Companiesworth knowing.

For people who aren’t looking but can’t stop wondering what else is out there.

WHAT AN ISSUE LOOKS LIKE

No. 01 · EXCERPT

THE COMPANY

SERIES B · $42M RAISED · SAN FRANCISCO · 48 → 71 IN SIX MONTHS

JUST JOINED

Head of Engineering, from

THIS WEEK IN THE MARKET

$310K base + 0.15% equity

STAFF ENGINEER · SERIES B · SAN FRANCISCO · ACCEPTED

$155K base · $300K on target

FOUNDING AE · SERIES A · NEW YORK · DECLINED

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE · 12 OPEN ROLES

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WHAT’S INSIDE

Every issue, three things.

Every other Tuesday. All of it built on one idea: in the age of AI, titles depreciate and the company, the people, and the skills compound. Pick the company, not the job.

01

The company.

One ambitious company, in depth. The signals we’re seeing and how to read them, who you’d work with, what you’d learn there, and what it’s actually like day to day.
02

The roles.

Open roles across a dozen more companies worth watching. Not a job board: a short list, each with a reason it made the cut, listed by what you’d own rather than the title on the post. Roles we recruit for come with a call; the rest link straight to the application.
03

The offers.

What the market is actually paying, from offers we’ve seen and conversations we’re having. Base, equity, stage. Real numbers, anonymized, never guessed.

WHO WRITES IT

I’m in the room when the offer gets made.

I’m Drew Venerable. I run Fuse Talent, a recruiting firm that places engineers, product people, designers and sellers at early and growth-stage startups in the US. I sit between founders deciding who to hire and people deciding whether to join. Almost none of what I see makes it into a job post.

Careers run on the same power law as venture. Most companies return nothing on the equity. A few return everything. An investor gets about sixty bets to find them; after 25, you get about seven. And in the age of AI the title on the offer matters less every year. What compounds is the company you picked, the people you worked with, and the skills you built there. So pick like an investor. Pick the company, not the job.

If a company we recruit for catches your eye, book a call with me or my team. You’ll get an honest read on the role, and if it fits, an introduction, prep for that team’s loop, and a guide through to the offer. If we don’t recruit for it, the application link is right there. Nothing to do until something’s worth doing.

1,000+: PEOPLE HIRED ACROSS MY CAREER
$40M+: IN FOUR-YEAR COMP LANDED FOR CANDIDATES, LAST 12 MONTHS
50+: OFFERS LANDED FOR CANDIDATES, LAST 12 MONTHS