Good morning. This week’s Rivet Report is packed with fuel for ambitious builders. From a surprising dip in recession risk to the launch of Grok 4 and a surge in AI startup funding, opportunity is everywhere.
Plus, you’ll discover the mindset shift every entrepreneur needs and bold words from Steve Jobs and others to spark your next move.
And don’t miss the sneak peek at tomorrow’s big launch: Rivet Ai is coming.
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BUSINESS PULSE
Economy: Economists are growing more confident: the probability of a U.S. recession over the next 12 months has dropped to 33%, down from 45% in April. GDP is forecasted to grow around 1% in Q4 2025 (up from 0.8%), with job creation steady (~150,000 per month) and core inflation cooling to 2.8%, its lowest in four years.
What it means for you: That’s a solid macro backdrop for entrepreneurs. Consumer demand holds, borrowing remains accessible, and momentum is on your side. The next test? Corporate earnings.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
AI: xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, has officially launched Grok 4, its most advanced model yet is now integrated across X and available to X Premium+ subscribers. Grok 4 claims GPT-4–level reasoning and math capabilities, but with a real-time edge: it’s directly connected to X’s firehose of posts, giving it up-to-the-second awareness of breaking news, memes, and culture. It's also now multimodal, so it’s able to understand images, text, and code in a single query.
Source: TechCrunch
Startups: Venture funding for U.S. startups jumped an astonishing 75.6% in H1 2025, reaching $162.8 billion, the second-highest on record. This was driven largely by a booming AI sector. AI deals made up 64.1% of total funding, with headline rounds like OpenAI’s $40 billion raise and Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI fueling the boom.
What it means for you: If you're in AI, appetite is sky-high. For fundraising-proof founders, focus wins and timing could put you in the driver’s seat.
Source: Reuters
TODAY’S BUSINESS PULSE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
MOTIVATION
Words to Build By
Timeless wisdom from bold builders, risk-takers, and visionaries who reshaped the world and how we work in it.
“So, the thing I would say is, when you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. But that’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is, everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing — is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
"I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work."
"Play long-term games with long-term people. The returns in life, in wealth, in relationships, come from compound interest."
"The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."
“Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.
I was taken by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can bring to people—how it can create connection. And I realized, if we could do that at scale while treating our people with dignity and building something with soul, we could change the way people work and live.
Building Starbucks wasn’t just about coffee—it was about creating a sense of belonging. There were thousands of reasons not to keep going: people doubted us, the market didn’t exist, and we were told it wouldn’t scale. But I kept going because I believed in the mission.
Every entrepreneur needs that kind of irrational belief—because the journey will test everything. You have to be willing to see something that doesn’t exist yet and give everything to make it real. That’s what separates the ones who try from the ones who build something lasting.”
GROWTH PLAY OF THE WEEK
Break the blueprint.
Most people follow a path someone else drew. This week, challenge that. Look at one area of your business and ask: “Is this the best way to do it, or just the way it’s always been done?”
Then experiment. Test a new offer. Drop the bloated feature no one uses. Rewrite your outbound email in your own voice, not corporate jargon. The goal is to be intentional.
Start with one small but meaningful change this week and see what happens.