The update you've been waiting for

Hi, friend of Tech Tales & Tactics; I have an update for you.

With this email, I’d like to update you on some of the things I’ve been working on and the plans ahead, including the plans for this email.

Today’s updates will cover my work and personal life highlights, including how we will level up this email.

Work

It’s already been 3 ½ years since I joined Rivian during the pandemic when we had no product, two amazing prototypes, and a deal with Amazon to make Delivery Vans for them. Since then, we’ve hyper-scaled this vision to market, launched three vehicles, a factory, service centers, a charging network, and a ton of software around it all. Then, we also went IPO.

This is the wild ride in a nutshell. I’ve grown a lot in my product craft. Being part of scaling a car business - to use a controversial Silicon Valley idiom - truly feels like building a plane while we are flying it.

For this email going forward, I will not talk about my work unless it is publicly available information.

Personal

I still live in the San Francisco Bay Area (Palo Alto, CA) with my wife and our 5-year-old daughter. Lego and Pickleball are the current hype.

I still meet with people for lunch at Driftwood Deli, where I eat a Black Forest Ham Sandwich at least three times a week. I am looking to double that number this year.

I am still an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University, where I coach students in an “Advanced Product Design” capstone class on bringing a product from concept to market.

Misc

I am mostly invested in the stock market, somewhat diversified but heavy on tech. I also added early-stage angel investments to my portfolio based on my confidence in the founders. I am not yet sure how to feel about angel investing. It’s a tough time in early-stage tech. The risk capital available to carry non-profitable companies with a cool demo and vision has dramatically changed over the last years. In Q1 ‘24, we saw the 8th straight quarter of a declining number of deals being made. The uptick in funding comes from a few mega-rounds.

Silicon Valley is still the undisputed leader in VC activity. Some voices have been predicting its demise for years, but data suggests otherwise. SV-based startups drew 42% of the US total funding, 14.4B.

The New New Email

So how will I continue with this email?

I want to dive deeper into strategy. Over the recent years, I have become more interested in how companies successfully establish product and business strategies, as I have seen how the lack thereof can hurt a business. Companies are shifting from investing in “wild” ideas towards initiatives that have direct, measurable contributions to their business—saving costs, increasing revenue or profit, and making processes faster.

Deploying my growth mindset, I will look at this from a tech perspective, and the guiding question will be: “How can technology drive maximum business impact?”

In my next email, I will tell the story of how I came to this enlightenment.

I will collect learnings and share them here, as I know this is valuable information for others. I may or may not sprinkle in short videos, and all of it in a lighthearted, non-formal tone.

Sidenote - I moved from MailChimp to Beehiiv as my email platform. The biggest hurdle with MailChimp was the editing. It took too much effort to make it look good, and I like what Beehiiv has done for creators. Nothing changes for you, though.

Here is the new email premise:

Structure

• What? - We'll spotlight stories of tech triumphs - one per email.

• How? - We'll highlight the challenges and how they are overcome.

• Why? - We'll discuss the significance, why it matters, and key takeaways for us.

Goal

Learn from successful and failed tech & business tactics to level up our craft.

As a trusted reader, I would love nothing more than to hear back from you, your thoughts and hopes for the new direction.

Thank you for reading. I am excited about the path ahead with this email.

Keep your eyes peeled for the new edition of this newsletter hitting your inbox.

Best,

Sebastian Muehl

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author.