Archive - Islands

Why ai-native venture studio vs seed round is the only debate that matters in 2026

I have been talking to a lot of AI-native founders lately.

May 22 • Ali El-Shayeb

The question 90 founders asked us at web summit Vancouver

A spin-the-wheel, 79 winners, and one signal that tells you everything about the AI market right now.

May 20 • Ali El-Shayeb

The fractional CTO model: why shared infrastructure is the only way to scale multiple startups

I have been seeing a recurring failure in Series B scaling lately.

May 18 • Ali El-Shayeb

Venture studio checklist 2026: 12 questions to ask before signing a term sheet

I have been talking to a lot of founders lately who are staring at venture studio term sheets that look identical on paper.

May 15 • Ali El-Shayeb

Why autonomous AI agents for news need a maintenance plan

Demos are easy.

May 13 • Ali El-Shayeb

How to scale a marketplace to 1m listings with AI

I have been talking to founders lately who think scaling a marketplace to 1M listings needs a 50-person engineering team.

May 11 • Ali El-Shayeb

A shopify pre-launch QA checklist for high-stakes product drops

May 8 • Ali El-Shayeb

How multi-agent content systems ship 3x faster

I’ve been seeing something fascinating in our portfolio.

May 1 • Ali El-Shayeb

April 2026

Your team is coding 25% faster. why is production slower?

I’ve been talking to a lot of CTOs lately who are confused.

Apr 24 • Ali El-Shayeb

When fast code becomes expensive code

I’ve been watching something unfold that doesn’t get talked about enough in technical circles.

Apr 22 • Ali El-Shayeb

Your team adopted AI tools. Your workflows didn't.

I’ve been watching something unfold across our portfolio that nobody’s talking about publicly.

Apr 20 • Ali El-Shayeb

Why your AI agent POC will never reach production

Every CTO who reviews foundation models for AI agents makes the same mistake.

Apr 16 • Ali El-Shayeb

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