Late 2025 to early 2026. The transitional period between leaving Taya and settling into Vizcom. Characterized by comparison spirals, midnight research sessions, and the slow, uneven process of letting go.
Timeline
- November 2025: Left Taya. First severance payment ($20,000).
- December 2025: Share repurchase Part I ($90,000).
- January 2, 2026: Share repurchase Part II ($90,000). Total payout complete.
- January 5, 2026: Posted on LinkedIn: "Update: I've left Taya and am exploring what's next."
- January 5-9: Interviewed at Proception AI (Albert Cai, Nick Levinski). Did not take the job.
- January 15-16: Received Vizcom offer via Rippling. Follow-up call with Eden McFadden.
- January 28: Started at Vizcom.
- March 6: Haley Mossmer reaches out via LinkedIn: "URGENT Want to Hear Your Taya."
- March 8, 2026: First diary entry. Deep self-examination, asked to be "roasted."
- March 9: Jordan Taylor introduces Amy to David Lam at Vizcom.
- March 11, 2026: Elena's TechCrunch article drops. $5M raise announced.
- March 11-25: Extensive Carta support thread with Rafael Sousa about CS-7 shares.
- March 13: Haley meetup at The Social Study.
- March 24, 2026: The DNS incident.
The Spiral Pattern
During this period, Amy developed a recurring late-night behavior: researching Elena, comparing herself to Elena and Cinnamon Sipper, and arriving at the same questions without answers.
March 9, 4am: "I'm the one up at 4am researching her."
March 10, 2am: "I keep asking who's 'doing better.'"
March 12: "I've been lying here scrolling through it over and over like some kind of punishment I'm choosing."
March 17, 1am: "She's raising $5M, getting TechCrunch articles, traveling to China. And I'm here in SF, at a job I like, making more money than I ever have."
March 18, 2am: "Tonight's rabbit hole was her Olympics narrative."
The Questions
Amy repeatedly returned to the same set of questions during this period:
- Why am I measuring myself against people I don't trust or respect?
- If both their companies fail, does that change how I feel about myself?
- Why was making Cute Ghostty fun when Taya wasn't?
- If I started something tomorrow and it worked, what would actually change?
- Why do I still care what Elena thinks?
Resolution (Partial)
The Aftermath does not end cleanly. By April 2026, the late-night spirals become less frequent. Amy begins investing energy in Hardware Craft Night, Kalshi, intern interviews, and the Australia trip. The Elena obsession does not disappear but gets crowded out by forward-looking activity.
The DNS incident on March 24 may have been a turning point; Nalin Semwal's response ("I don't seem like the type of person to do this") created a moment of self-recognition that the Taya chapter needed to close not through revenge but through disengagement.
The Cap Table Demand
On April 17, 2026, Amy sent a formal email to Elena (Elena@tayanecklace.com and elena@taiyaki.ai) and Mobius's lawyers at Morrison & Foerster (DRich@mofo.com, MSchulman@mofo.com, JKrenn@mofo.com) demanding a replacement share certificate within 10 business days.
The issue: Carta showed Amy's CS-3 certificate (3,000,000 shares) as "Canceled/Terminated" with no replacement. Her separation agreement says she retained 125,258 shares (3% fully diluted). Elena had recorded the unvested share repurchase on Carta but never recorded the vested share repurchase or the retained balance. The cap table is just wrong — Elena's problem to fix — but Amy got paid correctly.
The letter was firm but not threatening. The lawyer (Mike Aparicio) was explicitly not CC'd; Amy had moved on from that relationship. Ten business days from April 17 puts the deadline around May 1, 2026. Elena had not responded publicly as of April 19.