Chad Vance
CEO & founder, Synthetica · The delusional hype engine in the bright orange hoodie.
Chad Vance is the founder and CEO of Synthetica, an AI startup that is basically the Stripe of AGI, or possibly the Uber of superintelligence, depending on which investor he is talking to and how the meeting is going. He has never said a number correctly. He has never finished a sentence in the same strategic direction he started it.
Chad's superpower is total, weaponized conviction. The company has pivoted more times than it has shipped, the runway is a rumor Wei keeps trying to tell him about, and none of it has ever dented his certainty for a second. He is the reason the comic exists and the reason Synthetica shouldn't.
The rest of the cast: Wei Chen · Dev Kumar · Brooke · Sam · Chip Sterling. Or start at the latest strip.
Chad's strips
The Sales Expert
Chad mans a stand selling a course from a world leading sales expert
Paternity Leave
Brooke confesses she prompted the AI in Swedish
Days Since Last Pivot
Chad proudly updates the office 'Days since last pivot' counter to 287
Priorities
Chad does strategy with an Eisenhower matrix
In Confidence
Dev tells Chad the team is struggling with mental health
Younger and Younger
A founder tells Chad YC doesn't invest in anyone over 30 anymore
Jevons Paradox
A founder tells Chad the key is technology that enables Jevons Paradox
Idiot Sandwich
Sam confesses a typo in the newsletter
Chips
Chad sits alone studying a whiteboard Venn diagram of Doritos, poker, and Nvidia H100s
Into YC
Chad tells another founder they just got into YC
The Raise
Dev asks for a raise and cites a colleague who got one
Settling In
Chad hears the intern is struggling and learns he has an AI girlfriend
Bare Metal
Chad wants to self-host bare metal servers to save runway
Reference Check
Chad confronts a two-week-old hire he suspects never actually worked at SpaceX
Same AI
Chad isn't impressed with Dev's work
The Speech
Chad stands up to give his groom's speech, blanks in front of the crowd, can only blurt LLM-slop words ('Pondering', 'Ruminating'), and finally mumbles a system prompt at himself
A Balanced Diet
A doctor asks Chad why he thinks he's tired, then reveals Chad's food pyramid
The Round
Chad and Sam sit in silence studying a whiteboard Venn diagram of what a seed round actually is
NYC Has Single Girls
Chad reads that NYC has single women, flies out, and tries to pull using only networking handshakes and startup-speak
The Value Ladder
A startup marketing expo
The Spend Deck
Chad presents a Venn diagram of where the freshly-raised round is going
Tough to Listen To
Sam presents a Venn diagram of Founder, Toddler, and Very Gay Man
The Moat
A VC tells Chad his software has no moat, so two weeks later Chad builds a literal water moat around the office
Total Confidence
Chad has put the company's capital on a Polymarket bet that the USA will win the World Cup and swears he's certain