#287 | Physical Seams of the AI Buildout, Industrial AI, & more
June 7th | The latest from Conviction, Zetta, Felicis, Meritech, Energize, Sequoia, 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 Physical Seams of the AI Buildout (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)
CISOs Have Budget for AI Security. The Missing Layer is the Control Loop. (Felicis Team)
Call for Founders (Forum Ventures)
The Next Frontier of Visual AI Is Code (Yoko Li, Partner @ A16Z)
Roll Up or Build? In AI-Native Services, Sequence Is the Whole Game (Lotti Siniscalco, GP @ Emergence)
Industry Developments & Analyses
Industrial AI: The New Wave of Innovation Hitting Heavy Industry (Agustina Sergi, VC @ Energize)
2026 SaaS Rebound (Alex Clayton & Austin Wang, Meritech)
The Critical Role of the Electrician in Today’s Economy (David Talpalar, GP @ Shirlawn Capital)
Inside the biggest bet in corporate history (Byron Deeter & Sam Bondy, Bessemer)
K-Shaped Healthcare (Vickram Pradhan, VC @ Sopris Capital)
What prediction markets actually know (Scott Kominers, Partner @ A16Z Crypto)
The 4 arguments for the death of software, ranked from worst to best (Ilya Kirnos, Partner @ SignalFire)
The AI Skepticism Map (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
The Death of the Three-Act Playbook (Mike Vernal, GP @ Conviction)
What are you serving? (David Cahn, GP @ Sequoia)
Show Me Your Mech (Melody Koh, Partner @ NextView)
The SaaS GTM glossary that no one has written yet (Insight Team)
How to pick the right VC firm to work at (Mike Dauber, Partner @ Amplify)
How do I know if marketing is working? (Justin Dunham & Meghan Gill, Ansa Insights)
How GE Aviation Avoided a 3D Printing Innovator’s Dilemma (Peter G Schmidt, Principal @ Refinery)
Additional Reads
Beauty and the VC (Euclid Ventures)
The fund size is only kind of the strategy (Clayton Petty, VC @ Gradient)
Your Vendor Is Your Competitor (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Albert, Madrona)
Units of Time (Update) (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)
Don’t Tokenmaxx, Outcomemaxx! (Simon Wu, Partner @ Cathay)
AI and the Jevons Paradox (Scott Hartley, GP @ Everywhere)
Where Are the American Open Source Models? (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)
Has AI Made VCs Forget Basic Competitive Strategy? (Rob May, GP @ Half Court)
The Great AI Mark-to-Market (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)
With all the AI money sloshing around Skin in the Game isn’t enough anymore. (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)
Notes:
If you have any great agencies or freelancers that you have worked with and would recommend to other startups, please complete this form to vouch for them! These could be growth firms, deck designers, staffing firms, engineering providers or more. Once we collect enough responses we’ll share the top providers publicly.
The SandHill app is now pulling from 700+ blogs and newsletters (full list here). Respond to this email if we missed a post or a feed.
You can view all the latest posts in a live feed on the web app.