#279 | The Last Problem for AI, AI coming for the work we love, & more
April 12th | The latest from NFX, Redpoint, Lightspeed, Contrary, Gradient, and others
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)
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:
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