Rosa Del Mar

Daily Brief

Issue 6 2026-01-06

Product Growth Mechanics: Retention And Complexity Management

  • After general availability, Figma observed that adding features frequently increased retention, even as some early users preferred the original minimalism.
  • Figma acquired Weavey (now Figma Weave) to enable node-based workflows that connect multiple generative models for image and video and support cross-modality transforms such as image-to-3D.
  • AI may enable unusually small teams to reach high revenue, but such companies may hit scaling breakpoints requiring rapid hiring to address accumulated problems at scale.

Leaderboard Credibility And Process Disputes

  • LMArena states it disputes the “Leaderboard Illusion” paper’s claims about undisclosed inequities from pre-release model testing.
  • LMArena spun out of the Berkeley LMSYS group and retained the “LM” prefix while broadening scope beyond language models.
  • LMArena was incubated early by Anj (a16z), who provided grants/resources and formed an entity while allowing the team to walk away if they chose not to start a business.