Hi, welcome to your Weekend.

Silicon Valley loves a wunderkind, as we covered extensively last spring. It also loves to pattern-match, projecting visions of future success on entrepreneurs who look a lot like winners of the past. So what happens when an obvious wunderkind doesn’t look anything like her predecessors? 

It took a lot of persistence for Melanie Perkins to convince investors to fork over money for her design software company Canva back in 2012. Perkins, a non-technical founder from Perth, Australia, was in her mid-20s and in a relationship with co-founder (and now husband) Cliff Obrecht when she first arrived on these shores.

Unsurprisingly, she was sent packing by 100 venture capitalists, as she tells it. Still, she hung tight. She hustled, at one point learning how to kitesurf just so she could attend a gathering of VCs in Maui. She printed out sweeping, 100-year plans articulating her vision for democratizing design around the world. And eventually, she won. Today, Canva is one of tech’s most highly valued startups. 

Perkins’ personal narrative, as captured in this weekend’s cover story by Annie, is a tour de force of tenacity. She has powered Canva to a $25.5 billion valuation through almost freakish levels of foresight and ingenuity and an unyielding force of will. She’s a true unicorn atop a unicorn, and it’s exciting to imagine how far she’ll take the company.

Will generative AI be her Waterloo? Will she continue to grab market share from much bigger competitors? Will she stick the IPO landing? All questions that will be answered in due time. But I wouldn’t bet against her.

Now onto this weekend’s stories...

the big read

The Unsinkable Melanie Perkins: After 100 Rejections, the Canva CEO Faces Her Greatest Threat Yet

Having built one of tech’s most valuable startups, the Australian billionaire now has to arm it for huge battles ahead: winning in AI, fighting off Adobe and conquering the public markets. Annie spoke with Perkins, her co-founders and her investors about what’s in store for Canva’s next decade. 

vision board

California Scheming: Nine Unsolicited Design Ideas for the Secret City of Solano County

A Silicon Valley supergroup has been vocal about their visions for the future—but silent about the actual city they’re funding. So we asked a creative agency, an architecture firm and our own graphic designer to imagine their top-secret city for them. 

the ai age

‘It’s a Cult’: Inside Effective Accelerationism, the Pro-AI Movement Taking Over Silicon Valley

What is e/acc? And what, exactly, are its followers trying to build? Margaux takes us inside the eccentric movement and meets the people trying to build the future as fast as humanly possible—AI “doomerism” be damned.

Watching: Netflix’s Sci-Fi wonderland
Someone in Hollywood has been raiding my bookshelf and I’m not mad about it! First, Netflix dropped the trailer for a series based on “The Three Body Problem,” the Chinese trilogy (coming January 2024) that tracks across several generations in a future where humans have made contact with aliens. Then came this weekend’s release of “Foe,” based on the 2018 book about a man who gets recruited for a mysterious mission to space, starring Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan. Also this week, Netflix released the teaser for “Leave the World Behind,” a star-studded adaptation of the darkly satirical apocalypse novel, directed by “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail (in theaters October 25, and on Netflix December 8). Sci-fi nerds: this is our time. —Julia

Noticing: Propa-stan-da
It looks like some celebrity stan armies are mobilizing to spread flattering misinformation on behalf of their idols. Last year, after FTX went belly-up, news outlets picked up a rumor that the ever-savvy Taylor Swift had seen right through Sam Bankman-Fried’s BS and rejected a $100 million sponsorship deal with the now-bankrupt crypto exchange. But according to Michael Lewis’s new SBF book “Going Infinite,” she was in fact ready to move forward with the deal, and it was the FTX executives who walked away. It reminded me of the Miley Cyrus fan who planted a false rumor that Cyrus had filmed her “Flowers” music video in the house where ex-husband Liam Hemsworth allegedly cheated on her. That little white lie helped the song hit #1 on the Billboard charts. Just another way that the stars increasingly depend on their stans. —Margaux

Reading: Tech’s new ‘It’ fashion house
A few years ago, luxe Italian knitwear designer Brunello Cucinelli became one of the first high-end retailers to market his line directly to Silicon Valley. Who can forget the famed 2019 pilgrimage to Cucinelli’s Italian village by Reid Hoffman, Jeff Bezos, Drew Houston and other tech luminaries? Now, an even more expensive Italian fashion house is clawing at the Valley’s credit cards. For New York magazine, Jen Wieczner breaks down tech’s fascination with Loro Piana, a “quiet luxury” brand known for rich, neutral hues and $27,000 vicuña jackets. It was a favorite brand for Succession’s scions—Kendall Roy was often spotted in Loro. Now, everyone from Chamath Palihapitiya to Bill Gates is flexing their Loro—putting the LP in LP, as venture capitalist Christian Garrett quipped. Just don’t add Mark Zuckerberg to the list. After Wieczner’s story published with a lead image of Zuck in a plain blue sweater, the Meta CEO corrected the record on Instagram: “That shirt is Buck Mason. Also fancy.” Retail price: $228. —Annie

Makes You Think

See? No reason to feel FOMO over all those Vegas Sphere videos.

Until next Weekend, thanks for reading.

—Jon