Career Pivots and Monte Carlo Simulations

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In a recent interview with Jack Altman, venture capitalist Elad Gil talks about the concept of viewing someone's career as a Monte Carlo simulation. "If you were to rerun someone's life a million times, on average how do they do?"
I recently made the decision to leave my job as an SDE II at AWS, and join a startup called Method Security. I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity, but I'll always be curious about the paths not taken. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to publicly record the list of other startups I was considering. Years from now, I can revisit this list and see how the other options played out.

This list is ordered by my conviction at the time: a mix of personal interest, career growth expectations, mission impact, and financial upside. Valuation is an imperfect proxy for most of these factors, but it's an easy way to compare outcomes. When I revisit this, I will likely come up with a better comparison approach.

NameURLLatest RoundValuationDescription
Method Securitymethod.securitySeries A ($26m)n/aAutonomous systems for cyber resilience
Generalistgeneralistai.comSeedn/aEmbodied foundation models for highly dexterous general-purpose robots
Physical Intelligencepi.websiteSeries B ($600m)$5.6bEmbodied foundation models for highly dexterous general-purpose robots
The Bot Companybot.coSeries B ($150m)$2.0bConsumer robotics
Periodic Labsperiodic.comSeed ($300m)n/aAutonomous scientific research
Sierrasierra.aiSeries C ($350m)$10bAI agents for enterprise
Exaexa.aiSeries B ($85m)$700mAI web search
Andurilanduril.comSeries G ($2.5b)$30.5bAutonomous systems for defense
Browserbasebrowserbase.comSeries B ($40m)$300mHeadless browser infrastructure
Hadrianhadrian.coSeries C$1.6bAutonomous factories
Valthosvalthos.comSeed ($30m)n/aBiodefense
Diracdiracinc.comSeed ($10.7m)n/aAssembly automation software
Neticnetic.aiSeries B ($23m)n/aAI platform for home services industry
Sunday Roboticssunday.aiSeed ($35m)n/aConsumer robotics
AIMaim.visionSeries A ($50m)n/aAutonomous construction equipment
Starcloudstarcloud.comSeed ($21m)n/aData centers in space
Tailscaletailscale.comSeries C ($160m)$1.5bModern private networking
Xbowxbow.comSeries B ($75m)n/aAutonomous pentesting
Nerosneros.techSeries B ($75m)n/aAmerican-made FPV drones
Decagondecagon.aiSeries C ($131m)$1.5bAI agents for customer service
Saronicsaronic.comSeries C ($600m)$4bAutonomous systems for naval defense
Mechanizemechanize.workSeedn/aRL environments for automating knowledge work
Parallelparallel.aiSeries A ($100m)$740mAI web search
Promise Paymentspromise-pay.comSeries B ($25m)$520mOntology for social services and public payments
Delphidelphi.aiSeries A ($16m)n/aDigital minds