Good morning and happy Sunday! ☕

Hope you're wrapping up your weekend feeling recharged. While you've been enjoying some well-deserved downtime, the business world served up some fascinating storylines this week—from the NFL announcing the most ambitious global expansion in sports history, to a16z telling founders to stop lying about their revenue numbers.

Grab your last cup of coffee for the week and let's dive in.

⏱️ Read time: 5 minutes

🏈 NFL announces 9 international games across 4 continents — Paris, Melbourne, Rio debut as football goes truly global

💰 a16z tells founders: stop with the fake ARR — Not all growth is real growth (and investors can tell)

🤖 Elon rewrites the founder power playbook — The $800B personal conglomerate is just getting started

🛒 Reddit wants to buy more companies — Adtech acquisitions incoming

💎 Benchmark doubles down on Cerebras with $225M — Special purpose fund for AI chip maker

What happened: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the league will play nine international games in 2026—the most ever—spanning seven countries across four continents. We're talking Paris, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, Munich, Madrid, Mexico City, and three games in London.

The expansion plan:

The endgame: Goodell wants all 32 teams playing one international game per season. That's 16 games abroad eventually, making the NFL a truly global league.

Alberto's take: This isn't about spreading the love of football. This is about market expansion and IP protection. The NFL sees what the Premier League did—turned into a $10 billion global brand by exporting games worldwide. Now they're doing the same playbook: plant the flag in every major market before another sport (or league) takes that revenue.

Here's the genius: by hosting games in Paris, Melbourne, and Rio, the NFL creates superfans in markets where American football has zero cultural history. Those fans buy jerseys, subscribe to streaming services, and watch games at 3 AM local time. That's not a fanbase—that's a global licensing empire.

The risk? Player pushback. International travel is brutal on bodies, and the season is already long. But when there's billions in international TV rights on the table, the NFL will figure it out.

The simple version: The NFL is going full global domination: 9 games, 7 countries, 4 continents in 2026. Football is becoming the world's game whether the world asked for it or not.

What happened: Andreessen Horowitz general partner Jennifer Li went on TechCrunch's Equity podcast and basically told founders to stop inflating their revenue numbers on social media. The problem? Too many startups are confusing "revenue run rate" (extrapolating one good month) with "annual recurring revenue" (actual contracted revenue).

The key quotes:

"Not all ARR is created equal, and not all growth is equal either." — Jennifer Li

"There's a lot of missing nuances of business quality, retention, and durability that's missing in that conversation."

Why this matters: AI startups are in an arms race to hit $100 million ARR as fast as possible because VCs allegedly won't fund you for Series A without it. So founders are gaming the metrics—taking one killer sales month, multiplying by 12, and tweeting "WE HIT $100M ARR!" when in reality they have $8.3 million in actual contracts.

Alberto's take: Li is saying the quiet part out loud: investors can tell when you're faking it. True ARR is contracted, recurring revenue from customers on annual deals. What most founders are tweeting is "we had a good month and multiplied by 12."

Here's why this matters for investors: if a startup is burning $5 million a month and claiming $100M ARR based on revenue run rate (not actual contracts), their cash runway calculation is completely wrong. When those monthly customers churn, the whole house of cards collapses.

Li's advice? Focus on 5-10x sustainable growth with strong retention. That's $1M → $5-10M in year one, then $25-50M in year two. That's still "unheard of" growth by traditional standards—and it's real.

Even Li's own portfolio companies (Cursor, ElevenLabs, Fal.ai) hit explosive ARR numbers, but she emphasizes it's tied to "durable businesses" with actual customer retention and expansion revenue.

The lesson: Viral ARR tweets are mostly bullshit. Investors know. Founders should stop optimizing for Twitter clout and start optimizing for real, sustainable revenue.

The simple version: a16z partner Jennifer Li told founders to stop tweeting fake ARR numbers. Real ARR = contracted revenue. Fake ARR = "we had a good month and multiplied by 12." Investors can tell the difference, and so should you.

What happened: TechCrunch's Equity podcast did a deep dive into how Elon Musk is building something we've never seen before: a personal conglomerate that rivals the peak market cap of General Electric—except it's all controlled by one person.

The numbers that matter:

Why it's different: Traditional conglomerates (GE, Berkshire Hathaway) are corporations with boards, shareholders, and accountability structures. Musk's empire is a personal holding where he controls the board, sets the strategy, and answers to nobody.

Alberto's take: This is either the smartest vertical integration play in history or the most dangerous consolidation of power we've ever seen in tech. Probably both.

Here's what Musk figured out: instead of building one great company, build an ecosystem where every company makes the others more valuable. SpaceX launches Starlink satellites. Starlink provides internet for Tesla cars. xAI trains models using data from X. Tesla invests in xAI. It's all circular and self-reinforcing.

The risk? One person running six companies across rockets, AI, EVs, social media, brain chips, and tunnels. If Musk gets distracted, sick, or makes a catastrophic decision, the entire empire is at risk.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: it's working. SpaceX dominates launch. Tesla dominates EVs. xAI is now competitive with OpenAI. X is… well, X is still a mess, but the others are printing money.

The question: Will we see other founders follow this playbook? Sam Altman has been quietly building his own portfolio (Reddit, Helion, Worldcoin, OpenAI). Could he be next?

The simple version: Elon Musk is building a personal empire worth $800 billion that spans rockets, AI, EVs, and social media. It's either genius or insanity, and we're all watching to see which one it is.

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What happened: Reddit CFO Andrew Vollero told analysts on the Q4 earnings call that the company is actively looking to acquire more companies, particularly in adtech but also other areas.

The strategy:

Recent acquisitions:

Q4 earnings:

Alberto's take: Reddit is doing what Facebook did in the early 2010s: use cash flow from a profitable ads business to buy capabilities that make the ads business even better. Smart.

Here's the playbook: instead of spending 12 months building an AI targeting tool in-house, Reddit buys a startup that's already solved it, integrates it in 3 months, and instantly improves ad performance for all clients. That's how you compound competitive advantages.

The AI search bet is interesting. Reddit has become the go-to source for "real" answers—people literally add "Reddit" to their Google searches to filter out SEO spam. If Reddit can monetize that with AI-powered search, they're sitting on a goldmine.

The simple version: Reddit is hunting for acquisitions in adtech and AI. They're profitable, growing users 19% YoY, and want to buy their way into new capabilities instead of building them. Cash-rich companies buying startups? Tale as old as time.

What happened: Benchmark raised $225 million in special-purpose funds to double down on its investment in Cerebras, an AI chipmaker competing with Nvidia.

Why it matters: Special-purpose funds are rare. VCs typically invest from their main fund, spreading risk across many companies. When a VC raises a separate fund for ONE company, it means they have extreme conviction that this specific bet is going to pay off big.

The Cerebras bet:

Alberto's take: Benchmark is making a statement: "We think Cerebras is going to be worth tens of billions, and we want as much exposure as possible."

Here's why this is significant: Nvidia has a near-monopoly on AI chips. If Cerebras can capture even 10-15% of that market, we're talking about a company worth $50-100 billion. Benchmark is betting that the Nvidia monopoly breaks, and Cerebras is the one to do it.

The risk? Nvidia is entrenched, has better software, and can afford to price Cerebras out of deals. But if AI compute demand keeps exploding (and it will), there's room for multiple winners.

The simple version: Benchmark raised a $225M special fund just for Cerebras, the Nvidia competitor. That's like saying "we're so confident in this one bet that we're putting all our chips on the table." If they're right, it's a home run. If they're wrong... well, that's a very expensive mistake.

Five stories. One connecting thread: Scale is the only strategy that matters in 2026.

The NFL is scaling globally because local markets are tapped out.
a16z is telling founders that inflated ARR doesn't scale—only real retention does.
Elon is scaling by merging companies into one empire.
Reddit is scaling through acquisitions instead of building.
Benchmark is scaling its Cerebras bet with a special-purpose fund.

Every winner in 2026 is asking the same question: "How do we get bigger, faster, and more defensible before someone else does?"

The companies that figure it out will dominate the next decade. The ones that don't will get acquired or crushed.

Question for you: If you were running a startup today, which scaling strategy would you pick, NFL's global expansion, Reddit's M&A approach, or Elon's personal conglomerate model?

Hit reply. I read everyone.