Bob Meese

NVIDIA just hired WSJ's tech editor as their new managing editor. RH's Editor in Chief is the former EIC at Architectural Digest Robinhood's Editor in Chief is the former EIC at The Outline and BDG The Trade Desk's Editor in Chief is the former EIC at AdWeek Jerry's Lead Data Journalist is former Bloomberg/Mother Jones Data Reporter Mastercard's VP of Editorial Content is former cnet/wsj reporter CARFAX's EIC is the former editor at Consumer Reports IBM's Editorial Lead is a former AFP reporter BlackRock's VP Content is former editor @ Fortune SoFi's Managing Editor is former cnet managing editor Resy/Amex's Managing Editor is former SF Chronicle Wine Editor Redfin's Chief Economist came over from Boston Fed ... and so many more These companies are not replacing journalists with AI. They are hiring great talent and putting them to work on great coverage. A real reason to be excited about the reporting coming out of these orgs you would not traditionally think of as media companies. And a reason to be excited about job prospects for talented editorial folks. Slowly curating the best of the best of the output from this effort - if your team is following suit, or you're looking for roles in this space... say hi//follow along. Also - a follow up conversation here with examples of the work these orgs are doing (and tradeoffs they face) - https://lnkd.in/egkmumhM

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2 years ago today, A16Z announced they put $100M into Pinecone, as everyone and their mother tripped over each other to invest in vector databases. Given how little standalone vector DBs are valued now, the hype cycle is wild to look back on. Quick timeline below: Late 2022: • ChatGPT launches. • Early RAG architectures emerge. • First buzz around Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, Chroma. Q1 2023: • Massive demand surge for vector search. • Vector DBs seen as critical infra. • Heavy VC excitement (“new database category!”). Q2 2023: • Peak hype. • Pinecone raises $100M, Weaviate raises $50M. • Every AI infra diagram has a vector DB layer. Q3 2023: • Saturation hits. • Postgres, Redis, MongoDB add native vector search. • Clouds bundle it. Q4 2023: • Hype fades. • Vector search becomes a commodity. Early 2024: • Market tightens. • Attention shifts to agents, fine-tuning, orchestration.

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💥 Metropolis Technologies Raises $𝟭.𝟲𝗕 💥 Funding comes in 2 rounds: $500M equity round led by LionTree and $1.1B from J.P. Morgan. Metropolis is now 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 $𝟱𝗕. With the fresh funding, the plan is to take their "recognition and payment-automation" tech beyond parking assets. This would include retail stores, drive-throughs, gas stations, hotels and partnerships with real estate/asset owner. Congrats to Alex Israel, Peter Fisher, Courtney Fukuda, Travis Kell, Ryan Hunt,Chris Sherman, Robert Bland, Paul Rooney, Lookman Olusanya and the rest of the Metropolis family. #fundraise #parkinginvestment #parking #parkingindustry #metropolois Parking Today Media Parking Network B.V. National Parking Association International Parking & Mobility Institute (IPMI) Tim Maloney Advisory Tim Maloney Reservations Lab

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Lucas and Thomas founded Deepnight (YC W24) to replace analog night vision systems with software. Their models are able to render images like the one on the right at 90fps on commodity hardware.

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Last week's musings. You'll notice some reoccuring themes... 𝟭. 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀/𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗟 🍇 (𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗷𝗮𝗺)  -recurring idea i've been mulling -robotics is happening particularly in industrial setting  -still lots of problems, but the revolution is happening and there are  work arounds until the tech is really there -prices in theory are highest they will ever be (impact of tariffs?) -folks looking for pre-training data, but eventually will also need fine tuned data -what data fidelity is good enough? 𝟮. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗺 𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 + 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 🍇  -it's an absolute monster, $75B market cap and up 300% over the last 5 years. - aircraft parts, 90% proprietary but high margin - killer aftermarket business  - how many software biz have lifetime value of 50 years?! -has lots of things software investors look for (sticky revenue, high margin, defensibility in GTM and unique flywheel, focus, etc.)  -makes me think way more about hard tech viability 𝟯. 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 - from Neil Shah on Invest Like the Best - incredible listen - few people have maniacal focus and it's so important for founders 𝟰. 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝗥𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 -WTF  𝟱. 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗲𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗼𝘁 𝗛𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗲 -Kawasaki released prototype and it's wild! Substack for full thoughts: https://lnkd.in/gzNtkEHk

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Kicked BBG Ventures Breakfast Series for 2025 with Flybridge & OMERS with a discussion on Vertical AI with Nick Ornitz (CEO Topline Pro) and Julisa Salas (GTM, Toast) talking about customer discovery, GTM, hiring your first head of sales and building a moat. Full discussion at the link below, but here are the 6 top takeways on scaling Vertical AI for SMBs: 1. Customer feedback is the holy grail - don't solve the problem YOU think exists; solve the hair on fire problem for your customers. Nick Ornitz's company went from Dwelling (home maintenance) to ProPhone (business phone lines) to Topline Pro (a better way to grow your home service business) before it nailed their unique value proposition. And keep that customer closeness even as you grow - even today as they grow everyone at the company has a workflow touchpoint for customer feedback and pain points. 2. GTM for SMBs is notoriously hard - your playbook has to understand them as consumers AND businesses. Nick's strategy at Topline mirrored that with a founder-led sales strategy that incorporated creative tactics like targeted Facebook DMs, a database of potential customer profiles and a "sales lab" to test new sales tactics. Use data and iterate quickly to optimize for the right acquisition channels. 3. When building out your sales team hire at least two sales reps to compare their performance and tactics. Then, even as your team grows make sure you've built out a version of a repeatable sales motion/playbook that is working before you hire a Head of Sales; that hire can then work to improve your playbook and help coach/lead your sales team. 4. Consider the appropriate way to grow your ACV - in some industries moving upmarket might work, but there is often an undertapped opportunity to increase prices as you deliver increasing value - you just never know whether you're under-pricing. Topline actually saw their growth increase when they increased their price point: customers can associate a higher price with better quality. 5. Make sure you have a moat: 1) own the workflow - automate an end to end process, not a feature so you can differentiated from the pack; and 2) think early about what your proprietary data can be - that's the clearest moat. A word of caution? Don't forget that customer experience and brand differentiation can supercharge all of that in the game of defensibility - it's easy to leave it by the wayside 6. Leverage AI in company building - AI isn’t just powering the product — it’s transforming how AI companies sell and support customers. It can unlock a more efficient GTM strategy from live coaching during sales calls to AI for customer success. https://lnkd.in/gSZPDn-q Claire Biernacki Carol Magalhães Isaacs, CFA Julia Maltby

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Electronic Arts has agreed to a record $55 billion leveraged buyout by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (through Savvy Games), Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. It marks a turning point for the videogame industry. Why it matters: 🎮 Gaming is at a crossroads. After the pandemic boom, the industry is in a downturn, with spending tightening. Publishers are now focused on how to extend the life — and profitability — of their biggest franchises. 📺 IP crossovers are the playbook. Hollywood and streaming platforms are driving value from game-to-screen adaptations: The Last of Us, Fallout, Arcane, Super Mario Bros, and soon Call of Duty. EA already has plans with Amazon MGM to turn The Sims into a movie. 💰 Saudi Arabia’s strategy. PIF has invested billions in gaming and entertainment, from Nintendo to Take-Two to Toei Animation, alongside moves into sports and cinema. Owning EA gives them Battlefield, Apex Legends, The Sims, Madden, and FIFA — franchises with both gaming and media potential. ⚠️ The risk. Expanding IP comes with massive production costs. Other firms, like Embracer, learned the hard way when acquisitions didn’t translate into successful content. As one analyst put it: “The value of high-end gaming IP is only increasing, but execution will be everything.” This deal highlights gaming’s role as a central pillar of global entertainment. The next great battle for audience attention will play out across consoles, streaming platforms, and movie theater screens. https://lnkd.in/dGhfGFC5

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Crossing the AI chasm in professional services It’s human to resist tech shifts—especially when they challenge expertise you’ve spent years building. Most of us now “use AI,” but true adoption—agentic systems embedded in daily workflows—is still stuck in pilots and POCs. Many think, “It’ll change a lot, but not my craft.” Reality: Service-as-Software is arriving. Agents can draft, reconcile, review, and iterate; your value moves from doing the task to orchestrating the system—redesigning workflows, handling edge cases, setting guardrails, and maintaining client trust. Teams will get leaner. Output will often be 10x. That’s not devaluation; it’s shift and scale. Emotionally, most of us travel a curve: 🙅‍♀️Denial — “Our work is too nuanced.” 🛡️Defensiveness — “These tools make too many mistakes.” 🧪Dabbling — “Small experiments—I can see it helps my junior colleagues.” 🧰Redesign — “I’m rewriting workflows around agentic tools; ~50% of my workload is co-piloted.” 🤝🤖Partnership — “I assign work to my agents, and they check in for feedback.” 🚀Acceptance & Acceleration — “I’m starting new projects with multiple agents; previous tasks are 95% run by AI.” The hardest leap is Dabbling → Redesign—that’s the chasm. Crossing it turns anxiety into agency. 💬Love to hear where you are on this curve!? Use AI to plot, then post your result in the comments. #AI #AgenticAI #ProfessionalServices #WorkflowDesign #ServiceAsSoftware Magnus Bergman Louise Hagen Reid Jackson Anders Nygren Eira Tobrand Irene Ardenstedt Filippa Lambert Johannes Palmroos

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Exciting to see the incredible progress from Peptone, a company we’ve backed since the early days at Walden Catalyst Ventures. Peptone just announced Peptron-O, developed in collaboration with NVIDIA — a groundbreaking AI engine that brings ensemble-first structure prediction to the disordered proteome. This is a major scientific and technological milestone, targeting one of the most complex and previously inaccessible areas of biology: intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). By shifting the paradigm from static models to dynamic ensembles, Peptron-O opens new doors for drug discovery — especially in areas like oncology and neurodegeneration, where IDPs play critical roles. We’re proud to have supported Peptone on their mission to build the infrastructure for next-gen molecular physics. Their work is a great example of how deep tech can transform life sciences. Read more about the announcement: 👉 https://lnkd.in/eygnKQ67 #AI #Biotech #DrugDiscovery #DeepTech #LifeSciences #WaldenCatalyst #Peptone #NVIDIA #PeptronO with: Kamil Tamiola, Ph.D. Francis Ho Shankar Chandran Nicolas Autret Andy Kau Roni Hefetz Victoria Slivkoff

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