Ramp passes $2bn in revenue as its Europe chief confirms the $60bn round
THE SO WHAT
Ramp at $2B revenue and a $60B valuation is a reminder that verticalized finance plus software is still getting premium multiples. If you sell into finance or expense workflows, assume buyers will compare you to Ramp’s pace and UX, not legacy ERP vendors.
READ THE SOURCE
MORE FROM THE WIRE
Want to work for a billionaire investor? Vinod Khosla is hiring.
A chief of staff role framed as a 12-hour-day front row seat to the AI boom is a reminder that power in this cycle is concentrating around a few capital allocators. For operators, access to those rooms—directly or via your cap table—will matter as much as access to models or GPUs.
Startups & VentureHarry Stebbings on 996 regrets, political ambitions and building a personal brand
The founder-as-media-asset playbook is now a career-long asset, not a fundraising tactic. If you’re building, treat your personal distribution like compounding equity — but be explicit about the tradeoffs before you sign up for a 996-style grind.
Disney agreed to pay $60 million to 66 employees from an AI startup that filed for bankruptcy, weeks after tech layoffs
Disney paying roughly $1 million per Character.AI employee—right after layoffs—shows how aggressively incumbents will overpay for concentrated AI talent while cutting elsewhere. If you’re a content or IP-heavy business, assume your AI hiring and acqui-hire strategy will be scrutinized at the board level, not buried in R&D.
Startups & VentureAnthropic Could IPO Any Time Now, But Some of the People Who Matter Most Don’t Want It
When key investors and policymakers are uneasy about a flagship AI IPO, it shows how contested the governance and valuation of frontier labs has become. If you’re planning liquidity around AI narratives, expect more political and ethical scrutiny baked into the process.