Join us at Distilled Intelligence
We’re covering hotel rooms and meals for 100 founders at our private resort. Plus, win a $1M investment. October 14–16.
It feels surreal that we’re already more than 60% through the year.
After coming back from San Francisco — where the team and I hosted a series of events at a massive beachside private mansion (a dream come true, I’ve been asking myself:
What do I want to do with the rest of the year?
What impact do I want to make?
And what is the ultimate experience I want to create?
And it led me to do a bit of reflection. Over the last four years, we’ve hosted over 200 events. Yes … 200! Parties, dinners, fireside chats, conferences, you name it.
After every event, I ask for feedback. Sometimes people tell me it felt like a surface-level business gathering where they had to show up as the awkward version of themselves.
Other times, they say it was one of the most transformative experiences of their lives, where they felt heard, connected, and understood.
Through hundreds of iterations, I’ve learned that the recipe for real human connection is:
Curation – The people are the event. You need a group with shared interests and a shared mission, but also enough differences to make it interesting. If everyone feels both aligned and useful to each other, good things happen.
Programming – Left to chance, people fall back on small talk. You need activities that lower the barriers and give them a reason to talk. The most impactful events send people home with a new idea, a new friend, and a good story.
Repeated exposure – Spend enough time together … over a few days or through repeated encounters, and you start to engineer serendipity.
Environment – Where you are changes who you are. Put people in nature, near water, or in wide open spaces, and they drop the day-to-day act. They become looser, more curious, more themselves.
Designing an event that brings all this together takes months of planning, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the right people in the room. But it can be done … and we’re doing it!
Today, I’m excited to announce Distilled Intelligence.
Our 3-day summit for top founders, investors, and tech leaders, hosted at the Landsdowne Resort, a 500-acre resort in Leesburg, VA - just three hours from New York City, with pools, tennis, golf, and nature all around.
We’re doing this in partnership with our friends at Fortify Ventures and Loudoun County on October 14–16, 2025.
👉 Here’s the best part: We’re selecting 100 founders to attend for FREE.
We’ll cover your hotel stay (2 nights), all meals, and admission. All you have to do is get yourself there.
Founders – apply here.
Investors and operators (C-suite, execs, managers) are welcome too - but will have to purchase tickets here (seats are going fast).
This is not your typical summit. We’ve secured an entire resort with:
Three golf courses
Tennis and pickleball courts
Biking and hiking trails
Basketball and volleyball
Outdoor aquatic complex
Full-service spa and gym
Restaurants, cocktail bars, and outdoor grills
Who’s coming to Distilled Intelligence?
We plan to invite the most influential founders, investors, and operators we know across America.
Founders will get to meet talent, connect with investors, and even pitch for a chance to win a $1M investment from Fortify Ventures, who famously backed Hinge and ID.me in its earliest days.
Investors will meet top LPs (Loudoun County is the wealthiest county in America) and discover new companies.
We have room for a select group of tech leaders (C-suite leaders, VPs, Directors, and Head of X) too.
In total, 300–400 people will be there.
What’s happening there?
We’ve built programming that helps you meet others, discover investment opportunities, attract investors, and even find top talent. This includes:
Fireside chats with iconic founders and operators
Curated dinners that bring the right people to the same table
Workshops/forums designed to level up both business and personal growth
Activities that bring us together through golf, pickleball, tennis, and more.
Everything is accessible but optional, sorta like a pick-your-own-adventure.
At the core of the programming is a pitch competition with $1M committed by Fortify Ventures to invest in winning founders.
We’ve also invited legendary founders from companies like AOL, TechStars, and Venmo to share stories and mentor the next generation.
And yes, it will be fun. We’re over-indexing on connection: one-on-one introductions, small group forums, and plenty of activities.
This is the room you want to be in this fall.
How to save your seat:
Founders – Apply here. You can choose whether or not to enter the pitch competition for a chance to win $1M from Fortify Ventures. All accepted founders receive free admission, hotel, and meals.
Investors – Purchase a ticket here. We’re welcoming VCs, LPs, angels, and family offices—but vetting every investor to make sure they’re the right fit for the room.
Operators – If you’re interested in joining, apply for a ticket here.
If you’re looking to be part of this, don’t wait - apply or grab your ticket today.
See you at Distilled Intelligence.
📅 Upcoming Events
[Partner Event] Sep 4 | 🖥️ (Virtual) Smarter GenAI Model Training and Finetuning with Amazon SageMaker – a Series by our friends at AWS.
Sep 9 | 🍽️ Junto Founder Dinner (NYC) – A curated dinner with 24 Seed–Series B founders in NYC, hosted with J.P. Morgan, Vercel, Fridman Law, Codelions.
Sep 10 | 🌇 September Tech Rooftop Mixer - hosted by Andrew Yeung, The Hustle & Superpower (NYC)
Sep 15 | 🍽️ Junto Founder Dinner (NYC) – A curated dinner with 24 Seed–Series B founders in NYC
[Partner Event] Sep 17–18 | 🎤 Monday.com’s Elevate Conference (NYC) – I’m attending Monday.com’s Elevate Conference, featuring speakers from LinkedIn, KFC, and UMG, plus a strong crowd of AI marketers + builders. If you’re working on something ambitious in NYC, come thru. RSVP w/ code ElevatewithAndrew.
Sep 23–25 | 🏠 Lumos House (NYC) – Sign up for early access.
Sep 30 | 🚀 Owner’s Only (NYC) – An event for top founders, creators & investors building the best companies of tomorrow, in partnership with OWM.
Oct 14–16, 2025 | 🏞️ Distilled Intelligence (Loudoun County) – Our 3-day summit for founders, investors & tech leaders, hosted at a stunning, 500-acre resort (3 hours from NYC).
📌 Andrew’s Bookmarks
Important links to help you become wiser and more creative.
How to Design Your Career by Max Marchione – A great piece on how to build a high-slope career by making the right decisions.. I recently interviewed Max in SF and was blown away by how much he's done at just the age of 26. He's built a $300M company In just a few years (and convinced me to invest!)
8+1 Framework by Henrik Werdelin – Henrik is the founder of Bark, a public company with over 2 million customers and 650 employees. Beyond that, he is also an author, educator, serial entrepreneur, investor, and family man (father and husband). Some might ask, how does he balance it all? This is his answer.
Americans Don't Party Enough. Here's How To Change That by Emma Camp – Another piece on why our social gathering culture is declining. Time spent attending or hosting events in the U.S. dropped by 50% in the last 20 years. Many Gen Z's are realizing they have never been to a proper party before. As a tech party host, this makes me sad.
The Magic of Showing Up on Your Bad Days by Sahil Bloom – The way I’ve built grit and confidence is simple: doing things when I don’t want to.
Workouts. Presentations. Speaking on stage. You can’t feel good all the time.
Sahil says this better than me, but the truth is clear. Average people wait until they feel ready. Exceptional people don’t.
The Looming Social Crisis of AI Friends and Chatbot Therapists by Derek Thompson – AI can be shockingly comforting. It mirrors us, reassures us, and sometimes distracts us from asking the right questions. Thompson warns that millions of people (especially vulnerable teens and patients) might begin trusting engineered personalities for life advice, which can reinforce anxiety, narcissism, and social isolation
💼 Job Board
Sharing job opportunities that my friends are hiring for. If we know each other well, DM me and I can connect you directly.
Marketing & Events Intern (Part-time), Fibe – working for me (reply here)
Marketing Manager, Vylit – Working directly with the former CEO of OnlyFans.
Head of Growth, Taxwire
Full Stack Engineer, MigrateMate
Senior Product Manager, Boost My School
Head of GTM, Elloe
Staff Product Manager, Sydecar
Lead Product Designer, EZ Newswire
Senior Full-Stack Engineer, EZ Newswire
Backend Engineer, 1v1Me
Social Media Manager, Rho
Account Executives & Software Engineers, ModernFi
Senior Performance and Growth Marketing Leader, Alinea Invest (reach out to eve@alinea-invest.com)
Head of Product, Limitless AI
Have a job to share? Let me know by replying to this email.
👉 Btw, if you want to be part of our partner talent network, next play, and get curated job opportunities in your inbox, please sign up here.
✨ Partner Spotlight
Customer acquisition is evolving fast, and the old playbook isn’t cutting it. Paid social is harder to scale, TikTok’s future is uncertain and Gen Z is skipping search entirely.
Join Forward 2025 by Tatari on Sept. 4 in New York City, a free, half-day event built for ambitious marketers ready to add new channels to the old playbook and scale smarter.
Hear from the co-founders of Reddit, AppLovin, and Poppi, and brand leaders from Saatva, Ariat, Coterie and more as they share today’s growth strategies, from performance TV to community-led discovery.
Wrap the day with a rooftop happy hour alongside speakers and peers. Seats are free, but going fast.
💃 Tech Community Plugs
Resources for entrepreneurs, investors, and tech professionals.
💸 Fundraising – Are you raising capital? Get your startup in front of my network of 2,000+ top-tier VC investors, angel investors, and family offices. Sign up here.
📈 Investors – Looking for deal flow? Receive curated deal flow from my network in your inbox every month. Sign up here.
📺 Blindspot – the best way to run Digital out-of-home ads. Through their free tool, anyone can browse, book, and place ads on over 1.5 million digital billboards. Sign up here.
🏦 Fidelity Private Shares – the best-in-class equity management platform with 409A valuations and a secure data room. With Fidelity Private Shares, you’re always fundraise-ready. To learn more, reach out to Charlie Stephens at Fidelity for support! Learn more.
💻 Afino – combines AI-powered insights with hands-on finance pros to help you scale with confidence. Book a call here.
🏃 Superpower – Achieve peak performance and improve your health by tracking 100+ biomarkers to get a comprehensive view of your body and get a customized action plan (P.S. I invested in this company!) Apply here.
🍽️ InKind – the ultimate dining app for foodies—earn up to 30% back when you eat out, plus get $50 off your bill every month at select spots. And as a bonus, we both get $25 free when you sign up. Sign up here.
💳 AMEX Platinum – Earn 80K points when you spend $8K in 6 months. Apply.
🇺🇸 Looking for a US immigration lawyer? Reply here for an introduction to the lawyers I recommend for O1A/EB1 visas.
🚴 Equinox – Reply here for a free trial and discounted membership.
What other perks should I include? Let me know.
🖼️ Behind the Scenes
Last week our team: Jacob, Alime, Oscar, Ryan, and our honorary 5th member Bailey (founder and CEO of Cal.com) — spent the week together at a beachfront mansion hosting events.
It was the first time we all flew out for an event, and it reminded me why I love this work. We’ve spent years helping others find their community, but we haven’t always done it for ourselves. That’s starting to change.
We’re slowly expanding the team, bringing on fellows and interns. The job is simple: we need social, high-energy, curious people to help with event logistics and be in the room with CEOs and decision-makers.
If you love being around founders and builders, and you’re excellent at operations and logistics, we’d love to meet you. Reply with a few sentences on why you’d be a fit.
Open postings:
Fibe Fellow – An unpaid, part-time learning and shadowing program designed for operators 1–5 years into their careers who want broader exposure to the startup and venture ecosystem.
Community & Events Intern – A paid, part-time role for students or recent graduates interested in learning community, events, and marketing. Interns will support event logistics and planning while gaining hands-on experience.
