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

• Why Homebuilding Startups Might Finally Work (Michelle Volz, GP @ Pax)

• Beyond The GPU: Second Order Thinking In AI Infrastructure (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Data-native capital is coming (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Why Is Every AI Data Company On 🔥? (Vivek Ramaswami, Partner @ Madrona)

• Every cycle is unprecedented, this one’s no different (Jackie DiMonte, Partner @ Grid)

• Superhuman Hardware Design Is The Easy Part (Christian Keil, Partner @ a16z)

• What has to go right to justify the trillions being spent on AI CapEx? (Eric Flaningam, Partner @ Timeless)

• Continuous Integration — A Primer (Astasia Myers, GP @ Felicis)

• The Internet Is Not Okay (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• 225k Robotaxis by 2030: Why Uber Still Wins the Trip Math (Thomas Reiner, Partner @ Altimeter)

• How Large is the AI Circle? (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Next Bottleneck in AI for Science (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• AI Goes Vulnerability Hunting (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• You Can’t Vibe-Code a Network (Euclid Ventures)

• AI Was Supposed to Replace SDRs. The Top Companies Are Hiring More (Anna Baird, Venture Partner @ Madrona)

• Data from the Most Robust SDR Survey We’ve Seen (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• Record Dollars, Rare Exits (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

• The Founder Hiring Playbook (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Patch or Die (Joel de la Garza, Partner @ a16z)

Additional Reads

• On Risk (Jake Gibson, GP @ Better Tomorrow)

• Stop being so “mean” (Rick Zullo, GP @ Equal)

• Portfolio Risk in Venture Capital (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

• The Market’s AI Faith Test (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• A Week in China: Pragmatism, Scale and the Robotics Craze (Fabrice Grinda, Partner @ FJ Labs)

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 Software to Science: Venture Capital’s New Frontier is Atoms (James Joaquin, MP @ Obvious)

• Winning the Relay Race: Long-Running Agents in High-Value Customer Journeys (David Haber, GP @ a16z)

• AI Progress Is Stalling. Now Is The Best Time To Invest. (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Rise of DeployCos (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing)

• The Theory 2026 AI Survey Results (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Capital Stacks For Atoms (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• The Diffusion Gap (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

• Call Your Own Plays (Simran Suri, Principal @ Maveron)

• How AI is Turning ERP Incumbency from an Asset to a Liability (Audrey Zhang, VC @ Battery)

• Reflections from Shoptalk: the agents are coming? (Chelsea Zhang, Partner @ Equal)

• Manufacturing Is a Jenga Problem (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• The Estate Sale Boom, and What It Means for Retail (Ashley Brasier, ex-Partner @ Lightspeed)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Coverage Math (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• Systems Thinking Needs a Scorecard (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

Additional Reads

• Seed Valuations Are Like Schrödinger’s Cat (Rob Go, GP @ NextView)

• Valuations Need a Correction (Nnamdi Iregbulem, Partner @ Lightspeed)

• AI, Owning the OpCo, Who will capture the value? (Erik de Stefanis, ex-Partner @ Interlace)

• Selling the Work: What Mission Bay Keeps Missing About Main Street (Meera Clark, Partner @ Redpoint)

• The 15 Themes on AI from SaaS Earnings Calls (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• Venture’s chivalric myths (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• What, Me Worry? (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.

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

• Compute Capital Markets (Shayon Sengupta, Partner at Multicoin)

• Unburdened By What Has Been (Andrew Ziperski, VC at General Catalyst)

• The Entire History of You (Jamie Tomalin, VC at Triple Point)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Top 100 Consumer AI Apps - Seventh Edition (Olivia Moore, Partner at a16z)

• The State of AI Report 2026 (Nathan Benaich, GP at Air Street)

• Why Texas Is Making Data Centers Wait (Ryan McEntush, Partner at a16z)

• How Personal Agents Get Paid (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner at Wing)

• Inference Is the Most Important Market in Software (Tomasz Tunguz, GP @ Theory)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• You Need a New CFO (Seema Amble, Partner at a16z)

• False Profits (Omar Elayat, GP at Euclid)

• References are the most underrated tool in hiring (First Round Team)

• 150 agents, 20B tokens a day. Here’s how modern CTOs actually run AI agents at scale (SignalFire)

• Five Counterintuitive Strategies for Founders Outside Silicon Valley (Alex Lazarow, MP at Fluent)

• Every Company Must Be in Build Mode. Always. (David Talpalar, GP at Shirlawn)

• The Executive Search Operating System (Josh Hernandez, Partner at The GP)

Additional Reads

• In AI, Fast Means Fragile: How Wall Street Short-Termism Impacts AI Deployments (Rob May, GP at Half Court)

• AI Is Making Sales More Human (Euclid Team)

• Asset Light Software (Will Manidis, Angel Investor)

• The Three Paths for Seed Investors (Rob Go, Partner at NextView)

• More warm bodies (Nikunj Kothari, Partner at FPV)

• OpenAI’s B2B Marketplace: The Hyperscaler Of AI Apps (Akash Bajwa, Principal at Earlybird)

• A Change in AI Strategy (Tomasz Tunguz, GP at 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 & Theses

• What we are backing in health (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent Ventures)

• Local AI Models: The Catalyst for the Great Reset (Sameer Singh, Partner @ Speedinvest)

• There’s a market for more markets (Robbie Petersen, Partner @ A16Z Crypto)

• We’ve Seen This Movie Before. We Know How It Ends. (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Who Gets Paid When AI Does the Shopping? (Alex Immerman & Santiago Rodriguez, A16Z)

• Agentic Commerce and Incentives (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• SaaSpocalypse Now What? (Euclid Ventures)

• State of Markets II (David George, GP @ A16Z)

• Decision Models: The Next Shoe to Drop (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• Deployment Gap (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• When AI Gets a Body (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• Segmentation Drives Market Share Wins in AI (Tomasz Tunguz, GP @ Theory)

• SaaS ‘Cash Efficiency’ Continued Improving in Q2 2026 (Sammy Abdullah, MP @ Blossom Street)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• How much capital should a startup raise? (Dhruv Sane, VC @ Malpani)

• The First Version of Your AI Eval is You (Ben Yoskovitz, Founding Partner @ Highline Beta)

Additional Reads

• What We’re Thinking About (Excerpt from BTV LP Update) (JC Bahr-de Stefano, Principal @ BTV)

• VC Grip Strength (David Beisel, Co-Founder & Partner @ NextView)

• 21st Annual CXO Summit: How Enterprise Leaders Are Scaling AI From Pilots to Agents (Anne Gherini, CMO @ Sierra Ventures)

• Apps, Agents, and Aggregation (Ben Thompson, Founder @ Stratechery)

• Commit Early, Commit Often (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• OpenAI Understands Something Important and Rare (David George, GP @ A16Z)

• How Did We Get Here? (Akshay Mehra, VC @ Hummingbird)

• What Your Portfolio Thinks About Disruption (Ros Bazany, Partner @ Antler)

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

• $5T opportunity: AI Roll Ups (Greg Isenberg)

• Collective Model Intelligence: The Next Scaling Axis? (Guru Chahal & Anushka De, Lightspeed)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Electrify Everything 2026 (Ana Hugener & Agustina Sergi, Energize)

• The Case for Industrial Batteries (Selina Wang, Investor @ Altimeter)

• AI Fueled Software’s Best Quarter in Years (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• Frontier Overhangs (Ben Thompson, Founder @ Stratechery)

• AI Infrastructure for Manufacturing - Notes from IMTS (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Open Season (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• The Most Important Market in AI is the Middle (Tomasz Tunguz, GP @ Theory)

• The rise of the $100-billion RWA perp market (A16Z Crypto)

• How Long Does a GPU Last? (Chris Zeoli, Partner @ Wing)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• How Netflix’s Product Team Got Thousands of Creatives to Trust an AI Overhaul (First Round Review)

• The Promotion You Never Asked For (Gigi Levy-Weiss, GP @ NFX)

Additional Reads

• Anoint Me Please (Aidan Kane, Senior Associate @ Optimist)

• The Durable Majority (Jess Schram, VC @ Swiftarc)

• The Solo Signal (Ros Bazany, Partner @ Antler)

• Agility Robotics: Inside the First US Humanoid Company to Go Public (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing)

• The Mega-Million Dollar Customer (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• The Essay Test (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• The Automation Paradox (Guru Chahal, Partner @ Lightspeed)

• The Amplification Gap (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Tech Dilution is Creeping Up Again + The Per-Employee Lens (Thomas Reiner, 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

• The Next Insurance Giants (Chris Ahn, Partner @ Haun Ventures)

• Enterprise AI is Finally Delivering on the Promise SaaS Made (Emily Man, Partner @ Primary)

• Own the Harness, Rent the Model (Jax Vullinghs, Partner @ Airtree)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• 2026: The State of Consumer AI (Shawn Carolan & Amy Wu Martin, Menlo Ventures)

• How the context layer creates enterprise ROI (Travis Kassay, Partner @ Insight)

• The 10 Companies AI Can’t Scale Without (Chris Zeoli, Partner @ Wing VC)

• When Physical Work Becomes Programmable (Bilal Zuberi, MP @ Red Glass)

• When AI Measures What Instruments Miss (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Agent Traffic: Infrastructure & Security Software Signals (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Magazine Depth Affordability Is a Choice (Alex Oliver, Partner @ A16Z)

• The Interface to Everything (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• Risk Budgets for Machines (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• AI Built the Product. It Didn’t Launch It. (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• The GP’s Guide to Building an Early-Stage Compensation Philosophy (Josh Hernández, The GP)

• Product Management is Still All About Telling Stories (Josh Elman, Partner @ A16Z)

• Budding vs. splitting: A better model for growing an engineering org (Dan Pupius, CTO @ The GP)

• Executive Presence, Reconsidered (Ted Wang, Partner @ Cowboy)

Additional Reads

• Moats & the Barbell-ification of Software (Mike Vernal, GP @ Conviction)

• Alpha Lives Upstream (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• On how to invest in venture (Jared Heyman, GP @ Rebel Fund)

• The Owning Phase of AI Part 2: When Do The Economics Make Sense (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• Safetymogging and marginmaxxing the accelecels (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• I Wish I’d Thought of That (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• What Does Pacing Mean? (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Five Things Bill Draper Taught Me (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent 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.

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 Great Health Plan Replacement (Julie Yoo, GP @ A16Z)

• What Investors Should Look For In Companies Making Their Own Models (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Welcome to the AI Personal Assistant Era (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

• Is the promise of “Siri” finally here? (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• From Models to Machines: The Physical AI Market Map (Medha Agarwal & Noah Lin, Defy)

• 12 Themes Showing Up in SaaS Company Earnings Calls on AI (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street VC)

• Does Concentration Risk Matter In AI? (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• The So-Called M&A Recovery Is a Handful of Companies (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• European Founder Report 2026: A Tale of Two Tiers (Antler)

• Paying for the Curve (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• AI (In)Security (Sapphire Ventures Team)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Third Layer (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• The Era of Compounding Capital (Meltem Demirors, GP @ Crucible Capital)

• On moats and barriers to entry (Alex Iskold, MP @ 2048)

• Your Harness Is the Product (Parul Singh, Partner @ 645 Ventures)

• An Ode to Counter-Positioning (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)

• Two pilots in a plane (Jean de La Rochebrochard, MP @ Kima Ventures)

• Be dumb. Waste Money. Win. (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

Additional Reads

• The AINS Calculator (AI-Native Services) (Arteen Arabshahi, GP @ Fika)

• Weapons of Mass (Capital) Deployment (Rick Zullo, MP @ Equal)

• LLM incentives and the application layer (Amias Gerety, Partner @ QED)

• The Last Labor Day (Albert Wenger, GP @ USV)

• Population Decline Is Real. So Is the Reversal. (Fabrice Grinda, Partner @ FJ Labs)

• On why to ignore TechCrunch at YC Demo Day (Jared Heyman, Founder @ Rebel Fund)

• The Legibility Tax (Ryan Shannon, VC @ Radical Ventures)

• Who Should You Pay Attention To? (Peter G Schmidt, Principal @ Refinery)

• Divorced from reality (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• The Center Cannot Hold (Yelena Shkolnik, Partner @ Jump Capital)

• How the GPU Became Collateral (Chris Zeoli, Partner @ Wing VC)

• Catching the (Venture) Bus (Jen Kha, 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

• Defying Gravity: The System of Record in the Age of AI (Aaron Neil & Michael Brown, Battery Ventures)

• The Golden Age of Biomedical Devices Has Arrived (Teddy Blank, Partner @ First Star)

• The Incumbents Are Coming (Seema Amble, Partner @ A16Z)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Long-Horizon Agents: Compute, Memory and Power Profile (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• The Rise of NeoLabs (Rich Kotite & Aaron Rosenberg, Radical)

• The Price of Entry to the Frontier (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• When throughput is not enough: What financial markets need from blockchains (A16Z Crypto Team)

• 9 Major Themes from Q2 SaaS Earnings Calls (Sammy Abdullah, MP @ Blossom Street)

• The Robotics Demo to Production Gap (Selina Wang, VC @ Altimeter)

• The ghost in the machine: Simulation and the future of AI-powered determination (Bessemer Team)

• Introducing the 2026 Intelligent Applications 40 (Matt McIlwain & Rolanda Fu @ Madrona)

• The Great AI Talent Concentration (Adrian Radu, Partner @ Khosla)

• Recurrent Depth (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Build the damn best product. (Kenneth Auchenberg, Partner @ Innovation Endeavors)

• The new Series A is the old Series B. (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• Enterprise AI Economics: How to Scale Intelligence Without Scaling Costs (Denis Barrier & Jaclyn Hartnett, Cathay Innovation)

• How marketers are measuring AI search (Bessemer Team)

Additional Reads

• Three Beach Minimum (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• The Series A is dead, Long live the Series A (Jackie DiMonte, Partner @ Grid)

• In Response to Bill Gates: It’s Time to Reimagine Capitalism (Vishal Vasishth, MD @ Obvious Ventures)

• AI gutting what you love about work? Me too. (Phin Barnes, Partner @ The GP)

• Universal Moral Core Principle 2: Implications (Albert Wenger, GP @ USV)

• The New Valley (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• Every Overbuild Ends the Same Way (Kevin Stevens, Partner @ Energize)

• How To Think About The Negative ROI on AI Investment (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• How founders are raising in 2026 (Climate Tech VC)

• Why AI Consciousness Matters (Albert Wenger, GP @ USV)

• The Holy Grail of Autonomy is Coming into View (Mo Islam, Partner @ Obvious)

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

• Consumer discovery & recommendations are broken (Adrian Radu, Partner @ Khosla)

• 10 Emerging Robotics Infrastructure Themes (Kahini Shah, Partner @ Obvious)

• AVs as a Bellwether for Autonomy (Jamie Tomalin, VC @ Triple Point)

• Intelligence is the Primitive. Applications are the Diffusion Layer. (Anish Acharya, GP @ A16Z)

• The Power of the AI Harness: Long Live the Application Layer (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn)

• Nobody Wants Your Software (Euclid Ventures)

• The User Modeling Wars (Rohan Virani, VC @ Amplify)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Analysis of NeoLab Raises (Jamesin Seidel, GP @ Chapter One)

• Is Healthcare a Safe Haven if the AI Trade Unwinds? (Vickram Pradhan, VC @ Sopris)

• Everyone Is Playing a Different Robotaxi Game (Thomas Reiner, Partner @ Altimeter)

• The AI Bullwhip (Tomasz Tunguz, GP @ Theory)

• Not in My Backyard, Not on My Grid (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• AI/Data infra + dev tools M&A is having a moment (Janelle Teng Wade, Partner @ Bessemer)

• State of the Venture Market - 2026 (Peter G Schmidt, Principal @ Refinery)

• Tech IPO Performance (Adrian Radu, Partner @ Khosla)

• What I Learned Teaching the Economics of AI at Stanford (Apoorv Agrawal, Partner @ Altimeter)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Natural Value (Phin Barnes, Partner @ The GP)

• You are not a model. Don’t price per token. (Tugce Erten & Sarah Wang, A16Z)

• Some Assembly Required (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• The Corner Three (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• Being legible to capital (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)

• The SaaSpocalypse CEO Survival Guide: Six Months Later (Patrick Salyer, Partner @ Mayfield)

• The 13 Commandments of Customer Success (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street VC)

• How Much Should Founders Get Paid? (Omri Drory, GP @ NFX)

Additional Reads

• They Built the Team. They Raised the Money. Now What? (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• Beyond slop, taste, and AI moral panic: What social science tells us (Tim Sullivan, A16Z Crypto)

• The Speed of Thought: What If Intelligence Has a Universal Limit? (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• The New Unit of Risk Is an Action (Amir Kabir, Partner @ Overlook VC)

• The Frictionless Bargain (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• On why you should invest in the most expensive YC startups (Jared Heyman, Founder @ Rebel Fund)

• How Universities Should Prepare Founders (Paul Graham, Co-Founder @ Y Combinator)

• Faking a brand is easy. Making it stop is hard. (A16Z New Media)

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

• Raise less and build software (Phin Barnes, Partner @ The GP)

• The “Permission Gap” opportunity for startups (Adrian Radu, Partner @ Khosla)

• The Supply Side (Kirsten Green, GP @ Forerunner)

• Competition Is For Losers In The AI Era: A Geographic Perspective (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Hunt for Human Exhaust (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• America’s Role in the Next Golden Age of Chemical Synthesis (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Who will be the bastion of American open-weight AI leadership? (Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer)

• The Barrel Gets a Price (Earnest Sweat, GP @ Stresswood)

• Your Favorite Creator Isn’t Real—Does it Matter? (Olivia Moore, Partner @ a16z)

• Data Centers Are Losing a Fight They Should Be Winning (Glenn Borok, Principal @ Alumni Ventures)

• AI Is Reshaping Cybersecurity. Capital Is Following. (Saaya Pal, Partner @ Jump)

• The Machine Risk Economy: Part II (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• Is There An Inference Glut Coming? (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

• AI Inference: The Compute Layer Powering Everything (Meera Oak, Partner @ Alumni Ventures)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Gross Margin Isn’t Telling You What You Think It Is (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• Own Your Intelligence: A How-To Guide (Sonya Huang, Partner @ Sequoia)

• How I Use AI Without Outsourcing the Thinking (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• Remember Gilt Groupe?! Here’s what we learned from their story (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

• What every CEO needs to know about AI governance (George DeCesare, Advisor @ Bessemer)

Additional Reads

• The Risks We Choose (Daniel Kimerling, MP @ Deciens)

• Dear VCs, Just Give Up (Michael Dempsey, MP @ Compound)

• The Rebuild, Part I: A Museum of Itself (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• Rise of the Borderless Founder (Gabriel Vasquez & Angela Strange, a16z)

• The Forest is Always Dark (Michael Dempsey, MP @ Compound)

• Our 2Q letter to LPs (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Previously Unmanufacturable (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Rise and Fall of the Venture Syndicate (Halle Kaplan-Allen, Sydecar)

• What Could Go Right? (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)

• Execution Is The Moat (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)

• Philosophy Mondays: Human Nature and Multiscale Analysis (Albert Wenger, GP @ USV)

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 Human Bet (Kirsten Green, GP @ Forerunner)

• World Models And The Companies That May Win This New Space (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Big Data Center Debate (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• When AI Stops Taking Notes and Starts Seeing Patients (Lightspeed Team)

• AI Harness’ ARR Multiples (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The AI Revolution will be Securitized (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• Some Simple Economics of Open versus Closed AI (A16Z Team)

• The Machine Risk Economy: Part I (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• The Core (Banking) Problem Isn’t the Core (Jump Capital Team)

• Long duration energy storage finds its buyer (Climate Tech VC)

• The Great SaaS Repricing (Slow Ventures Team)

• Measuring the Intelligence Layer: 2025 Impact Report (Laura Katzman, Partner @ Buoyant)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Mirage Product Market Fit: The Silent Killer of AI-Native Services Companies (Jake Saper, GP @ Emergence)

• What It Takes to Get Paid (A16Z Team)

• Consensus by Construction (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

• The Agentic Awakening (Liran Eshel & Adam Fisher, Bessemer)

Additional Reads

• Revenge of the Wrappers (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• The Argument Against AI Writing Is At Least 2,400 Years Old (Brad Feld, GP @ Foundry Group)

• Can Agents Use a Computer Yet? We’ve Got the Data (A16Z Team)

• The Blue Note (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• The Frictions That Make AI Forecasting Hard (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Everything is downstream of ambition (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

• The Endgame Of Vertical Integration (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Custom Tokens (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)

• Where is the White Space for Canadian Defence Founders? (Alex McIsaac, GP @ Northside)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Pragmatic Robotics Boom (Jonathan Healy, VP @ Cathay Innovation)

• The Simulation Stack in Robotics (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• Spending Like a Hyperscaler (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• The Multi-Billion-Dollar Battle to Dominate Weight Loss (Chamath Palihapitiya, GP @ Social Capital)

• A Strategic Analysis: Neoclouds vs Hyperscalers And The Future of Inference (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• How to Use Claude to Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (Mandy Cole, Partner @ Stage 2)

• Don’t be First-to-Market (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street VC)

• No revenue is enough revenue (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• Building a Cyber GTM Machine: A Guide for Founders Heading Into a Growth Round (Dan Moor, Principal @ Craft)

• Stop Worrying About Competitors (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)

Additional Reads

• The Power Law Comes For Venture Capitalists Too (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent Ventures)

• We Made Bell Labs Illegal (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• Some Assembly Required (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• Knowing When to Stop: The Art of Making a Loop Converge (Yoko Li, Partner @ A16Z)

• Why Trust Doesn’t Scale Automatically (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)

• The Room Reads First (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• Airtable didn’t get acquired - it got divorced (Glenn Borok, Principal @ Alumni)

• A Spoonful of Reality for ‘Bent’ Valuations (Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer)

• Stanford, Storytelling, Billionaire Inflation, and Chinese VCs (Sajith Pai, VC @ Blume)

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

• Robotics’ Missing Piece: Assembly Required (Kevin Spain & Rishub Nahar, Emergence)

• ISO: The Future of AdTech (Veronica Kim & Chelsea Zhang, Equal Ventures)

• The Next Stack: The future of AI in cybersecurity (Thomas Krane & William Blackwell, Insight)

• The Decade Space Stops Being Hard (General Catalyst Team)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Marketplaces in the Age of AI: Threat or Opportunity? (Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner @ FJ Labs)

• The Hidden Math of Behavioral Health (A16Z Team)

• The Other Exponential (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• Supply Chain Whiplash (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)

• Aftermarket Harnesses (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Cybersecurity Becomes Cyber Resilience (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook)

• The Robot Data Pyramid (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)

• AI is transforming healthcare, but it’s still hard: takeaways from six months in healthtech VC (Donna Boyer, EIR @ Cowboy)

• Agentic Attacks, Identity Sprawl, and the GPU Blind Spot (Jump Capital Team)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• The Right Conditions (Jackie DiMonte, Partner @ Grid)

• How to Measure AI Impact (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)

• Lighthouse or Landgrab? How to Pick Your AI Sales Strategy (Joe Schmidt IV, Partner @ A16Z & Julian Marx)

• A Board Meeting That Doesn’t Suck (Omri Drory, GP @ NFX)

• How I’m Pricing an AI Product (Ben Yoskovitz, Partner @ Highline Beta)

• A day in the life: How four companies run FDE motions (Santosh Iyer & Samma Hafeez, Insight Partners)

• Get rid of 90 day windows (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)

• What I Didn’t See Coming (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)

Additional Reads

• A Global Weighing Machine (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• From corporation to crowd: How organizations evolved through time and technology (Tim Sullivan & Robert Hackett, A16Z Crypto)

• Ed. 15 Whisper Networks (Aubrie Pagano, GP @ Alpaca)

• You’re Not in a Funk (Alex Oppenheimer, GP @ Verissimo)

• The Copy Problem (David Beisel, GP @ NextView)

• ARR Doesn’t Mean What It Used To (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)

• Theater kids, nerds, startups, art and a guy named Vance (Nick Chirls, GP @ Asylum)

• Why College Degrees Don’t Matter Anymore (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)

• The Best Charity of the Next 50 Years Might Be a Company (Craig Shapiro, MP @ Collaborative Fund)

• Distillation is a red herring (Chamath Palihapitiya, GP @ Social Capital)

• Button-mashing never worked in StarCraft. Tokenmaxxing won’t work in AI (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

• 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.