Naturally Artificial by Sergey Osipov

3rd AI Hackathon is done. 16 teams. 120 people. 4 minutes per pitch at the end of the day

Winner: Last Bite. Surplus food from restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, sold to customers at a fraction of the price. Food waste, solved by a marketplace

The difference from previous hackathons is prototype quality. Hello, vibecoding
• Half the teams ran out of time on the pitch
• A third couldn't say what they actually want from investors
But that's nothing new :)

Fantastic day in tech! Real networking, live education. Next stop: Limassol, in a couple of months

I didn’t film yesterday. But you can watch my video from our previous hackathon in Warsaw 👈 It includes the lectures of Zubr Capital invest directors

#AIHackathon #Vibecoding #VC #FoodWaste #Startup

Almost late for the photo shoot. Caught this on video through the glass wall of the elevator. Love our Zubr Capital portfolio get-togethers. Executives seminar, run by Pavel Motyl. Great session, awesome trainer. Love you all 🧡

Tomorrow: AI Hackathon, also here in Almaty

In the 90s I borrowed money from criminals to pay salaries

Financial crisis. Revenue dropped by half. My first company, Red Graphic, ran out of cash. 30 people needed their salaries. Account empty. So I found lenders who don't ask for a biz-plan. I was 25

On September 29 I'm on stage at Fuckup Nights Limassol to tell how it ended ;)

🎟 Grab your tickets here 👈
10% promo code: fuckupper10

#FuckupNights #sharingfuckups #Limassol #Founders

My Telegram channel feels dead some weeks. Few likes, no comments

But look at the polls. Healthy 10% engagement, active audience

💡English-speaking readers just don't hit the like button. Russian-speaking audience does it on autopilot. Same attention, different habit

Good. But still, you could leave more likes on my posts ☺️👇

#buildinpublic #creatoreconomy #contentcreation

Folks, I'm filming a podcast episode right on the stage. All 500 people in the room participate. Full audience format, first time trying this :)

From Co-pilot to Co-founder. The 2026 Startup Playbook

With two gurus: Yury Melnichek and Alexander Chekan

AI is breaking the logic of company building, so [agenda]:
• Do you still need a CTO on day one if AI writes the code?
• Headcount vs agentcount
• What's defensible when everyone has GPT-class models?
• Seat-based SaaS is dying. What replaces the pricing model?
• When a startup needs $50k instead of $500k — what happens to VC math?

No consensus on any of it, right? That's the episode :)

📍 Warsaw, September 25
🇺🇸 English-language event
🎟 https://luma.com/BelTech

* BelTech is the largest international conference for the Belarusian tech community. But you don't have to be Belarusian. Just curious about tech. Come be a guest! Literally — if you're in the room, you're in the episode on Naturally Artificial YouTube

Forward to Polish AI startupers plz

#Startups #AIagents #Copilot #VentureCapital #Cofounder

One of his clients bans all AI use in the contract. That same client invests in AI companies. Weird or ok?

Jonathan Hill has run 1minus1 marketing agency for 22 years. His team built one of Riot Games' biggest tournament platforms in the world, plus work for Xbox and Tencent. So when he answers the ban-or-invest question, he's answering it with 20 people's salaries on the line, not from a keynote stage

Meanwhile: 59% of the TikTok videos come from brand-new accounts. 97 out of 100 YouTube videos for kids is a strait AI slop. Nearly half of the music uploaded to streaming every day is fully machine-generated. >80% is AI-assisted

• Why every gaming studio uses AI and pretends it doesn’t?
• No jobs for juniors. No layoffs, no announcement. AI removed the need
• Anyone can vibecode a platform, nobody can maintain
• The games we'll love in 3 years that are 90% generated
• Players hate AI. Studios use it anyway. Everyone keeps a straight face

Watch on YouTube 👈
Listen on Spotify 👈

Is it okay to hide the fact that your marketing uses gen-AI? Comment👇

#AISlop #GameIndustry #GameDev #AI

Playsense picked up more awards 🏆
• Best Bespoke Cinematography — World of Tanks: HEAT trailer
• Best Fan Engagement — the PLAY BIG campaign

The shelf is running out of room :) Kudos to the team!

Playsense.agency creates top gaming video trailers and other marketing stuff. Ninety seconds to sell a world that doesn't exist yet, to an audience that has seen everything

(this is one of my portfolio companies, backed in 2022)

#GameMarketing #GameTrailers #GameDev #Playsense

~1/3 of vibecoders get money from their experiments👆My own takeaway:

AI taught everyone to build fast. On the individual level. Almost nobody started earning more on the corp level. Same revenue. Some with a bigger tokens bill

Distribution, trust, someone willing to pay… The hard stuff didn't really move

[Related post: Vibecoding Day 1]

#AI #vibecoding #AIROI #founders

Students & founders in Almaty 🚀🇰🇿 One day. No code. Walk out with a working AI prototype and a pitch to real investors by evening

Zubr Capital and I are hosting. Two ways in:
• Have an idea? Apply as founder. Grab a team. Build it
• No idea? Apply as participant. Get matched. Build it anyway

Mentors are investors/directors from Zubr's portfolio companies. They're there the whole day, not for a keynote and a photo. We ran this in Warsaw already — watch my film to feel how it went

🕐 Sept 19, 9:30–20:00
📍 Almaty
🗣 In Russian
Apply by Sept 12: https://league.zubrcapital.com/hackathon

Free, but spots limited. One day. Real investors. No excuses

#AIHackathon #Almaty #Startup #BuildInPublic

🎬 THE GAME OUTSIDERS — a documentary in progress

Mass layoffs, cautious investors, players that hate AI. I'm not talking to the studios this time. I'm talking to the outsiders — marketing, creative, music, influencer agencies. The ones who carry a game to its audience. And the first ones cut when budgets tighten. Seven voices recorded so far 👆 swipe the quotes

Some are already out as podcast episodes — save for the flight back from Gamescom ;)

• AI is an excuse to fire people in gaming. Ex-Riot/Epic creative director, founder of Summoner, Matt Manarino:
YouTube https://youtu.be/XkeSYSFn3Hc
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/0iJM1XUmFVUnzhhSLU56dW

• Creative agency in gaming — easiest biz to start. Alex Brodsky, Playsense CEO:
YouTube https://youtu.be/fNa5AA96PeE
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/2chS0rvXvh9dYrAWwpMmlU

• GameDev done? AI backlash & post-pandemic hangover. xActivision xWargaming veteran Thaine Lyman:
YouTube https://youtu.be/UvuwpvJGiWs
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Jx01mDye95fbC2ePO0OTw

What's your read on where games are headed?👇

#GameDev #GamingIndustry #AIinGaming #GameOutsiders