"With most of them being VC or high-count angel investors, they can combined push whatever product is being built here into 200+ companies independent of whether it is good or not"

Ah, I see you have figured it out the thing that has always been the case.

I think the generous take would be...

- it demonstrates they have funding (pre-empting "no-one will fund something weird like this")

- its transparent and open (pre-empting "which bastards are the ones who really own it?")

> why else would a ~billionaire that could easily fund it himself pull in that many investors that early?

Investors can be good for funding but they can also be good for education. Later, they're also very good for strategy.

> What happened to the good old way of figuring out product market fit first? Is that the only way a product can succeed nowadays

Generally it's very challenging. I have two products I'm building this way and you face a lot of up-hill climb where people with VC backing are getting the door opened for them. Of course, because of those same pressures to deliver and succeed, it's equally possible those same doors will eventually get closed on them.

I think Mitchell also lives in a bit of a bubble now. He went from friendly open source guy to very rich friendly open source guy. That's no knock on him, but I would consider viewing business from the perspective of someone who has been a CEO, CTO, and IC at the same company (his company) as his only job who became insanely wealthy as a result. I have a friend who has largely only worked in big tech, and successful startups, who tells me all the time level and salary don't matter to him. They don't matter to him because he found success early. Again, not a knock but sustained success will shape how you view the world and how you play the game.

> I'm excited to see what Superlogical will build, but the startup scene seems to grow more clique-y by the day.

Insert "It always was" meme

> why else would a ~billionair that could easily fund it himself pull in that many investors that early

That was my question, too. Does Mitchell even need to take outside funding? I get why you would prefer to use others' poker chips instead of your own, especially if they're happy to give them to you, but usually funding comes with strings attached.

> why else would a ~billionair that could easily fund it himself pull in that many investors that early?

Something something "never spend your own money if you can spend someone else's money." That plus the perception of having those specific investors gives the idea/business fast authority/prestige.

It's not the gangster move, but it's a move.

Of course they need VC money! How else are they gonna hire the worlds best vibe coders?

It's really awkward when you consider projects like Bun, which were VC funded, and ultimately bought out by a large company, what would they have even done to pay back the VCs that funded them?

Ghostty and libghostty was product market fit.

Superlogical (allegedly) uses it for the multiplexer.

Mitchell Hashimoto is just the icing on the cake and he has a track record of building defining dev tools used by millions of devs.

So it makes sense why you see 15 angel investors.

More money / investment in the dev tool space is great for everyone!