onto next
If you're building something new and looking to meet with others doing the same, DMs open to join something next week!
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The most American thing we can do is choose to be here. Congratulations and welcome home ☺️🇺🇸
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To live in SF is to make friends who consistently raise your ambitions of what's possible
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The night before Tgiving & I'm helping my entrepreneur parents pack customers' orders.
I have an elite college degree, deployed millions into 🔥startups & invest in A+ founders at On Deck.
My parents are most impressed by my box packing skills.
Immigrant parents, amirite 🥴💕
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SF's problems are real but the good parts -- the people, its optimism, positive sum culture -- are even better and grander than one might imagine
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As I get older, I recognize how having immigrant, lifelong entrepreneurs as parents shaped my work ethic and worldview even more than I originally thought. I do believe *to my core* that relentless hard work will find a way to reward you with opportunity.
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Greece is a 10-yr dream come true. For yrs, I had a romantic notion that I needed to "save" it for a special thing--a major bday, an anniversary,perhaps a honeymoon. But to visit just for me is empowering. So here's to watching caldera sunsets & celebrating being alive & healthy.
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Today is my birthday...and I have some ✨personal news ✨
After an incredible four years, I'm celebrating closing this chapter in venture at @bloombergbeta and welcoming my next adventure as Program Partner for Fundraising & Admissions at @beondeck.
minnkim.medium.com/the-other…
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You can just do things :)
My first triathlon after a five year hiatus. All the more rewarding to have friends to feed you at the finish line
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So many of my female friends underwent egg freezing during the pandemic. When we're all ready, I think we should get together, buy a big property, and build our own little village — complete w a daycare center and school focused on collaborative learning.
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I'm hiring for a Summer Fellow to work with me and the rest of the gang @BloombergBeta!
If you or someone you know is great and interested in building community, shadowing VC, and exploring startup opportunities in the #futureofwork and automation, DM me for more info 🙏✨
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One of my favorite moments in SF to date: I took the first photo walking around my neighborhood yesterday. When I shared it, a friend who used to live in the area nearly 10 years ago sent me the second photo of the same spot.
Two furry friends, growing old together 🥺😭
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I keep a notebook with me at all times where I jot down all my random, silly, stupid, inane, certainly not always unique or original #requestforproduct ideas. Going to start sharing that list 👇🏼. If anyone is working on these or anything related, say hi!
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I've said this before, and I'll say it again: @YouTube is one of the best educational platforms ever created. For the curious, there's something about everything, and dare I say, even more content rich than Wikipedia 🤩
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every fourth of July, I think about my dad and what a dream come true it is that our family made it to America 🇺🇸
this is the only place where his wild ambition was seen as a virtue. where optimism isn’t naive but a necessity, and hard work plus luck can still create miracles
it is a beacon for those who left everything behind to build something better and call it home
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Where talent migrates, innovation follows. 55% of unicorn companies have also been founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Embracing immigration is to welcome the gift of global talent to build and transform the US
Written by two Republican governors:
“The US became prosperous because many immigrants saw our beacon and seized the freedoms and opportunities offered here. That formula has not changed. Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies had been founded by an immigrant or the child of one.”
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I learn a TON from reading recs on my Twitter feed. My 🧠 is grateful, and I want to pay it forward.
So every day until Xmas, I'll share a book that changed my worldview. Like it & I'll randomly pick one person/day & send you a copy 🎁✨
Here's to a #bookwormadventcalendar 📚🥰
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Are we all just sleeping on Mexico City as a remote worker's dream? The European-inspired architecture, the food, the growing startup culture 😍
cc @jgpiers
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Today I learned my dad has been quietly and steadily planting lavender in my parents' front lawn. He's no gardener and lavender can be finnicky to grow, so when I asked him why, he said he was hoping they'd bloom by summer so my mom could smell them each time she crosses the front porch 🥹
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I asked a very successful engineer who spent 15+ years (with no intentions of leaving) at his (non-FAANG) BigTechCo on what keeps him excited. Is it mission, agency, scope, etc?
His answer was simple: "I like building cool shit with my friends."
Work w/ good humans, always☺️
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Tech layoffs are affecting many talented people on employment-based visas
If you're looking for your next role + want support navigating US immigration, reach out. Making a list of early stage startups actively hiring that are also open to sponsoring visas
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BIG win for the US 🇺🇸🥳
There are thousands of talented researchers, scientists, technologists who are *already* eligible for the O1 and don't know even know it
We're making it possible for them to come or stay. DMs open if you want to work on rebuilding America, people first.
HUGE shout-out to @minney_cat and her team for the massive help. 🙏 ya'll are the O-1 GOATs 🐐🙌
I put off immigration for too long out of fear of paperwork and they made it a breeze. 🙏📃📨🛂
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Been co-working in SF with a small group of friends working on what's next and it's been *wildly* generative.
Thinking of extending the invite to a few others who are in a similar spot. We're building in energy, American dynamism, web3. DM if interested
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Lighthouse is hiring across the board.
We're a small but mighty team — focused on serving the startup and technology industry's top talent with fast, scalable U.S. visa support. We're high-performing, high-trust, and growing.
Critical and emerging technologies don't just happen. They are built by the world's best and brightest, and we enable them to fulfill their biggest ambitions in the U.S. 🇺🇸
Now is maybe the most important and best time to join. DMs open and link to our careers site in thread.
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"Yea...he's senior as an engineer, but junior as a person," is the most apt SF roast I've overheard in a loonnnnnng time 😂
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Seems a good time as any to remind ourselves that ensuring the US remains a beacon for the world's talent is unequivocally good for innovation
Elon, Sergey, Jensen, Aravind, and many many more. Being pro skilled immigration is to be pro America 🇺🇸
Minn and I tell the stories of two immigrants who built world-beating semiconductor companies.
One of them immigrated to America and built his company here.
One of them immigrated AWAY FROM America and built his company in Taiwan instead.
This story has lessons.
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The U.S. attracts the best and brightest and we fail to provide a path for them to stay here. "They had a plan for a company, or a concept, and they can't."
Kudos to @Jason for asking @realDonaldTrump one of _the_ most important questions for tech progress and American competitiveness 🇺🇸
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If the first 100 people in your syndicate's listed LP base are all (mostly white) men, I'm not *not* going to notice.
👼 WHERE ARE ALL MY FEMALE OPERATOR AND FOUNDER ANGELS? I want to help you write checks into some badass founders!!
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IT’S HEREEE! ODX, the culmination of our work at @beondeck— enabling talented, ambitious people start + grow their companies.
It’s what I came to On Deck for + what this incredible team is here for: to invest in & work w the next gen of founders building our future.
Apply now👇
Announcing ODX, a $100M accelerator to back the next generation of founders.
• $125k for 7% from us + the community
• Access to our network to hire, fundraise, or find customers
• 100% customized for you
Apply (or invest) today 👇
beondeck.com/x
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🚀Making @beondeck history today. ODX1 is LIVE🚀
200+ founders, 100+ startups from 30+ countries, from ~8k applicants
No better team to support founders with 🙏@eriktorenberg @sam_kirschner @EricFriedman @cushmachine @gshewakr @yasharnejati @shawnxu @julianweisser
Let's #GBTM
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Huge news for international talent to build in the US 🇺🇸 @garrytan, we'd love to chat.
@lisawehden and I are building @plymouthstreet to make the O1 process fast and seamless. We've already successfully served several YC founders and would love to support others
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ODX, @beondeck's $100M fund, by the #s.
6⃣ wks since launch
📝 Over 6k apps started
👂 ~Thousand interviews
🔥 <2% accepted in cohort 1
Want to invest in + work with hundreds of talented founders alongside an ambitious global team? I'm hiring 👇
jobs.lever.co/ondeck/bfe7d1a…
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The next massive search engine will be a personalized *discovery* engine — surfacing information that is timely, relevant, and impactful and fueled by advances in language models. The Internet will feel like a collaborative library versus Q&A.
minn.substack.com/p/personal…
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When I was little, I threw out all the boxes of cigarettes my dad hid in a closet because I didn't want him to die of lung cancer. The next day, he quit cold turkey. I think about that a lot.
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Over the last eight wks, I've interviewed & met w over 300 founders for @beondeck's ODX from *all over the world.*
Truly, there is no shortage of wildly ambitious talent and big, interesting problems to solve.
Cohort 1 kicks off this weekend, & it's going to be 🔥
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Two years ago, I embraced a lot of new: a cross country move (👋,SF), a new job in a new industry (👋,venture), plus a whole new community.
Feeling a waterfall of gratitude for the leaders, peers, friends I've met & worked w. in SF, & the most impactful lessons they've shared...
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My family and I moved here to build our American Dreams 🇰🇷🇺🇸 Embracing immigration is to welcome the gift of global talent to transform the US
If you want to navigate US immigration w more ease and speed, @lisawehden and I are working on this and would love to chat. DMs open
one of the easiest policy wins i can imagine for the US is to reform high-skill immigration.
the fact that many of the most talented people in the world want to be here is a hard-won gift; embracing them is the key to keeping it that way.
hard to get this back if we lose it.
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Ensuring top talent can come and stay in the US is one of the most surefire ways for the US to maintain global competitiveness.
If you're navigating US immigration right now, you shouldn't have to do it alone. DMs are open
When our @8VC team wants to visit India or many other places for business, we file the e-visa papers and they’re processed in short order.
Meanwhile, some top technologists in India are being asked to wait 2-3 years just to *visit* the US for a few weeks. This is nonsense.
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if you flew into SF this week for @aiDotEngineer and looking to potentially stay or come to the US, come chat with us @lighthousehq_
very proud to support @swyx and many extraordinary aliens in the incredible line-up of engineers, researchers, speakers!
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I've read far too much non-fiction this year & the last. My 2021 reading list is already chock full of more (highly recommended) nonfiction pieces.
I want to enrich my brain *and* my soul. What are some great fiction (scifi, literary, classics, etc.) books I should add to cart?
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Congratulations to the 57 ODX1 startups that wrapped their build sprints this week and participated in @beondeck's first Demo Drop! Proud of all the founders — in fintech, proptech, enterprise saas, etc. across US, India, Africa, more — who took their companies from zero to one
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"Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors."
Scary, brilliant line c/o author Peter Watts
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Venture is a sales job. Watching recordings of pitches to learn what other investors ask, how they navigate pitches with founders, and what feedback they offer is incredibly valuable for shared learning. Which firms do this well?
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The NYT has a deep dislike of women who are tech CEOs and it shows. Instead of celebrating the founder who built a nearly $2B company and the co's peaceful leadership transition—not to mention to another talented woman—they just *had* to publish an inflammatory headline/story.
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this year alone, I've met hundreds of the world's elite AI researchers + engineers steering the future of intelligence, and they ultimately want to do it here, in the US 🇺🇸
If a visa or green card are holding you back, join us on 7/31 in SF and hear real stories from @MatternJustus, @manumerous, @theaievangelist, and me @lighthousehq_ on getting unblocked to pursue their ambitions
RSVP in thread
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The tenacity of founders building something that wills a market into existence is practically heroic.
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In a room full of people who just moved to sf from all over the world, and it just goes to show how much this place attracts the curious, optimistic, ambitious
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What's the equivalent of a people matchmaker for books? An excellent, *timely* book recommendation can often be similarly life changing, and I want to be surrounded by more of those humans 💕
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📢 NY friends, trying an experiment to be productive while social.
Hosting heads down co-working mornings 1-2x/wk in June for 4-5 people in the East Village/LES starting this coming week from 8a-12p ET. I'll bring coffee & breakfast. You bring your laptop & earbuds :)
DMs open!
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It is a special kind of joy to be in a room full of people who are smarter / wiser than you. The opportunity to learn feels endless 🙏🏼☺️
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What were my learnings for the past few years?
1. There are 10x more people eligible for an O1 visa than applying!
2. Today's tech makes it possible to deliver personalized apps at speed w/o compromise. Days, not months.
3. Policy tailwinds show we need more top tech talent now.
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High skilled immigration is an imperative for American competitiveness and the US is knee capping itself.
If you're a founder, technologist, researcher, there are underused visas like the O1 that you may be eligible for. If you're exploring these, DM me
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Goes for walk with a customer who is new to SF, gets blessed by one of the Hayes Valley kodamas 💕
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Choosing to make America home meant choosing the opportunity for a fuller, bolder life. Growing up, my family and I celebrated the Fourth with great fanfare. It was a day to honor the courage and will to build something new, no matter where we came from.
Happy Independence Day 🇺🇸
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I really, really enjoy friend matchmaking, and I'm quite good at it (if I say so myself). It's alllll about a good dinner party or a tactful warm intro. You want more good new humans in your life? Holla at your girl 😉
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First trip home home in nearly two years for my dad's 60th 🙏🏼
This dude is THE 🐐. Forever and always. 생신 축하해요, 아빠 💕
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The future is cool. I love SF 🥰
Seeing lots of exciting room for better interaction design but what an incredible v1 experience
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Being genuinely enthusiastic about anything is honestly such an underrated quality in a human. Being curious and excited beats being "too cool for school" everytime for me.
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The O-1 and EB-1 are wildly underused visa categories for top talent. Many don't even realize they may already be eligible and traditional providers often discourage it.
If you're navigating US immigration and want to understand if the O1 is right for you, DM me or @lisawehden
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making magic out of the ordinary is as simple as romanticizing a picnic in the park for friends
with a little intention, relationships which began digitally find a home irl and casual interactions can turn into moments of meaning
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I've had a few convos w/ friends recently about making the "right" calls -- picking a job, a city to live in, a romantic partner.
Default is to overanalyze, overworry (as a chronic overthinker, I emphathize), but simply committing to what *feels* right is often the Occam's Razor
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You know what's going to feel ✨amazing✨ when we can all get together again?
HUGS
DINNER PARTIES
DANCE PARTIES
LIVE MUSIC
MEET CUTES WITH STRANGERS
Did I mention HUGS
Like this if you want to hang and be fwends 🙈🙏🏼
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MY WHOLE FAM IS VACCINATED (minus me because I'm...young and healthy and not an essential worker 🥲). WHEEEEEEEEEE 🙌
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There is nothing cool about knocking on someone's ambition. Constructive feedback, yes. Unhelpful pessism, show them the door.
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A curated co-working space for those of us in the earliest stages of building what's next has been a game changer.
Last week, we invited hard tech SWEs, AI experts, friends of @growdialogue to come experience it for themselves. On the side of builders working on hard problems ☀️
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Feeling extra proud today of what we're building over at @plymouthstreet. @lisawehden and I are working with some truly extraordinary customers and we're just getting started 🇺🇸
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The longer I'm in venture, the more I see how an extraordinarily high pain tolerance makes a founder a force to be reckoned with.
This isn't to say they all "make it." Plenty of amazing founders put in tireless work & sometimes it still isn't enough.
But they're still a force.
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Every single person I've worked with at @beondeck embodies a spirit of service, a bias to action, and an intrinsic motivation to have large-scale positive impact.
If you or someone you know is hiring across ops, low-code, growth, or something early-stage founder facing, DM me.
Today is a sad day. We let go of 72 great people who helped build On Deck into what it is today.
Our focus in the next few days will be supporting our team – particularly those departing the company.
If you’re looking to hire incredibly talented people, DM or email me.
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I've met hundreds of talented engineers, designers, researchers from around the world this year, and the U.S. remains a beacon for those who want to start their companies. Often their first question is: How do I know which visa is right for me?
So on May 4th, we're partnering with @JuliusYRitter, @0xSigil, @FedericoNoemie, @Loganullyott, @SteveMaggilaw, @O1Visa @joinodf share our learnings for exceptional talent. RSVP in thread
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It's the framing for me, personally. There are so many other words one could use (gf, bf, partner) that don't involve applying startup jargon to personal matters, esp when that matter is of the heart and not a business/company 😅
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I changed my journaling practice in 2021 from freeform writing to more structured. Every night, I answer what is one thing that...
🧠 I learned
🙏 I'm grateful for
🥳 is worth celebrating
📈 made today 1% better than yesterday
Honestly, (almost) as good as therapy and cheaper.
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So there's a trend on tiktok asking men over 30 to show that they have their ish together w/o saying they do....
and there are men replying by showing off clean bed sheets, hand soap/hand towels in the bathroom, face wash, and sinks w/o dirty dishes.
WHY IS THE BAR SO LOW?
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If the @beondeck team could see me IRL right now, you'll see me dancing around my room quite literally
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New York City feels vibrant in a way no other city in the US does because virtually everyone takes the MTA. The transportation system literally brings everyone together, from financiers to artists to school teachers.
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The next decade of Industrial Progress will be fueled by a new generation of skilled workers & accelerated by automation+immigration👊🏼
Looking for builders, experts ushering this change. Loved our first IRL evening exploring labor marketplaces, trade schools for a new workforce
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