#283 | Agentic Commerce, Tech for Housing, The Collectibles Market, & more
May 10th | The latest from Hummingbird, Sequoia, Felicis, Emergence, Foundation, 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
Agentic Commerce is a $0 Billion Market (Dan Rosen, GP @ Commerce Ventures)
Housing is a Supply Problem. How can Tech Help? (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)
The Case for an AI-First ESP: The Next Billion-Dollar Opportunity (Matthew Nichols, GP @ Commerce Ventures)
Industry Developments & Analyses
Collectibles: A Remarkably Durable Asset Class (Yash Gupta & Kushaan Ahuja, Will Ventures)
Who Gets to Solve the Physical World? (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)
The Hyperscalers & The Compute Crunch (Eric Flaningam, VC @ Felicis)
State of AI: May 2026 (Nathan Benaich, GP @ Air Street Capital)
The AI Stack Is Half‑Built (Tobi Coker, Felicis)
Permissioning Machines (Amir Kabir, MP @ Overlook Ventures)
How AI Is Rewiring Insurance From the Inside Out (Dan Rosen, GP @ Commerce Ventures)
Boring is sexy: the anatomy of a good vertical AI startup (Grace Ge & Mike Dauber, Amplify)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
The next great moat (Jaya Gupta, Partner @ Foundation)
Should Your SaaS Company Become a Services Business? (Jake Saper, GP @ Emergence Capital)
Moats are for castles: A new argument for permanence over defensibility in AI startups (Ryan Wexler, SignalFire)
Design partners: The pre‑launch edge most AI founders ignore (Bessemer Team)
Founders: Don’t hire AEs until you’ve figured out how to sell yourselves (Joe DiMento, Bain Capital)
Relationships Compound When You Put in the Work (Micah Rosenbloom, Founder Collective)
Why Management Advice Breaks for Founders (Casey Winters, Angel Investor)
Sense of Urgency (Nikhil Basu Trivedi, GP @ Footwork)
Optimizing Software Factories (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)
Additional Reads
The “AI Job Apocalypse” Is a Complete Fantasy (David George, GP @ A16Z)
Access Is No Longer the Moment That Matters (Jump Capital Team)
When Machines Out-Eat Humans (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)
The Vibe Coding Hangover (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)
AI has a PR problem (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)
Slop vs taste (Yoni Rechtman, Partner @ Slow)
In the Meantime (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)
AI’s Public Perception Problem (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)
The Long Becoming (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)
The Work of Knowledge in the Age of AI Reproduction (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)
Chasing Black Sheep (Akshay Mehra, VC @ Hummingbird)
Notes:
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