Zap's Wrap June 9th

late post ⚡⚡⚡

Author

Haley Zapolski
June 09, 2026

hi friends,

Coming off a big week in New York. I have been sick and recovering, so this email is a bit more sparse /:

This week

  • Spent the week in NYC for Tech Week- hosted an event with Derrick, rooftop happy hours, Thai food with portfolio founders, and a lot of good conversations

  • Met with a bunch of VCs while I was there and left with one very clear takeaway 

  • New Founders Only episode just dropped with Edmund Jackson of UnityAI, one of my favorite interviews yet. You can listen here and watch here!

    Edmund grew up in South Africa during apartheid, got a PhD in statistical signal processing from Cambridge, spent years in London's quant hedge fund world, then made a deliberate move into healthcare because he wanted his work to mean something. Eight years as Chief Data Officer at HCA Healthcare. Then Operating Partner at Whistler Capital. Then founding UnityAI.

    He is one of the best storytellers I've interviewed. Go listen.

on ego and building

I've been thinking about this one…

There's something deeply ego-driven about starting a company. You have to believe that you should be the one to build this. That your idea matters. That you have what it takes. Conviction requires ego.

But what I've witnessed, in the founders I work with and in myself, is that building a company is one long series of ego deaths. And every single one makes you better.

1) The first death: your idea doesn't matter. You start with a vision of what the world needs. Turns out, nobody cares about your idea. What matters is whether the problem is real and whether you're actually solving it. The vision you fell in love with was just the entry fee.

2) The second death: the job is nothing like you imagined. Zero to one is not glamorous. It's brutal and relentlessly humbling.

3) The third death: competition is a trap. You realize you were never supposed to beat anyone. You're supposed to build something only you could build — a game designed around your specific skills and edge. The ego that needed to "beat" someone else dies. The game is only you against yourself.

4) The fourth death: your time stops being yours. The business starts to work, and suddenly it's not about what you want to do — it's about what the business needs you to do. The ego that wanted to do everything has to step aside.

5) The fifth death: you can't will your way there alone. A founder alone can will their business into existence, but to scale, they need exceptional people. The humbling part is, people don't join for you. They join for themselves. It's no longer about convincing them to believe in your vision. It's about pouring your energy into making them the best version of themselves.

It's been an honor to witness these deaths up close. I watch founders walk in one version of themselves and slowly become someone much more capable. Yes, we're out here building businesses and trying to make money, but it feels more romantic and poetic than just that.

There are many more deaths ahead. Excited to see what comes next for me and my founders (:

Events

to the moon,

zap⚡