SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Request for Startups - Fall 2026 (Y Combinator)

• ServiceTitan Waited 10 Years. Procore Waited 21. The Next Vertical AI Winners Won’t Wait at All. (Gregory Stofman, GP @ Veridical)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Data Center Industrialization Primer (Dynamo Ventures Team)

• Freight’s Fourth Act (Equal Ventures Team)

• AI-Native Support for One of Life’s Hardest Processes (Lotti Siniscalco, Partner @ Emergence)

• Renting is stressful. Millions of renter conversations tell us why. (A16Z)

• The Wide Open Frontier (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ Bain Capital Ventures)

• Sparse By Design (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Coding Agents 2.0: Interface, Inference, and Verification (Denise Teng, Partner @ Gradient Ventures)

• The Burden of Proof: Evaluating Energy and Industrial Solutions in the AI Era (John Tough, MP @ Energize)

• America’s Open-Model Paradox (Dean Meyer & Konstantine Buhler, Sequoia)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• What a VC wants to see in your pitch deck (Antler)

• Early Stage Funds of <$100 Million Should Hold Almost No Reserves (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

• How companies are building and scaling the FDE bench (Santosh Iyer & Samma Hafeez, Insight)

• How The Fastest AI-First Companies Really Work (Gigi Levy-Weiss, GP @ NFX)

• The 7 Hires a Hardware Startup Needs to Get Right (Zabie Elmgren, Partner @ A16Z)

Additional Reads

• The Post-Agentic Founder (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• The Power of Patience (Rick Zullo, MP @ Equal Ventures)

• Power, Status, and Legitimacy in Tech (Michael Dempsey, MP @ Compound)

• How do you backup an enterprise run by AI agents? (Clayton Petty, Partner @ Gradient)

• The Org Chart Comes for the Agents (Yelena Shkolnik, Partner @ Jump Capital)

• Philosophical Transactions of the AI Age (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Nothing to Check (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• Consider The Lillies (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• AI Engineering Productivity is Anything But Normal (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Mid-Year Venture Capital Report Card (Michael Greeley, GP @ Flare Capital)

• It’s All Pre-Series A Now (Charles Hudson, GP @ Precursor)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Some areas we’ve been investing in (Jamesin Seidel, VC @ Chapter One)

• Provenance Becomes Infrastructure (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The AI inference market (Denny Gabriel, VC @ Runa)

• The Return of Nuclear: AI, Geopolitics, and the Next Energy Boom (Selina Wang, VC @ Altimeter)

• The broker’s edge: How AI is finally coming for the oldest game in insurance (Amias Gerety, Partner @ QED)

• Closed vs. Open-Source: The Ongoing Model Market Share Battle (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• TradFi doesn’t want DeFi. It wants blockchains (A16Z Crypto)

• The Treadmill: Why Frontier AI is Starting to Rhyme with Semiconductors (Bilal Zuberi, MP @ Red Glass)

• Coding Agents 2.0: Interface, Inference, and Verification (Denise Teng, Partner @ Gradient)

• Winning the quantum race: America’s blueprint for dominating the next tech revolution (Dr. Prineha Narang, Partner @ DCVC)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Product Market Fit is Hard to Find, but False PMF is Even More Painful (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

• The Cautious Team’s Guide to Autonomous Delivery (Phin Barnes, Partner @ The GP)

• How Companies Quietly Lose Product-Market Fit Without Noticing (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• Demystifying the forward deployed engineer (Santosh Iyer & Samma Hafeez, Insight)

• The Upgraded Go-to-Market Playbook (Pete Flint, GP @ NFX)

• The CEO’s Field Guide To Strategy In An Era of AI Tokenomics (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• The Autonomous Middle (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

Additional Reads

• Seeing People Clearly (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Outlier Investing in the Age of AI (Arsham Memarzadeh, VC @ Meritech)

• The Return on Real Life (Veronica Kim & Chelsea Zhang, Equal Ventures)

• Bending Spoons: An AI-native Berkshire, or an overvalued software acquirer? (Jason Stoffer, GP @ Maveron)

• Depth Over Breadth (Jack Arenas, Principal @ Founder Collective)

• Redesigning Around a New Power Source (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Unicorn Lists Are Prediction Markets. This List Is a Scorecard. (Founder Collective)

• Clear Eyes, Full Stack, Can’t Lose? (Euclid Ventures)

• Nobody Will Buy Your Shares (Andrew Ziperski, VC @ General Catalyst)

• The Same Brain (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• The Harness Is the New Battleground (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Most Human Technology Ever Made (Anish Acharya, GP @ A16Z)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• The AI-Enabled Services Opportunity (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• The Task Economy - Data will be the next $1 Trillion Category (Everett Randle, GP @ Benchmark)

• The AI Wrapper is Dead: 3 Approaches to Verticalization for Early-Stage Startups (Pete Flint, GP @ NFX)

• The New Whitespace in AI (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Data At The Edge (Rebecca Kaden, GP @ USV)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Everyone’s Watching the Wrong Benchmark (Zach Bratun-Glennon, GP @ Gradient)

• The most underrated token type (A16Z Crypto Team)

• Own Your Weights (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

• Tech Is Globalizing. The Money Is Lagging. (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent)

• Model Mania (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• Which Vertical Incumbents Will Survive AI? (Euclid Ventures)

• The FDE Arms Race: Why Every AI Company Is Spending Billions to Embed Engineers Inside Customers (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Only Moat Is Deployment (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• Rat’s Nest Problems (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• Own the Data Loop (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Albert, Madrona)

• How to Build a Lead Gen AI Agent That Books Meetings While You Sleep (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

• Know Your VC (Megan Maloney, MP @ Dria Ventures)

• The AI Preflight Check (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

Additional Reads

• The Great AI Irony (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• I’ve Been the Weird One Before (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• The thoughts that never become behavior (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• The Loneliest Jersey (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

• The Stable Era: The Modularisation Of Post-Training (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• An explosion in creativity (Jax Vullinghs, Partner @ Airtree)

• Sanitized Slop (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Constraints and Ambition (Kevin Stevens, Partner @ Energize)

• Sticks, Stones, and Light Speed (Alex Oppenheimer, GP @ Verissimo)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Industry Analyses

• Back to Fundamentals in an Age of Exponential Change (Matthew Ocko & Zachary Bogue, DCVC)

• Compute Meta-Morphosis (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• Why Vertical AI Founders are Ditching Model Labs (Euclid Ventures)

• The End of Compute Scarcity? Not So Fast (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

• From Supply Shock to Sourcing Shift: India’s Emergence in Aerospace Components (Abhishek Singh, VC @ Riverwalk)

• The Breakeven Point: Rethinking AI for Physics Simulation (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• The evolution of stablecoins in a native-first world (QED Team)

• When AI Costs More Than the Engineer (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Longevity vs The National Debt (Omri Drory, GP @ NFX)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• How to Earn a Billion Dollars (Paul Graham, Founder @ Y Combinator)

• An AI Tokenomics Framework For Investors To Use To Evaluate AI Efficiency At A Company (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Building robotics businesses set to scale (Bessemer Team)

• What Are Investors Really Looking for at Seed, Series A, and Series B? (Amanda Herson, Partner @ Founder Collective)

Additional Reads

• An American Redemption (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• The Great Descent (Chamath Palihapitiya, GP @ Social Capital)

• The End of Decisions (Maurice Russo, VC @ Lerer Hippeau)

• The ATM Heresy (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• Are Venture Capital Markets Efficient? (Yoni Levy, VC @ Israel Growth)

• RL Beyond the Verifiable (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• The World as Model (Meltem Demirors, GP @ Crucible Capital)

• AI’s Optimisation Era (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• If we don’t understand AI, how can we build it? (Zachary Hoffman, ML @ SignalFire)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Software Ate the World. Now Hardware Is Eating Software. (Chris Zeoli, Partner @ Wing)

• Consumer Rebellion (Rebecca Kaden, GP @ USV)

• The Thesis That Waited A Decade (Gordon Ritter, GP @ Emergence)

• Longevity vs The National Debt (Omri Drory, GP @ NFX)

• AI isn’t making software cheaper. It’s making outcomes ownable. (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• How AI is rebuilding America’s primary care system (Insight Team)

• Inside the Walled Garden: What AI Unlocks in the EHR (Megan Maloney, MP @ Dria Ventures)

• So You Want to Sell Inference (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Space Economy reaches escape velocity (Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer)

• How to Win a Space War (Christian Keil & Alex Oliver, A16Z)

• Time to Power (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• Every Technology Wave Builds A Trust Layer. AI Is Building Its Now. (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent)

• Open Weight, Heavy Impact (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• Workload Clouds and the Death of the Attach Rate (Dan Cahana, Principal @ Notable)

• Insurance Wasn’t Built for Autonomous Systems (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Failure Modes for Your First Marketing Hire (Meghan Gill & Justin Dunham, Ansa)

• Deployment Is All You Need (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)

• the Series A squeeze (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Make a bet (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Facing Failure as a Founder (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• The Exception Queue (Euclid Ventures)

• The Great Reset: Full Presentation (Breadcrumb VC)

Additional Reads

• VC’s Capitalization Strategy Moment (Lee Hower, GP @ NextView)

• Build the Agent or Power the Agent? (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• The FICO Heresy (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• SignalFire’s State of Talent Report - 2026 (Tawni Cranz & Asher Bantock, SignalFire)

• Traditional vs. Thin Companies (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)

• Wrapping the Unpredictable Genius (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• Some of you may die (Vickram Pradhan, VC @ Sopris Capital)

• The Binary Outcome Trap (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• The Agent Is Not the Product (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Taking Stock of the Seed Stage (Nnamdi Iregbulem, Partner @ Lightspeed)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Unlocking The New Industrial Revolution (Anna Piñol & Valerie Osband Mahoney, NFX)

• The Rise of the Vertically Integrated, AI-Native Company (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

• AI Is Not The Opportunity, The Economic Disruption AI Creates Is The Opportunity. (Will Quist, GP @ Slow)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• How AI is Rewiring the Drug Development Stack (Cathy Gao, Aditya Reddy, Jasmine Yang, & Misty Liao, Sapphire)

• AI Is Eating Software: Is B2B SaaS Dead? (Glenn Borok, Principal @ Alumni)

• Everyone Has an AI Thesis. This Report Has the Data (Emergence Team)

• Software Scaled. Risk Didn’t. (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook)

• Frontier No More? (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• The IPO Window Is Open, But Not For Everyone (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• We’re living in a multi-model world (Dan Bartus, Tobi Coker, & Feyza Haskaraman, Felicis)

• Taking Stock of the Seed Stage (Nnamdi Iregbulem, Partner @ Lightspeed)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Does the Rule of 40 Work for Hardware? (Brad Feld, GP @ Foundry Group)

• Every sales team is cold calling. Why are so few good at it? (Tim Babcock, Partner @ Amplify)

• The Rise of the GTM Engineer: Building the Next Generation of Go-to-Market (Kyle Duffy, Partner @ Gradient)

• 5x for Free: The Local Coding Stack (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

Additional Reads

• Investing is Hard (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• The Golden Age of AI Applications (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Eyes on the End Game (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Dear New Philanthropists (Joe Lonsdale, GP @ 8VC)

• The Rise of the Post-Pedigree Founder (Euclid Ventures)

• A New Engine, Not a New Paint Job (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Industry Analyses

• Everything is Recorded Now (David Haber, GP @ A16Z)

• Beyond Agents: The New Systems That Will Govern Them (Jessica Peltz Zatulove, GP @ Hannah Grey)

• Systems of Record Won the SaaS Era - Clearinghouses Will Win the Agents Era (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• Surviving Softwaremageddon: How to Invest in SaaS When $1T Just Vanished (Martin Tobias, GP @ Incisive)

• The Case for Private Permitting (Joe Lonsdale, GP @ 8VC)

• Light, Radio and the Race to Replace Copper: Interconnects in the AI Era (Chris Zeoli, Partner @ Wing)

• Above the Model (Gordon Ritter, GP @ Emergence)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Last 10% (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• 3 product-market fit patterns working right now (Jason Rosenthal, A16Z Crypto)

• The Disruptors’ Blind Spot (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• How to Qualify & Enrich Contacts with AI (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

• The Memory Problem Isn’t Retrieval (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• Inside AI‑pilled engineering teams: Five lessons for scaling without losing the plot (Bessemer Team)

Additional Reads

• What is Software Worth when Everyone Writes Software? (Charles Hudson, GP @ Precursor)

• Uncovering Secrets (Nkechi Iregbulem, Principal @ MVP Ventures)

• The Three Mistakes (David Beisel, GP at NextView)

• Should The Government Take Stakes In Frontier Labs? The Best and Worst Idea in AI (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• SAFE Adjusted TVPI: How Early Stage VCs Should Communicate SAFE Note Markups to their LPs (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

• The Magic of World Building (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• Expanding the Radius of Daily Life (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)

• The Untrainable (Sarah Guo, GP @ Conviction)

• Decisions and Dollars (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Late Stage Venture Is About Late Stage Founders (David George, GP @ A16Z)

• What Problem Are You Actually Solving? (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• The Physical Seams of the AI Buildout (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• CISOs Have Budget for AI Security. The Missing Layer is the Control Loop. (Felicis Team)

• Call for Founders (Forum Ventures)

• The Next Frontier of Visual AI Is Code (Yoko Li, Partner @ A16Z)

• Roll Up or Build? In AI-Native Services, Sequence Is the Whole Game (Lotti Siniscalco, GP @ Emergence)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Industrial AI: The New Wave of Innovation Hitting Heavy Industry (Agustina Sergi, VC @ Energize)

• 2026 SaaS Rebound (Alex Clayton & Austin Wang, Meritech)

• The Critical Role of the Electrician in Today’s Economy (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• Inside the biggest bet in corporate history (Byron Deeter & Sam Bondy, Bessemer)

• K-Shaped Healthcare (Vickram Pradhan, VC @ Sopris Capital)

• What prediction markets actually know (Scott Kominers, Partner @ A16Z Crypto)

• The 4 arguments for the death of software, ranked from worst to best (Ilya Kirnos, Partner @ SignalFire)

• The AI Skepticism Map (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Death of the Three-Act Playbook (Mike Vernal, GP @ Conviction)

• What are you serving? (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• Show Me Your Mech (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• The SaaS GTM glossary that no one has written yet (Insight Team)

• How to pick the right VC firm to work at (Mike Dauber, Partner @ Amplify)

• How do I know if marketing is working? (Justin Dunham & Meghan Gill, Ansa Insights)

• How GE Aviation Avoided a 3D Printing Innovator’s Dilemma (Peter G Schmidt, Principal @ Refinery)

Additional Reads

• Beauty and the VC (Euclid Ventures)

• The fund size is only kind of the strategy (Clayton Petty, VC @ Gradient)

• Your Vendor Is Your Competitor (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Albert, Madrona)

• Units of Time (Update) (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Don’t Tokenmaxx, Outcomemaxx! (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• AI and the Jevons Paradox (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)

• Where Are the American Open Source Models? (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

• Has AI Made VCs Forget Basic Competitive Strategy? (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• The Great AI Mark-to-Market (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• With all the AI money sloshing around Skin in the Game isn’t enough anymore. (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Where we’re looking to invest: Rebuilding the Dev Stack for the AI Era (Kathy Huang & Rohan Puranik, Cowboy)

• A New Era for SMB Tech (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• Avoiding Death on the Yellow Brick Road (Joe Schmidt, GP @ A16Z)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Retreat From Software And Why It’s the Wrong Call (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

• SaaSpocalypse Now (Euclid Team)

• Making What’s Old New Again (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• EV Charging Infrastructure: Capital Deployment in the Next Phase of Electrification (Marisa Sweeney, Principal @ S2G)

• Everything, Everywhere is Compliance (James da Costa & Angela Strange, A16Z)

• My Compliance Conundrums (JC Bahr-de Stefano, Principal @ BTV)

• The world’s largest fintechs are taking the fight to America (Nigel Morris, MD @ QED)

• Autonomy in Regulated Markets (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• In B2B customer support, AI is a Copilot, Not a Replacement (A16Z Team)

• File systems for agents (Sarah Catanzaro, GP @ Amplify)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Startup Defensibility Report Card in the Age of Anthropic & OpenAI (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• What top-performing CMOs say about success in 2026 (Insight Team)

• The Verification Tax (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• Defensive Fundraising Is Anxiety Dressed as Strategy (Micah Rosenbloom, GP @ Founder Collective)

• I’m a Sales Manager - How Should I Start Using AI Today? (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)

• The Three Reasons to Raise Venture Capital (Abhishek Singh, VC @ Riverwalk)

• Share your obsession (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

Additional Reads

• Relationships Over Research (Rick Zullo, GP @ Equal Ventures)

• Tokenmaxxing and the Art of Expensive Enthusiasm (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• The Premise: The Lead User and the Machines That Build Machines (Brad Felt, GP @ Foundry Group)

• Reverse Boomerang Theory (Peter G Schmidt, Principal @ Refinery)

• Agent Gravity: Who’s Running Your Agents (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Consumer Founders: Building the Impossible (Jean de La Rochebrochard, MP @ Kima Ventures)

• Thank God For Data Centers (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)

• The SpaceX S-1: Building the Infrastructure Layer for Space and AI (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• SpaceX IPO | S-1 Breakdown (Alex Clayton & Austin Wang, Meritech)

• The SpaceX IPO and Data Centers in Space (Stratechery)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Roadmap: The AI Data Center Stack (Bessemer Team)

• The Best Companies Will Stop Making Software (Phin Barnes, Partner @ The GP)

• AI Accenture, Not Accenture for AI (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Implementations Are The Edge (Emily Man, Partner @ Primary)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Unitree’s IPO Filing: The State of the Robotics Market (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• Robotics Needs Its Missing Standard: An MCP for the Physical World (Jordan Kretchmer, Partner @ Outlander)

• The direct-to-consumer advantage in insurance (Amias Gerety, GP @ QED)

• The Private Market Is Now The Real Fintech Index (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent)

• USMCA and the State of North American Supply Chains (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• AI is rebuilding wealth management (QED Team)

• The Neocloud Boom (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• Stop talking just about GPUs (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Agentic commerce: The rise of the delegated buyer (Bessemer Team)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Use AI to Write a Monthly Investor Update (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

• To win people over, tell them what they stand to gain (Youssef Kalad, VC @ AlleyCorp)

Additional Reads

• Horseshoe Jacobins (Joe Lonsdale, GP @ 8VC)

• Ephemeral Margins in AI-Native Services (Rick Zullo, GP @ Equal)

• Your AI Bill is Coming Due. Who’s Paying? (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• The Three Ways Money Dies, and Why I Think Dollar Can Be The Next One (Abhishek Singh, VC @ Riverwalk)

• Why America Must Re-Globalize To Win The AI Race (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Deep Tech Companies Are Built Different (Leo Polovets, GP @ Humba)

• On Grindslop (Will Manidis, Angel)

• Observations on Writing with AI (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Country of Geniuses Test (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• The Internet Wants Me Dead (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• AI is Enabling Atoms, not just Bits (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• The Case For Hardware-Enabled Software (Jamie Tomalin, Triple Point)

• The Real App Store Opportunity (Jamin Ball, Altimeter Capital)

• The Case for Investing in Lending AI Tools (David Talpalar, Shirlawn)

• From “System of Record” to “System of Intelligence” (A16Z Team)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Memory Triopoly (Chris Zeoli, Wing)

• Why ‘stablecoins’ won’t age well (A16Z Crypto Team)

• The Architecture of AI Distribution (Jarrod Dicker, TCG)

• The Physical AI Inflection Point (Keerat Sethi, Antler)

• Tech Earnings Season Takeaways (Tanay Jaipuria, Wing VC)

• “No Man Left Behind”: American Technology Ships with Our Values (A16Z Team)

• The First Derivative of Inference (Tomasz Tunguz, Theory)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Five Lessons From 50+ Founders on Scaling Across Cultures (Vinnie Lauria, Golden Gate Ventures)

• When Your VC Quits, Is The Founder Screwed? (Hunter Walk, Homebrew)

• What Top Gun Taught Me About Being a Founder (Brian Sugar, Sugar Capital)

• Building a growth engine from zero: How one COO boosted ARR 38% using Claude Code (Bessemer Team)

• Forget Moats, Find a Canal (Amy Cheetham, Costanoa)

• Seed VC: When to Use AI, and When to Use Your Spidey Sense (Micah Rosenbloom, Founder Collective)

• How to Price Out-Of-The-Money Seed Investment (Sam Lessin, Slow)

Additional Reads

• What Investing in Software Looks Like in 2026 (Christoph Janz, Point Nine)

• The Hubris of Timing (Deciens Team)

• On Humanity & Human Beings (Michael Dempsey, Compound)

• Friction Points: What Could Slow The AI Rocketship? (Rob May, Half Court)

• How the Agent Web Gets Built (Melody Koh, NextView)

• When the Tool Does the Thinking (Abhishek Singh, Riverwalk)

• The Great Reset: Navigating a Turbulent Post-AI World (Sameer Singh, Breadcrumb VC)

• What Do You Have To Believe? (Kyle Harrison, Contrary)

• Is Software Losing Its Head? (Seema Amble, A16Z)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Agentic Commerce is a $0 Billion Market (Dan Rosen, GP @ Commerce Ventures)

• Housing is a Supply Problem. How can Tech Help? (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• The Case for an AI-First ESP: The Next Billion-Dollar Opportunity (Matthew Nichols, GP @ Commerce Ventures)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Collectibles: A Remarkably Durable Asset Class (Yash Gupta & Kushaan Ahuja, Will Ventures)

• Who Gets to Solve the Physical World? (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• The Hyperscalers & The Compute Crunch (Eric Flaningam, VC @ Felicis)

• State of AI: May 2026 (Nathan Benaich, GP @ Air Street Capital)

• The AI Stack Is Half‑Built (Tobi Coker, Felicis)

• Permissioning Machines (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• How AI Is Rewiring Insurance From the Inside Out (Dan Rosen, GP @ Commerce Ventures)

• Boring is sexy: the anatomy of a good vertical AI startup (Grace Ge & Mike Dauber, Amplify)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The next great moat (Jaya Gupta, Partner @ Foundation)

• Should Your SaaS Company Become a Services Business? (Jake Saper, GP @ Emergence Capital)

• Moats are for castles: A new argument for permanence over defensibility in AI startups (Ryan Wexler, SignalFire)

• Design partners: The pre‑launch edge most AI founders ignore (Bessemer Team)

• Founders: Don’t hire AEs until you’ve figured out how to sell yourselves (Joe DiMento, Bain Capital)

• Relationships Compound When You Put in the Work (Micah Rosenbloom, Founder Collective)

• Why Management Advice Breaks for Founders (Casey Winters, Angel Investor)

• Sense of Urgency (Nikhil Basu Trivedi, GP @ Footwork)

• Optimizing Software Factories (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

Additional Reads

• The “AI Job Apocalypse” Is a Complete Fantasy (David George, GP @ A16Z)

• Access Is No Longer the Moment That Matters (Jump Capital Team)

• When Machines Out-Eat Humans (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• The Vibe Coding Hangover (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• AI has a PR problem (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• Slop vs taste (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• In the Meantime (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• AI’s Public Perception Problem (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• The Long Becoming (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• The Work of Knowledge in the Age of AI Reproduction (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• Chasing Black Sheep (Akshay Mehra, VC @ Hummingbird)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• The End of the Middleman Economy: How AI Agents Will Disrupt High-Take-Rate Platforms (Commerce Ventures)

• Workday’s Last Workday? (Joe Schmidt IV, Partner @ A16Z)

• The Datadog Opportunity for AI Agents (Saaya Pal & Aqil Pasha, Jump Capital)

• We Need More Found-Money Platforms (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• Three Theses (Evan O’Donnell, GP @ Timespan)

• The Anti-Slop Thesis (Kushaan Ahuja, Partner @ Will Ventures)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Agents broke the security stack (Shruti Gandhi, GP @ Array Ventures)

• CPUs are the Bottleneck - and Branching is the Unlock (Honour Masters, Principal @ Crucible)

• The age of agents (Amias Gerety, Partner @ QED)

• An insider’s look at China’s Climate Capital Stack (Climate Tech VC)

• Can AI agents actually pull off DeFi exploits? (Daejun Park & Matt Gleason, A16Z Crypto)

• AI’s real labor force implications as technology drives productivity (Nigel Morris, GP @ QED)

• The Hidden Cost of Compute (Madelyn O’Farrell, Principal @ Dynamo)

• To Train or Not to Train (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• Building Biology-Native Data Infrastructure for the AI Era (Bessemer Team)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• SaaS Best Practices from IPO’s since 2021 (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street VC)

• After Certainty (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• A New Token Rule For Engineering Leadership (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• The Step-back (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• How Should My AEs Be Using AI in Live Deals? (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)

• The Mess Is the Work (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Lean Analytics, Reconsidered (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta))

Additional Reads

• The Dark Marketplace (Euclid Ventures)

• The Build-vs-Buy Reset (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• The State of Adventure (Capital) (Grant Gregory, Partner @ Cantos)

• Claude Code Shows Why the Best Model Does Not Always Win (Ethan Batraski, GP @ Venrock)

• Paying to Win: The Rise of “Veblen Services” (Chris Paik, GP @ Pace)

• The Most Important Financial Institution Nobody Talks About Anymore (Conor Witt, ex-Upper90)

• Call the Plumber; We’ve Got a Leaky Abstraction (Alex Danco, A16Z)

• Building with AI in the Quest for Epistemic Agency (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• The Cardamom Game (Will Manidis, Angel)

• The Interface Eats the Product (Jarrod Dicker, Partner @ TCG)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Blue Ocean Opportunities In The Agentic Economy (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Agent networks: How agents unlock the next generation of NFX (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• The third wave: Why the agent economy needs a new financial stack (Amias Gerety, Partner @ QED)

• The Next Commodity Market: Building the Financial Infrastructure for Compute (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The AI-Driven Employment Explosion (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

• The DOE’s $23bn portfolio reconstruction (Climate Tech VC Team)

• The Great Software Inversion - How AI Inverts App Economics (Guru Chahal, Partner @ Lightspeed)

• ​​The Great Blue Frontier (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)

• Stablecoins are going local (Robert Hackett & Jeremy Zhang, A16Z Crypto)

• Stablecoins: from DeFi primitive to global financial infrastructure (Bessemer Team)

• AI Is Not a Labor Crisis… It’s a Meaning Crisis (Sam Lessin, GP @ Slow)

• The Demand Side of the Trades Crisis (Santosh Sankar, GP @ Dynamo)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Competitive Strategy in the Age of AI (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• How to Build an AI Account Qualifier That Thinks Like Your Best Rep (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

• What it takes to win for AI startups (Pascal Unger, GP @ focal)

• DoW Contracting for Startups 101 (A16Z Team)

• AI: Strong vs. Skinny Leadership Trade-Offs (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)

• No Defaults (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

Additional Reads

• Q1 2026 Quarterly Investor Letter (Hemant Taneja, MD @ General Catalyst)

• 2025 Annual Letter (Chamath Palihapitiya, GP @ Social Capital)

• Random thoughts while gazing at the misty AI Frontier (Elad Gil, GP @ Cosmic)

• The Games We Play: Venture as Two Separate Asset Classes (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

• The End of The Funnel (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• The Demand Side of Vertical AI (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)

• The Buy Window (Jack Arenas, Principal @ Founder Collective)

• Ten Bets or Two Hundred: Two Theories of the Power Law (Glenn Borok, VP @ Jump)

• The Interior Design of Software (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• Revisiting The Outcome Distortion Complex (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• Before the Opportunity Was Obvious (Abhishek Singh, VC @ Riverwalk)

• From Scarcity To Abundance (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• The Valley of Death: Frontier Companies & the Series A (Ethan Batraski, GP @ Venrock)

• Light My Fire… (Michael Greeley, GP @ Flare Capital)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Bessemer Predicts: Robotics and Physical AI (Bessemer Team)

• The Next Token Supercycle: Opportunities in Long-Horizon Inference (Rishub Nahar, VC @ Emergence)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The AI Slow Boil (Guru Chahal, Partner @ Lightspeed)

• Compute in the Age of AI (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

• Building Biology-Native Data Infrastructure for the AI Era (Bessemer Team)

• Frontier Systems for the Physical World (Oliver Hsu, Partner @ A16Z)

• Unicorn Market Cap 2026: SF is the GenAI Super Cluster (Elad Gil, GP @ Cosmic)

• The 3 Year Inference Landscape: A Porter’s Five Forces Analysis (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• 79 Earnings Calls Show Enterprise SaaS will be the AI Winners (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• How perpetual futures are rewriting global trading (A16Z Crypto)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Heat Seeking Missile for Pain (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• How to Compete with Legacy Incumbents (Euclid Ventures)

• Selling IP from a Busted Startup (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• Raising investment? Here’s what to prepare for your data room (Mountside Ventures)

• The CRO Paradox (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• Surviving AI Price Wars Without Destroying Your Business (Tugce Erten, Partner @ A16Z)

Additional Reads

• Service-Level Disagreement (Euclid Team)

• Toward Hidden-Structure Models for Industrial Processes (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• All you need is terminal value (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Consumption multipliers vs. efficiency multipliers (Victoria Zuo, Partner @ QED)

• Cannon Fodder: Pre-Seed Investing in the Age of AI (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• The World Is Getting Heavier (Abhishek Singh, VC @ Riverwalk)

• Consensus Came Too Early (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• The great reorg: A human’s guide (Joanne Chen & Leo Lu, Foundation Capital)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• The Last Problem For AI to Solve is Health (Omri Drory, NFX)

• The Consumer Moment Nobody Is Talking About (Glenn Borok, Jump)

• The Promise of the AI-Native Manufacturer (Annelies Gamble, Zetta)

• Defense Wins Championships: The Second Mover Opportunity in AI (Meera Clark, Redpoint)

• Can new companies be built as MCPs? (Nihar Bobba, BTV)

• Frontier AI — Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture (Nkechi Iregbulem, MVP Ventures)

• How the Inference Market Will Mature (Rob May, Half Court)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• AI is coming for the work people like the most (Jackie DiMonte, Grid Capital)

• The Vertical Report 2026 (Euclid Ventures)

• F*ck Abundance (Rick Zullo & Rebecca McSween, Equal)

• How Big Can AI Get? Let’s Do the Math (Guru Chahal, Lightspeed)

• Charts of the Week: Venture’s $300B Quarter (A16Z)

• Galápagos Island of Innovation: Fintech’s Evolutionary Moment (Nigel Morris, QED)

• AI Adoption by the Numbers (Kimberly Tan, A16Z)

• Systems of Measurement in the Token Economy (David Talpalar, Shirlawn)

• Antarctica, and the Extreme Logistics of Human Exploration (Christian Keil, A16Z)

• The AI Problem Matrix (Tomasz Tunguz, Theory)

• The Great Reallocation: How India’s Capital Is Finding Its Next Decade (Abhishek Singh, Riverwalk)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Finding the Right Altitude (Alfred Lin, Sequoia)

• Your Only Competition is You (Nikunj Kothari, FPV)

• Never a Good Moment (Alex Lazarow, Fluent)

• Know Thyself (Kyle Harrison, Contrary)

• Conquerors of Worlds (Michael Bloch, Quiet)

• Founders Are Being Taught to Treat VCs Like ATMs. (Collin Wallace, Lobby)

• How to Automate Support Without Losing Trust (Liz Christo, Stage 2)

• Stop selling to enterprises. Start building with them. (Insight Team)

Additional Reads

• No Country for Old Founders (Euclid Ventures)

• Vertical vs. Horizontal (Morgan Livermore, Supercruise)

• Don’t ask the group chat for permission (Yoni Rechtman, Slow)

• The Price of Tokenmaxxing (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• Alpha Lives in the Tails (Scott Hartley, Everywhere)

• On the Political Economy of Language Models (Will Manidis, Angel)

• The Web Is Too Human for Agents (Clayton Petty, Gradient)

• AI Can Think. Software Still Has to Be Accountable. (Dhruv Sane, Malpani)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• 2026 Request for Startups (Emily Man, Partner @ Primary)

• The Deployed Intelligence Company (TDIC): Request for Builders (Nihar Bobba, Partner @ BTV)

• AI Infrastructure Roadmap: Five frontiers for 2026 (Bessemer Team)

• Brick-and-Mortar Retail: The Next Bastion for Technology (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• It’s time to develop better drugs to treat anxiety (DCVC Team)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Every Building You’ve Ever Been In Was Designed By Software Built in 1997 (A16Z Team)

• Longevity for the rest of us (Simran Suri, Principal @ Maveron)

• AI and the Labor Shortage Economy (Caroline Duffy, Cowboy VC)

• India’s Energy Leapfrog Moment (Picus Team)

• How Agents Will Reshape Markets (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• The Industrial Resilience Stack (Honour Masters, Principal @ Crucible)

• Capital Markets Maximalism (Meltem Demirrors, GP @ Crucible)

• Skip the boat. Sell the catch. (Emergence Team)

• The Economics of Generative AI: Two Years Later (Apoorv Agrawal, Partner @ Altimeter)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Beware of Simple Narratives (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Billy Madison Approach to Fundraising (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)

• The AI-Native Services Playbook (Emergence Team)

• How to Build a Marketing Attribution Report with AI (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

• The Team Is The Tell (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

Additional Reads

• The compounding asset enterprise software never had (Jaya Gupta & Ashu Garg, Foundation)

• The Hidden Cost of Kingmaking (Jack Arenas, Principal @ Founder Collective)

• From Hierarchy to Intelligence (Jack Dorsey & Roelof Botha, Sequoia)

• SBC Dilution Benchmarks: What the Data Actually Shows (Thomas Reiner, Partner @ Altimeter)

• AI Applications and Vertical Integration (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing)

• There will only be four jobs (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• The Ghost of the Unlived Portfolio (Abhishek Singh, VC @ Riverwalk)

• One person’s treasure is another’s trash (Chris Gaertner, Principal @ Telescope)

• Trader Mindset (Pratyush Buddiga, Partner @ Susa)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Securing AI agents: the defining cybersecurity challenge of 2026 (Bessemer Team)

• Why AI‑Native Services, and Why Now (Emergence team)

• The Great AI Contraction: 5 Contrarian AI Investment Theses (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• How India is evolving and where we see opportunity (Sandeep Patil & Kshitij Jayakrishnan, QED)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Rise of Business-in-a-Box (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• The Industrialization of Embodied Robotic Intelligence (Jonathan Healy, VC @ Cathay)

• The Heart of the Matter: Why Cardiovascular Disease Is Digital Health’s Next Frontier (7wire Team)

• Software Is the New SMB — And That Changes Everything (Collin Wallace, GP @ Lobby Capital)

• Physical AI: Why now and what’s different? (Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer)

• The VC-Backed Casino (Aaron Miller and Brian Reilly, Will Ventures)

• When AI Goes On The Offense (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Avoiding The Eye of Sauron (Evan Tana, GP @ SPC)

• Outbound Isn’t Dead—It’s Just Different (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)

• Why Products, Not Models, Will Win Enterprise AI (G2VP Team)

• The only moat is trust (Victoria Zuo, Partner @ QED)

• Creating M&A Optionality (Geoff Donaker, GP @ Burst)

Additional Reads

• AI Adoption vs. AI Advantage (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• There are only two paths left for software (David George, GP @ A16Z)

• Who Captures the Value? (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• The Four Ps of AI Services (Euclid Ventures)

• Psychedelics, Religion, and Bryan Johnson (Michael Dempsey, GP @ Compound)

• Meet the Agents at USV: Arthur, Ellie, Sally, and Friends (Spencer Yen, AI Lead @ USV)

• Bicycles for the Mind (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• Signals From 100+ First-Check GPs and LPs on What Gets Funded Today (Anne Gherini, Sierra Ventures)

• The great reorg: A human’s guide (Joanne Chen & Leo Lu, Foundation Capital)

• AI’s Bundling Moment (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Industry Analyses

• World Models: Computing the Uncomputable (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)

• 50 startups transforming industries with physical AI (Bessemer Team)

• Rocket Fuel for AI (Astasia Myers, GP @ Felicis)

• The internet ruined customer service. AI could save it. (Sarah Wang, Partner @ A16Z)

• What the dire straits in Hormuz mean for new energy flows (Climate Tech VC)

• Why the World Still Runs on SAP (Eric Zhou & Seema Amble, A16Z)

• We Need to Talk About Agents (Euclid Team)

• Application Software: Earnings Recap (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Your Data Agents Need Context (Jason Cui & Jennifer Li, A16Z)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Nothing Goes Viral by Accident (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• The Monoculture of Startups Methods (Jerry Neumann)

• Corporate Venture Capital: A user guide (Amias Gerety, Partner @ QED)

• Your product won’t sell itself (Jason Rosenthal, Partner @ A16Z Crypto)

• Agent-led growth: The next GTM motion is already here (Neal Behrend, SVP @ Insight)

• Conference marketing for startups: How to drive real ROI on a lean budget (Mitchell Yee, SignalFire)

• Investing In AI: Six Mental Models To Tell Moats From Traps (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• GTM AI How to Guide: Pipeline Intelligence Engine (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

Additional Reads

• Consensus is the Enemy (Abhishek Maran, VC @ Rampersand)

• How Inconceivable Startups Happen (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• Counting Cards in Venture (Collin Wallace, GP @ Lobby Capital)

• Not All Systems of Record Are Created Equal (Jamie Tomalin, VC @ Triple Point)

• The 40-Year Old Career Model AI Just Broke (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• The Dark Matter of Work (Evan O’Donnell, GP @ Timespan)

• Investing at the Edge of the Map (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)

• The 12x Bet on AI (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Consensus Machine (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• The Great Circle of Life (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• Counting the things that count (Youssef Kalad, VC @ AlleyCorp)

• Agency, not agents. (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• The Infinite Game: What Artists Know That Founders Don’t (Pete Flint, GP @ NFX)

Notes:

• If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.

• The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.

• You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes & Theses

• Roadmap: Reinventing Life Sciences with AI (Nithin Kaimal & Shrey Agarwal, Bessemer)

• Request for Startups (Pear VC Team)

• AI-Physics Simulation Opportunities (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps: March 2026 (Olivia Moore, Partner @ A16Z)

• Social Commerce Liftoff (Sophia Dodd & Chelsea Zhang, Equal)

• The Vertical Report 2026 (Euclid Ventures Team)

• The Sleep Market Maturity Spectrum (Grayson Judge, GP @ Supermoon)

• What nobody understands about agentic commerce (Amias Gerety, Partner @ QED)

• Internet Labor Markets (Shayon Sengupta, Partner @ Multicoin)

• Healthcare’s $350 Billion Administrative Tax (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

• Can world models unlock general‑purpose robotics? (Bhavik Nagda, Grace Ma & Talia Goldberg, Bessemer)

• Beyond the billable hour – How AI is reshaping margins and models at law firms (Aayush Sharma, VC @ SignalFire)

• Software Isn’t Dead. What’s Valuable Is Changing. (Jack Moshkovich, VC @ 8VC)

• Everyone Is Misreading the Anthropic AI Jobs Report: AI, Jobs, and the Wrong Debate (Ethan Batraski, GP @ Venrock)

• Fintech’s moats don’t compile (Matt Brown, Partner @ Matrix)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Best Founders Use AI as an Operating Layer (Daniel Chesley, Principal @ Work-Bench)

• Using AI to augment, automate, even anticipate: Introducing the 3A framework (Insight Team)

• The Org Chart Math Behind AI-Native Speed (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• What founders get wrong about selling to enterprises (Pyrs Carvolth & Christian Crowley, A16Z Crypto)

• 10x is the new floor (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

Additional Reads

• AI Won’t Replace Innovation (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• Venture Capital Doesn’t Exist (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• Don’t call it a moat (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• What Happens When Everything Becomes Easy to Build? (Glenn Borok, VP @ Jump Capital)

• Developer to Fleet Commander (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Why Does Everyone Hate AI? (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• The Market Is Breaking in Two (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

• The New White Collar Moat In AI (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Agent Skills are the recipe. Vertical agents are the cake (Kenneth Auchenberg, Partner @ AlleyCorp)

• Choosing Shoulders (Deciens Team)

• Autonomy is here: now agents just do things too (Parul Singh, Board Partner @ Initialized)

• Liquidity Is a Privilege, Not a Right (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• In Defense of Model Lab Profitability (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

Notes:

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