Brynn Putnam
Brynn Putnam is the founder and CEO of Board, a New York startup building a face-to-face gaming console and AI-powered game creation tools. She previously founded connected-fitness company Mirror, which was acquired by Lululemon in 2020.
Board Bets Tabletop Touchscreens Can Make Video Games Social Again
Brynn Putnam, founder and CEO of Board, argues that video games can become more social by moving the screen from individual devices to a shared tabletop. In a This Week in Startups interview, she describes Board as a $399 “face-to-face gaming console” that uses a 24-inch touchscreen and physical pieces to combine the interactivity of video games with the accessibility of family board games. The broader case is that category-creating hardware has to make the experience legible before the market is obvious.
Public-Market Capital Is Becoming an AI Infrastructure Advantage
TBPN’s John Coogan and Jordi Hays use Alphabet’s reported $80bn equity raise, Berkshire Hathaway’s investment and a run of founder interviews to argue that AI is pushing capital markets and operating infrastructure back to the center of technology strategy. Their case is that the advantage is moving to companies that can finance enormous compute buildouts, unify fragmented data, own service businesses where AI can be deployed, and build the physical systems — from data centers to space logistics — that make AI useful.