Spencer Peterson (@spencermpeter) header
Spencer Peterson (@spencermpeter) profile picture

general partner at Coatue // OpenAI, SpaceX, Cursor, Anduril, Flock Safety, Stripe++

San Francisco
Joined January 2014
I've been reflecting on ten years of privates investing & my first 18 months at Coatue. 11 thoughts: 1/ Idea size > everything: Lots of funds talk about “big swings” but few operationalize it. I'm of the mind that idea sizing should be the atomic unit of consideration for every fund/stage. 2/ Think about the Trends: Transcendent companies ride massive secular shifts. Internet; Mobile; Cloud; LLMs. Great investments often sit at a convergence of multiple trends: the further out you zoom, the clearer trends become. 3/ the Path to Platform: the greatest source of privates alpha is identifying a platform company *before it's a platform. Every investment thesis is really just "the path to this being a Platform"... what’s wild is how compressed the timeline has become: platforms used to take a decade to emerge, but now signals show up in just a few years (why some Series B valuations are so high!) 4/ Avoid Losing: You don’t need to win deals -- you just need to not lose! In the interest of winning deals, not going to share more on how to avoid losing with peers on X (: 5/ Privates are far more zero-sum than publics: There's a tech narrative that we’re all in it together. Like Teletubbies, with Ramp cards. In reality, privates are much more zero-sum than Wall Street. But you can still choose to be nice! It helps you avoid losing (: 6/ Great founders share a trait, rate of learning: the best founders are, without exception, learning machines. They just keep getting better in a way that almost runs away from you (especially if you're a schmuck investor like me) This is the one signal effectively impossible to fake -- and why investors actually want to meet CEOs well ahead of a fundraise; “we just want to get to know you” ;p 7/ You cannot make money on a spreadsheet: the alpha in spreadsheet investing was competed away years ago. People understand gross dollar retention now. To understand the Platform-anatomy of a company: help you, excel spreadsheets will not (Yoda) 8/ "Pattern Matching" is overused, but underrated: Investing is an exercise in reducing complexity: "the best models have fewer rows" .. Pattern matching is an overused term -- but the act of "seeing simplicity" is evergreen underrated. 9/ Diversification is a tax: concentrate winners! Diversification is not your friend: this is a known fact in venture (and increasingly true in publics) 10/ Decision Quality > everything: for all the hustle culture, busy calendars and "value add resources" at funds .. all the leverage is in decision quality. Great decisions compound. Avoiding losing compounds. It feels bad (but is correct) to say 95-99% of "passes" don't matter in power law investing. Know when you're around a BFI and get the decisions right! 11/ the Future is built by weird people, doing things that are obvious (in hindsight): if you’re not at least a little weirded out, it’s probably bad, actually!
27
42
13
521
85,929
awesome opp for someone outlier-curious (:
I'm hiring! This is an exciting new role for someone who wants to chart new paths for Ramp data. Where should our data show up, but doesn't today? Who should we collaborate with on new economic research projects? We're looking for new ideas from people who are as excited as we are.
4
817
Spencer Peterson retweeted
welcome to the 9th annual @stateofai report! ai building better ai, world models, physical ai, geopolitics, cyber defense and 12-month predictions. read it at stateof(dot)ai or watch my editor’s cut here. a few of this year’s biggest findings follow:
47
127
93
698
148,614
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Replying to @Restructuring__
You are totally wrong. I’ve had even worst slides. Thank god I change my mind frequently!
17
15
7
567
87,600
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Miter raised a $40M Series B, and we celebrated the only way we knew how: we drove a big purple van from SF to NYC to visit as many customers as possible. It's time to build!
6
8
3
32
4,915
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Energy storage: 10GW to 100GW in 4 years. Battery storage is becoming a critical part of the energy stack, helping shift solar power from midday production into evening demand as electricity needs rise. More in the latest C:\Take ⬇️
2
5
2
72
18,233
Spencer Peterson retweeted
come join the launch meetups for @stateofai report! - sf on 8 oct: luma(dot)com/soai - nyc on 27 oct: luma(dot)com/soai-nyc - paris on 3 nov: luma(dot)com/soai-paris i'll give my editor's cut and host 2 firesides focusing on key themes incl. embodied ai, rl/scaling, science
5
8
2
64
5,187
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Shipping speed crazy
Your Instinct can now handle phone calls. Introducing Instinct Concierge – a white glove service meant to handle high-touch cases, such as making phone calls, high-end service booking, and more. You’ll be able to book the restaurant that doesn’t take online reservations, get on your dentist’s cancellation list, or have that cable bill sorted out. We’re slowly rolling this out to our early access group today and will be expanding access soon.
7
16
1
289
35,287
2027: the year of robotics
We just hit 100M ARR within 10 months of starting deployments. We are in factory lines. On construction sites. In kitchens. In data centers. Cleaning. Welding. Building. Cooking. Deploying.
2
24
2,784
our hearts are so full ❤️
38
1
238
9,509
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Cursor has officially joined SpaceX. We’re grateful to become part of such a special company, and it has been a privilege working with the SpaceXAI team. Lots ahead.
Cursor is now part of @SpaceX. Today, we have officially closed our acquisition. We will join the @spacexai team to help make Grok the world's most useful AI and improve Grok Build, Grok Bot, Grok API, Cursor, and more. SpaceX has built some of the most inspiring and impressive technology in the world, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to become part of such a special company. Onwards.
431
622
72
12,980
1,676,345
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Excited to release Grok 4.6. With each release, Grok is becoming a more capable digital colleague. 4.6 is significantly better at difficult tasks and knowledge work. It combines Opus-class intelligence and polish with very low cost and high speed.
Introducing Grok 4.6. It delivers frontier intelligence and is a significant improvement over Grok 4.5 at the same price.
245
391
44
5,928
844,319
Spencer Peterson retweeted
The cost center of energy has become more about delivery than production. Excited to see @basepowerco launch Base Core today, and to keep backing Base Power and others re-industrializing the US grid.
3
6
1
37
9,759
Energy economics underpin every market few companies are pushing that frontier as ambitiously / relentlessly as Base Power now they’re vertically integrating with Base Core, designed and built here in Austin TX, USA big step toward a future of abundant & affordable power!
Today, we're launching Base Core, our own battery designed & built in Texas, and announcing our $1B Series D to bring it to homes across the country. Three years ago, we started Base with a belief that batteries were the unlock to energy abundance. We saw battery storage as the foundation of a modern energy system, and believed we could win the market with vertical integration, technology, and relentless execution (what we now call Base Pace). So we set out to build a network of distributed batteries to deliver affordable, reliable electricity to homeowners and utilities. While the job is far from finished, the launch of Base Core is the most meaningful step in that plan. We’ve spent the last few years learning hard lessons about building a distributed battery fleet, going from 1 install per day in June of ‘24 to 100 installs per day in June of ‘26. These lessons - how the battery is shipped, installed, used, and monitored - informed the design of Core. Now, Core will be the foundation of the company's next phase of growth. Base Core is a first-of-its-kind home battery. At ~40 kWh it is 3x the size of most home batteries, providing up to 36 hours of backup for the average home. In the event of multi-day outage, Core is equipped with a (first of its kind) generator port - pull out a small portable generator and charge the battery back up to keep your home running as long as you need. When an outage does happen, the backup is seamless - most members won't even notice the grid went down. It's built to withstand Texas summers, Chicago Winters, and everything in between. And finally, it’s manufactured by our team in Austin, at Base Factory 1, right across the street from our HQ. This new capital will bring Core to more homes and to accelerate our ambition beyond batteries. The round is co-led by Ribbit, Addition, Valor, and JP Morgan, with participation from new major investors D1, Sands, Coatue, Layer Global, and Energy Impact Partners. All of Base’s major existing investors are re-investing, including Thrive, Altimeter, Lightspeed, a16z, CapitalG, Trust, and more. This brings our valuation to $13B. As we enter the most important growth period in the history of the electricity industry, our mission has not changed - advance human prosperity by delivering the world's most affordable and reliable electricity. Our strategy has not changed - technology, plus vertical integration, plus relentless execution, leads to a compounding cost advantage. What has changed is the scope of our ambition - this new capital, along with the team and capabilities we've built over the last three years, positions us to build technology across the electric stack, including what it takes to serve surging demand from AI, and to deepen our partnerships with utilities as they work to meet rising demands. Electricity is the largest and most essential industry in the world, and it does not have a defining technology company. The company that delivers the most affordable, reliable power will be one of the largest and most impactful companies in the world. We intend to build it. If you'd like to join us, reach out. Onwards. basepowercompany.com/core.
2
20
2,479
Spencer Peterson retweeted
We are committed to pushing the model frontier across cost efficiency, capability, and speed. Starting today, we are reducing prices for GPT-5.6 Luna by 80% and GPT-5.6 Terra by 20% , and offering a faster option for GPT-5.6 Sol in the API. Luna and Terra’s lower prices are reflected in how usage is counted in Codex and ChatGPT Work, so your usage goes further.
1,388
1,937
1,855
19,323
21,013,885
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Introducing ACT-2 Preview The first robotics model to unify broad generalization with high reliability. A single fine-tuning example can teach Memo a new behavior that generalizes. Zero shot, real unseen homes, 99% success rate.
212
479
261
4,068
1,060,791
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Lucas Swisher (@LucasSwisher1) of Coatue, pushes back on the idea that frontier models are becoming a commodity. Frontier models continue to improve at a very rapid pace and benefit from access to talent, compute, and training incremental models.
1
2
16
5,459
Spencer Peterson retweeted
We just added Cursor's Composer models to our model breakdowns on Ramp AI Index. In another sign of businesses switching to cheaper models, spend on Composer (in purple) increased 8x from 0.7% to 5.7% in June 2026. A underrated player taking market share from OpenAI and Anthropic.
3
17
9
170
31,834
Spencer Peterson retweeted
We can finally say AI isn't killing jobs. A new paper from me, @tryramp, and @RevelioLabs uses firm-level spend and workforce data across 21K U.S. businesses to measure AI's impact on jobs. Firms that adopt AI heavily grow headcount 10% over two years following adoption. Low adopters see no statistically significant change.
176
626
200
2,893
883,759
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Was fun talking with @alexklein0x about many things, but in particular loved being able to spotlight how Coatue Growth operates as one team: Thomas, @spencermpeter , @jadelai__ , @1daveschneider , @carynm650 , @DanRose999 , @BenSchwerin , Colin, Abhi, and now @hanseulnam , Philena, and Pranav who recently joined us. The one constant at @coatuemgmt is that we're always adapting and only as good as our next investment. Privileged to build with this team listen here open.spotify.com/episode/7De…
Nucleus 100 Growth episode of The Rise is live. Last year, Keith Rabois came on after the Early list dropped and the methodology put him at #1. For Growth, we broke the Nucleus 100 into three cuts. Early Growth, Growth, and MOIC. This week, Lucas Swisher from Coatue joins after landing #1 in Growth. The track record is absurd. OpenAI. Anthropic. OpenEvidence. Harvey. Attentive. Glean. Deel. Rippling. Scale. Grafana. Figma. 33 years old (!!), GP and co-lead of growth at Coatue, helping run one of the most meaningful growth practices at one of the best firms in the world. Crazy impressive, and just a very warm, easy-to-root-for human. Fan. I asked what got him there and he immediately turned it into a Coatue team answer: “We think about it like a basketball team. Every investment has everyone’s fingerprints on it.” ^ I like this. We got into how he built it, how Coatue invests across private and public markets, every layer of the AI stack, and some great advice for early-career investors / students trying to figure out if venture is the right path. Thanks for coming on @LucasSwisher1 🙏 Go @coatuemgmt.
2
19
4,034
Spencer Peterson retweeted
Lots to do together. Excited to be joining forces with @SpaceX to build useful AI.
SpaceX has exercised the option to acquire @cursor_ai in an all-stock transaction with the goal of building the world’s most useful AI models. For the past few months, SpaceXAI has been jointly training a model with Cursor, which will be released in Cursor and Grok Build soon. We look forward to working closely with the Cursor team to advance our frontier AI capabilities
720
901
130
13,247
3,983,881