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:

• 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

• Services: The New Software (Julien Bek, Partner @ Sequoia)

• Hardware-Enabled Software and the Next Generation of Vertical AI (Battery Team)

• Why fast-growing consumer brands need a verticalized financial OS (Simran Suri, Principal @ Maveron)

• The Next Era of “Embedded” (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• AI Will Eat Application Software (Alex Immerman & Santiago Rodriguez, A16Z)

• Healthcare Enters the Trillion Dollar Club (Megan Maloney, MP @ Dria)

• The State of Consumer AI. Part 1 - Usage (Apoorv Agrawal, Partner @ Altimeter)

• Agentic commerce won’t kill cards, but it will open a gap (Noah Levine, Partner @ A16Z Crypto)

• Intelligence Per Joule (Akshay Mehra, VC @ Hummingbird)

• PINNs, Neural Operators, and the Future of Simulation (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Be Distinctive & Don’t Die (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Moats in the Age of AI (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• Upselling the Right Way (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• Everyone Wants to Be a YC Founder. That’s Exactly the Problem. (Collin Wallace, GP @ Lobby Capital)

• How cloud-native CEOs can pivot to move at the speed of AI (Hilary Gosher, MD @ Insight)

• Fighting Churn (Geoff Donaker, GP @ Burst Capital)

• The technical founder’s guide to pilots and POCs (Mark LaRosa, Amplify Partners)

• Speed is the only edge in the “Seed” Stage (Denny Gabriel, VC @ Runa)

Additional Reads

• The “VC Returns Suck” Narrative (And How We All Spin The Data) (Micah Rosenbloom, GP @ Founder Collective)

• The Brand Age (Paul Graham, Founder @ Y Combinator)

• Reasoning in Regime Changes (Albert Azout, MP @ Level)

• Reflections on considering venture as an early career job (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent)

• OpenAI’s Endgame is Obvious (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• After Citrini: Enabling Agency in the Age of AI (Youssef Kalad, VC @ AlleyCorp)

• Venture is Optimizing for the Wrong Thing (Santosh Sankar, GP @ Dynamo)

• Become A Tinkerer (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Building a System of Agents (Jax Vullinghs, Partner @ Airtree)

• The Endogenous Investor (Jake Kupperman, Partner @ Level)

• AI Safety Has 12 Months Left (Michael Dempsey, GP @ Compound)

• The “Death Valley” of Building in AI (Ryan Shannon, VC @ Radical)

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

• Infinite Healthcare (Jay Rughani, Jane Rhee, and Julie Yoo, A16Z)

• The new rails of Agentic Commerce (Brent Murri & Whitney Hazard, M13)

• Services Won’t Become Software (JC Stefano, Principal @ BTV)

• AI’s Next $Trillion Frontier: Memory (Ethan Batraski, GP @ Venrock)

• Agents aren’t tourists (Sam Broner, Partner @ A16Z Crypto)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• How AI Is Rewriting the Economics of Drug Discovery (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• 10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• Jevons’ Paradox Is Coming for Finance (Noah Levine, Partner @ A16Z Crypto)

• From Adoption to Annexation (Meltem Demirors, GP @ Crucible Capital)

• What 35 Earnings Calls Say About the Health of Software (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• The Skills Layer (Collin Wallace, GP @ Lobby Capital)

• The SMR shake-up #284 (Climate Tech VC Team)

• The quiet crypto integration (Steve Vassallo & Gracie Zaro, Foundation)

• AI Charts of the Week (Kevin Stevens, Partner @ Energize)

• DiSaaSter Strikes Cybersecurity (Clayton Petty, VC @ Gradient)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Poison of Inertia (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• The Game on the Field Has Changed (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Don’t bet against network effects (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Capital as a Weapon (Andrew Ziperski, VC @ General Catalyst)

• AI: the Ultimate Bootstrapping Multiplier (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

• The Two Positions That Create a Durable Moat (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Bring Joy = Ultimate Competitive Advantage (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Building Unbreakable Moats in the AI Agent Era (Matt Hartman, GP @ Factorial)

Additional Reads

• What’s My Stage Again? (Euclid Ventures)

• Power & Transcendence in the Intelligence Age (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• Five Approaches to Vertical AI (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)

• What The AI Bubble Talk Misses: The Declining Marginal Cost of Additional Use Cases (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)

• Creative conviction in the AI era (Libbie Frost & Rayouf Alhumedhi, Bessemer)

• Headline economics and its recursive logic (Tina He, VC @ Pace)

• The Difference Between Slop and Soul (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• Betty Crocker, AI, and Doing The Work (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• Legible To Yourself (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

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

• From Billable Hours to Boundless Scale: Corporate Law’s Next Rewrite (Meera Clark, Partner @ Redpoint)

• Your Org Structure Is My Opportunity (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• What consumers are doing now and what comes next (Simran Suri, Principal @ Maveron)

• The Fintech Giants Have Arrived (Sarah Lamont, VC @ F Prime)

• A biblical history of agentic payments (Amias Gerety, Partner @ QED)

• Healthcare’s Labor Paradox… (Michael Greeley, GP @ Flare Capital)

• Charts of the Week: Vertical SaaS, Rawr! (A16Z team)

• The SSD / Memory Reckoning (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• The mindset shift we need to rebuild American factories (Erin Price-Wright, GP @ A16Z)

• Autonomous Investing Deep Dive: The New Arms Race in Asset Management (Chamath Palihapitiya, GP @ Social Capital)

• Half the Tariffs, Twice the Questions (Santosh Sankar & Madelyn O’Farrell, Dynamo)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Navigating a Paradigm Shift (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Thinking Big vs. Thinking Small (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• Unlearn Everything Now! (Nakul Mandan, GP @ Audacious)

• A Founder’s Leadership Reading Guide (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• Applying Cloud Lessons to AI (Kevin Stevens, Partner @ Energize)

• Kill the press release (A16Z Crypto team)

• Three Metrics Every New Founder Should Track (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)

Additional Reads

• Software Is Dead — Long Live Software (Euclid Ventures team)

• We’re About to Lose the Apprenticeship Layer (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• Size for Simplicity: The Income Statements After SaaS (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• A Third, A Third, A Surprising Third (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Escaping the TAM Trap (Shazeem Kudchiwala for Lynx Collective)

• Power in the Age of Intelligence (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)

• Technical co-founders are more important than ever (Kenneth Auchenberg, Partner @ AlleyCorp)

• Rockefeller Didn’t Drill for Oil (Collin Wallace, GP @ Lobby Capital)

• Ports, Rails, Roads, and Orbits (Daniel Museles & Morgan Beller, NFX)

• How bundling benefits sellers and buyers (Chris Dixon, MP @ 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 & Industry Analyses

• Consumer 2026 Report (Natalie Dillon & Simran Suri, Maveron)

• The State of Fintech in 2026 (F Prime Team)

• The SaaSacre of 2026 (Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer)

• The WhatsApp moment for money is here (Chris Dixon, GP @ A16Z Crypto)

• Q4 ‘25 Cloud Update (What’s going on with software?) (Eric Flaningam, Partner @ Felicis)

• The AI Inflection Point: From Software to Digital Labor (Meera Clark, Partner @ Redpoint)

• Will Vertical AI Survive? (Nihar Bobba, Partner @ BTV)

• Healthcare Payor Q4 2025 Earnings Roundup (Vickram Pradhan, VC @ Sopris)

• The Insurance Stack is Compressing (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Insurance Is the Canary for Macro Stress (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The AI pricing and monetization playbook (Bessemer Team)

• Using M&A to Grow in SaaS (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• The SaaSpocalypse CEO Survival Guide (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• The Lighthouse Playbook (David Booth, Partner @ A16Z)

• Agents vs. Workflows: The Framework Founders Actually Need (Emma Wirt, Platform Lead @ Fika)

• AI Agent Companies Should Study Amazon, not SaaS (Pratyush Buddiga, VC @ Susa)

• Uplevel or Replace? A CEO’s Dilemma at Series B (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)

Additional Reads

• The Opening, Midgame and Endgame in Startups (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• The case for baby and the bathwater amidst “SaaSpocalypse”? (Rick Zullo, GP @ Equal)

• Who Gets to Eat? (Euclid Ventures)

• 5,127 Layers (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• The Case for Scaling Venture (Erik Torenberg, Partner @ A16Z)

• The feature backlog has gone *poof* (Nikhil Basu Trivedi, GP @ Footwork)

• SaaS Was Never About the Software (Jackie DiMonte, GP @ Grid)

• Software after SaaS: sin eaters, hybrids, and NFX. (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• The Post-Model World: Why The System Is The New Moat. (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Three dominant models of today’s vertical AI horserace (Caitlin Bolnick, GP @ CRV)

• The Price Is Wrong (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• Fearless vs. Courageous (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Bubbles and Balloons (Kanyi Maqubela, GP @ Kindred)

• RL and The Era of Experience (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• The Incompetent Confidence Complex (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

Notes:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

• Fintech Focus Areas for 2026 (Fika team)

• AI‑Powered Professional Services, a $3T Opportunity (Aileen Lee, Cowboy)

• Request for Startups (YC)

• Redefining the Mining Value Chain (Jon Healy, Cathay)

• AI Games Are Coming (James Currier, NFX)

• Multicoin Capital’s Investment Thesis (Multicoin Team)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Tech Trends Report (Contrary Team)

• Death of Software. Nah. (Steven Sinofsky, A16Z)

• Software Is Dead...Again...For Real this Time...Maybe? (Jamin Ball, Altimeter)

• Time’s up for SaaS (Alex Clayton, Meritech)

• Will Vertical AI Survive? (Nihar Bobba, Better Tomorrow Ventures)

• The American Frontier: A Trillion-Dollar Race For Technological Superiority (Ethan Batraski, Venrock)

• Best of the Best of Mobile (A16Z Team)

• The Limits of RL and Digital Twins in Manufacturing (Annelies Gamble, Zetta)

• AI’s Impact on Manufacturing Variance (David Talpalar, Shirlawn)

• AI Is Eating Software. Industrial Software Eats With It. (John Tough, Energize)

• What To Watch in 2026 To Evaluate The AI Bubble (Rob May, Half Court)

• AI and the End of the Productivity Bundle (Sapphire Team)

• The long game for crypto (Chris Dixon, A16Z)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Advice for Struggling SaaS Co’s from the Great Recession (Sammy Abdullah, Blossom Street)

• Move Fast and Break Nothing (Kevin Stevens, Energize)

• The New Rules for Fundraising in the AI Era (Vivek Ramaswami, Madrona)

• Legibility is a brand to capital and brand is promises kept (Yoni Rechtman, Slow)

• Second order lessons from Brex’s acquisition (Alex Lazarow, Fluent)

• Churn/Retention in the Era of AI (Shruti Gandhi, Array)

Additional Reads

• Unicorn DNA — Where today’s billion‑dollar startup founders come from (SignalFire Team)

• VC-Backed Startups are Low Status (Michael Dempsey, Compound)

• The Greatest Strategy Game in the History of the World (David Cahn, Sequoia)

• Harvesting CVC Portfolios: A Practical Framework for Corporate Investors (Ali Geramian, Anthemis)

• The Hierarchy of Limited Partners (James Heath, Athenaeum)

• The Second Desert in Venture Capital (Charles Hudson, Precursor)

• 2026: the biggest year of M&A in history? (David Haber, A16Z)

• Software’s Metamorphosis (Akash Bajwa, Earlybird)

• How Markets Price AI Risk (Tomasz Tunguz, Theory)

• What if nuance is the moat? (QED Team)

• The Structural Divide (Melody Koh, NextView)

• Auto-formalization of the Context Graph: Where the Moat Moves for Enterprise Software (Adrian Radu, Khosla)

• We Used to Build Things. What Happened? (Garry Tan,YC)

• The Structural Advantage of Capital Efficiency (Morgan Livermore, Supercruise)

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 Themes That Matter for 2026 (Sam Lessin, Slow)

• Defense tech roadmap: Five frontiers for 2026 (Janelle Teng, Bessemer)

• The Crisis and Opportunity in Rare Diseases (Francisco Gimenez & Susan Liu, 8VC)

• Who Will Win the RL Environment Market—and Why (Chris Zeoli, Wing)

• Monetizing AI surfaces: Ads in the age of AI (Tanay Jaipuria, Wing)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Traditional AdTech is Dead. Long Live AdTech For AI (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• The Invisible Rebuild: How AI Is Quietly Reshaping the Backbone of CPG (Maveron Team)

• The Deployment Gap in Industrial Robotics (Annelies Gamble, Zetta)

• Fervo and General Fusion open the exit window (Climate Tech VC)

• The Case for AI in Supply Chain (Caitlin Bolnick, CRV)

• The Postmodern Data Stack is AI (Tomasz Tunguz, Theory)

• Vertical AI (Platform -> Competitor) (Pat McGovern, Bowery)

• Leaders, gainers and unexpected winners in the Enterprise AI arms race (A16Z Team)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• 3 Interviews Is Plenty (Geoff Donaker, GP @ Burst)

• Every Good Story Has a Villain (Santosh Sankar, GP @ Dynamo)

• The Case for Humans in Sales: Why BDRs Still Win in the Age of AI (Joe DiMento, BCV)

Additional Reads

• Brex and The Pros and Cons of Hubristic Fundraising (Jason Lemkin, SaaStr)

• Reality Doesn’t Negotiate (Mike Maples Jr., Floodgate)

• AI: The Wrong Kind of Bubble (Sameer Singh, Speedinvest)

• Vibe Thinking (Kevin Stevens, Energize)

• The Rooms You’re Not In (Collin Wallace, Lobby Capital)

• Loyalty Is Dead In Tech (Nikunj Kothari, FPV)

• As Growth VCs Fight for Top of Market Access, Where do Early-Stage Companies Fit In? (David Talpalar, Shirlawn Capital)

• Oxygen Monopolies (Rex Woodbury, Daybreak)

• Technology in 1776 (Christian Keil, A16Z)

• The Long Arc of Money: From Barter’s Friction to Gold’s Return (Abhishek Singh, Riverwalk)

• The Fundability Trap (Euclid Ventures)

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.

Hi all,

Before diving into this week’s digest, I wanted to share two events I’ll be co-hosting this coming week alongside some venture friends for a small group of VCs in SF and NY. If you’re an active investor in either city, we’d love to have you there. You can get more details and request an invite through the links below:

• VC Happy Hour with Equal Ventures (San Francisco – Weds, Jan 28th)

• 30 Years of Silicon Alley Pre-Party with Equal, 645, and FirstMark (New York – Fri, Jan 30th)

Now back to our regularly scheduled digest of the latest theses, investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs.

Investment Themes & Theses

• The Rise of Agentic Commerce (Yash Gupta, Will Ventures)

• 2026 Healthcare and Life Sciences Predictions (Morgan Cheatham, Breyer)

• Healthcare’s 2026 Inflection Point (Sara Choi & Ansuman Satpathy, Wing)

• How To Invest In Edge AI Part 1: The Problem With SRAM at The Edge (Rob May, Half Court)

• It’s time for agentic video editing (Justine Moore, A16Z)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• State of Health AI 2026 (Bessemer Team)

• The Future of SaaS – A Fork in the Road (Jared Sleeper & Hannah Bao, Avenir)

• State of the Economy (Rick Zullo, Equal Ventures)

• State of Markets (David George, A16Z)

• State of the consumer Q1 2026: Stability with softening edges (QED Team)

• The missing piece in robotics (Zachary Hoffman, SignalFire)

• Robotics: What Happens After the Demo Ends? (Jax Vullinghs, Airtree)

• Operating on DNA is more like surgery than medicine (Jorge Conde, A16Z)

• AI and the Front Door to Healthcare (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• The New Implementation Economy (David Talpalar, Shirlawn Capital)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• What 2025 Taught Us About Building for 2026 (Maveron Team)

• Enterprise AI Adoption: From Pilots to Real Business Value (Nicole Falasco, BCV)

• When to Bet on Channel Partners Early (Liz Christo, Stage 2)

• What leaders need to get right in 2026 (Insight Team)

• If AI Doesn’t Know You Exist, Users Won’t Either. (Shruti Gandhi, Array)

Additional Reads

• The Future Of Venture Capital: Strategies That Win (Alex Lazarow, Fluent)

• Why Should Your Fund Exist a Decade From Now? (Abhishek Singh, Riverwalk)

• If The US Loses The AI Race, Blame Immigration Policy (Rob May, Half Court)

• Vertical software already won the context graph (Matt Brown, Matrix)

• Context is What Makes the System Irreplaceable (Annelies Gamble, Zetta)

• The Death of SaaS Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (Saanya Ojha, BCV)

• Autonomous Rideshare Economics: Stress-Testing the Model (Thomas Reiner, Altimeter)

• Venture Capital: All Chips on Black vs. Playing the Percentages… (Michael Greeley, Flare Capital)

• Move First, With Care: Idealism for Creatives in the Age of AI (Qasim Mohammad, Wittington)

• Mastering The Meta (Fawzi Itani, Forerunner)

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 Ad Network: What a next‑gen DSP looks like when the interface is a conversation (Siddharth Ramakrishnan & Max Abram, Scale)

• The AI Personal Trainer Is Coming (Aaron Miller and Ben Gardner, Will Ventures)

• What comes next after therapy culture? (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• The Year of Invisible AI (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• Predictions for 2050 | Thinking in Decades, Not Cycles (Abhishek Singh, VC @ Riverwalk)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Consumer 2025 Trends (Adrian Radu, Partner @ Khosla)

• The State of AI in the Enterprise (Peter Wagner, Partner @ Wing)

• The forces shaping crypto this year (Arianna Simpson, GP @ A16Z Crypto)

• Life Sciences AI: Drug Development with a Click (Elijah Yi, VC @ Cathay)

• US’ climate retreat leaves a $10bn hole in carbon markets (Climate Tech VC)

• The physical AI deployment gap (Oliver Hsu, Partner @ A16Z)

• The Inference Land Grab Begins (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)

• A Year of Global Trade in Review (David Talpalar, ex-VC @ Conversion)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The CEO Job Changes After Product-Market Fit (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• Founders - stop using AI to write your investor emails (Alex Schwarzkopf, VC @ 1517 Fund)

• How to hire a chief of staff (A16Z Team)

• Into the Void: How Operators Build Things (Kiera Klinsky, Angel)

Additional Reads

• The Problem with Most Problems (Mike Maples Jr., GP @ Floodgate)

• 2026: This is AGI (Pat Grady & Sonya Huang, Sequoia)

• Kingmaking and the limits of external conviction (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• In Defense of Buybacks (Andrew Ziperski, VC @ General Catalyst)

• Team or TAM? Wrong question… (Nihar Bobba, Partner @ BTV)

• Software’s YouTube Moment is Happening Now (Anish Acharya, GP @ A16Z)

• SuperPAC Wars: A New Hope (Teddy Himler, GP @ Optimist)

• The thermodynamics of risk (Matt Brown, Partner @ Matrix)

• Firm > Fund (David Haber, GP @ A16Z)

• Ruthless Capitalism and the Death of the Mercy Rule (Collin Wallace, GP @ Lobby)

• Narrative power & narrative instability (Sam Lessin, GP @ Slow)

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, & Predictions for 2026

• AI and the Next Generation of Systems of Record (David Talpalar, ex-VC @ Conversion)

• The second-order effects of AI (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Cathay Innovation US: 2026 VC Outlook (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• 15 AI Bets for 2026 (Shruti Gandhi, GP @ Array Ventures)

• 2026 Predictions (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• My 2026 Predictions (Alex McIsaac, GP @ Northside)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Platform & Leisure Multiples Entering 2026 (Thomas Reiner, Partner @ Altimeter)

• Softer Rates & More Innovation (Adam Chadroff, Principal @ Equal)

• Construction Safety as the Wedge (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Security in the Age of AI (Clementine Gazay, Principal @ XAnge)

• AI is coming for professional services. (Alex Oppenheimer, GP @ Verissimo)

• Notes on AI Apps in 2026 (Anish Acharya, GP @ A16Z)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2025 (First Round Review)

• Building Vertical AI: An early stage playbook for founders (Bessemer Team)

• Being Right Is Not a Strategy (Collin Wallace, GP @ Lobby Capital)

• The Moat Is Knowing What to Build (Kevin Stevens, Partner @ Energize)

• Vibe Coding Without System Design is a Trap (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• What’s Working Now in GTM AI (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

• Becoming a Cult Leader (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

Additional Reads

• The Year of the Builder (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• AI-Native Big Law, Claude Code Weekend & Fast Takeoffs (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)

• The Case For Abundance (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Everything Is TV and Nothing Is TV (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• 2025 Annual Letter (Eric Flaningam, VC @ Felicis)

• Everything is Computer (Ryan McEntush, Partner @ A16Z)

• The Two Deals That Explain AI in 2026 (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• My Rally Cry for 2026 (Rick Zullo, MP @ Equal)

• The Invisible Game: What It Really Takes to Build in America as an Immigrant Founder (Lotti Siniscalco, Partner @ Emergence)

• The Inference Land Grab Begins (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)

• The Lost Signal (Will Quist, Partner @ Slow)

• Getting back to first principles(Caitlin Bolnick, GP @ CRV)

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.

2026 Predictions

• The next big thing in 2026 will be... (Nikhil Basu Trivedi, GP @ Footwork)

• 2026 predictions (Kenneth Auchenberg, Partner @ AlleyCorp)

• 2026 Predictions (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• What Will Happen In 2026 (Fred Wilson, GP @ USV)

• 10 Predictions for 2026 (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• Six Contrarian Predictions for 2026 (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent Ventures)

• A few themes for 2026 (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• 40 Predictions for 2026 (Euclid Ventures)

• Where AI is headed in 2026 (Ashu Garg, Foundation Capital)

• 8 big ideas for 2026 (and more trends to watch) (A16Z Crypto)

• 2026 Open Inquiries (Tina He, VC @ Pace)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• 4 Predictions for GTM in 2026 (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)

• Dear Founders: A Post on December 31st (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• Chase Your Hero (Kevin Stevens, Partner @ Energize)

Additional Reads

• Year-End Observations (Andrew Ziperski, VC @ General Catalyst)

• Year-In-Review: AI Bubble or Breakthrough? (Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer)

• Unlimited SuperPAC Contributions: A Disturbance in The Force (Teddy Himler, MP @ Optimist)

• A Thousand Ways (Michael Dempsey, GP @ Compound)

• Authority Is the AI Bottleneck (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• Investing 101 (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• The Case Against Doomerism (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

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, & Predictions for 2026

• AI’s trillion-dollar opportunity: Context graphs (Jaya Gupta, Partner @ Foundation)

• The Agentic Commerce Opportunity (Nat Levy‑Westhead & Hiro Taylor, General Catalyst)

• 2026 fintech and venture capital predictions (Rachel Dix‑Kessler, QED Investors)

• 11 Predictions for 2026 (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Our Predictions for Security in 2026 (BCV Team)

• 6 Predictions for 2026 (Sam Lessin, GP @ Slow)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Quantum’s super position (DCVC Team)

• The 1517’s sci-fi canon (1517 Fund)

• The increasing volatility of electrical supply and demand means it’s time to invest more in grid‑stabilizing technologies (DCVC Team)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Learnings from an SMB SaaS Exit (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• Org Charts Are Funhouse Mirrors Because Span of Influence is Not Limited to Span of Control (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

• Plain Vanilla with a Twist (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)

Additional Reads

• Deflation & Defensibility (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)

• From Models to Systems (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• OpenAI’s Problem: Focusing on AGI Over ROI (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• The Year We Remembered What Matters (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• The Infrastructure-Distribution-Data-Flywheel (David Talpalar, ex-VC @ Conversion)

• Pre, Mid, Post-Training Way of Life (Tina He, VC @ Pace)

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, & Predictions

• The End Of Interchange (Fred Wilson, GP @ USV)

• Which AI verticals will have the next unicorn? A framework for generative AI explosion in verticals (Alex Niehenke, Partner @ Scale)

• Five major trends reshaping AI, software, and leadership (Insight Team)

• 2026 Predictions (7wire Ventures)

• 2026 Predictions from the M13 Constellation (M13 Team)

• 26 Predictions For 2026 (Equal Team)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• State of Consumer AI 2025: Product Hits, Misses, and What’s Next (Olivia Moore & Justine Moore, a16z)

• The Retrieval Backbone of Modern AI (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• The Societal Shifts Driving Increased Investment into Longevity (David Talpalar, ex-VC @ Conversion)

• NeurIPS 2025: What Actually Matters (Euclid)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Don’t Confuse Market Share with Winning (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• Distribution Is Oxygen. Endurance Is the Moat. (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• Post-Sales GTM: Following Customers Without Following Them Everywhere (Medha Agarwal, GP @ Defy)

• Annual Planning Playbook for Startup CEOs (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• The best growth tactics of 2025 (Kyle Poyar, Growth Unhinged)

• The Real Tasks of Series A/B SaaS CEO (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• 5 GTM Shifts We Saw Founders Get Right in 2025 (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

Additional Reads

• The Privilege of Belief (Michael Dempsey, GP @ Compound)

• On People, Partnership, and Separating the Good from the Great (John Felix, GP @ Pattern Ventures)

• Is Your AI Funded by Junk Bonds? (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Liar’s Valuation (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Why Nerds Are More Clippable (Alex Danco, A16Z)

• Strike Zone Shifts (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

• There Is No Such Thing as a Coastal Deal Anymore (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• Plugged into the Matrix (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• What We Can Learn from the Fiddle (Peter G Schmidt, VC @ Refinery)

• When the U.S. Government Joins the Cap Table (Glenn Borok, VP @ Jump)

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

• Big Ideas 2026: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (A16Z Team)

• Implementation Is the Task of Our Time (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• It’s time to build (in Medicaid) (Youssef Kalad, Principal @ AlleyCorp)

• The Next Frontier of the ‘Electrification of Everything’ (Andrew Beebe, MD @ Obvious Ventures)

• The Biggest AI Idea That Most People Are Missing (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• 26 Predictions for 2026 (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Checking In on Embedded Fintech (Sheel Mohnot & JC Bahr-de Stefano, BTV)

• Diffusion of AI Across Vertical Markets (Euclid Ventures)

• Enterprise (Open)AI, Homebrew Software & Vertical Implications (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)

• Recapping Crypto’s Most Consequential Year (Multicoin Team)

• The Software Investment Required to Facilitate Energy Efficiency (David Talpalar, ex-VC @ Conversion)

• Deeper carbon‑free energy investments required to meet skyrocketing electric demand (DCVC team)

• Lasers, Nukes, and the Scaling Wall — Why the Biggest Data Center Won’t Win (Emma Wirt, VC @ Fika)

• Vertical AI Operating Systems: De-Risking Fragmented Industries (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• RL in Real Life: Durable Moats (Shreya Shekhar, Partner @ Greylock)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Play Rigged Games (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Momentum (Parul Singh, Board Partner @ Initialized)

• The Power of Operating Principles: When beliefs become behavior (Leslie Crowe, BCV)

Additional Reads

• Does valuation or ownership matter more to a seed VC? Yes. (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

• consensus investing & vulnerability, king making, processing trade (Caitlin Bolnick, GP @ CRV)

• The AI churn wave? (Kyle Poyar, Growth Unhinged)

• Your Imagined Order (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)

• The Average Founder Ages 6 Months Each Year (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Cinderella “Glass Slipper” Effect (Malika Aubakirova, Partner @ A16Z)

• Long Live Systems of Record (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• Some Thoughts on Equity (Andrew Ziperski, VC @ General Catalyst)

• Secondary Market: Second Time’s a Charm… (Michael Greeley, GP @ Flare)

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.