"AI Developer Tools"
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- How did DevOps actually start?
The DevOps movement started from the Velocity Conference. Jesse Robbins cofounded Velocity in 2008 as a gathering place for the people running the internet's infrastructure, and the movement grew out of the community that formed there. He went on to cofound Chef, the open-source tools that put infrastructure as code into practice.
Articles and mentions
The Seed 100: The Best Early-Stage Investors of 2026
“I look for founders who want to build the operating system for entire industries. This requires extraordinary taste, grit, drive, and a vision for the future.”
Call a savepoint
Working with AI engages the same dopamine machinery as slot machines. The hollow feeling at the end of a 2.3B-token week is the loop doing what loops like this do. The fix is a savepoint.
“The pull you feel toward 'just one more iteration' is not evidence that the work needs more time. It is evidence that the schedule of small wins has trained your brain to expect another one.”
Musical AI Raises $4.5M: Jesse Robbins Joins Board
Los Angeles Times follow-on coverage of Musical AI's $4.5M round led by Heavybit, with me joining the board. The piece frames Musical AI as rights-aware infrastructure for generative music.
Musical AI Bags $4.5M to Scale AI Attribution Tech: Jesse Robbins Joins Board
Music Business Worldwide broke Musical AI's $4.5M round, led by Heavybit, with me joining the board. The piece covers what Musical AI is building and why attribution matters for generative music.
“Musical AI's attribution technology is essential infrastructure that will enable and accelerate every media-focused AI product.”
Investing in Vibrant Labs: AI Agent Simulation Infrastructure
Heavybit announcement of our investment in Vibrant Labs, which builds production-grade simulation and verifier-driven evaluation for long-horizon AI agents.
“Vibrant Labs opens a new frontier in AI infrastructure: production-grade, RL-ready simulation and verifier-driven evaluation built for long-horizon agents.”
The Future of Dev Tools Is Autonomous: Engineers Will Become Fleet Generals
Shift Magazine surveys autonomous AI agents in developer workflows and quotes me from the Shift Miami panel on designing software for agents as much as humans.
Experimentation, Causal Inference, and AI: Sean Taylor of OpenAI and VC Jesse Robbins at Data Council 2025
I interviewed Sean Taylor of OpenAI ahead of Data Council 2025 on experimentation, causal inference, and why AI generates more questions that need empirical answers.
“AI provides an opportunity to radically improve how we do things.”
AI Investor Jesse Robbins on NYSE Floor Talk
On NYSE Floor Talk, August 2024: a short statement of what I invest in now, AI-powered developer tools and infrastructure at the pre-seed and seed stage.
“I am focused on investing in pre-seed and seed companies using AI to enable new ways of writing software, of managing and deploying the software and infrastructure that powers everything.”