Recent Posts
Social•Jan 28, 2026
Software and AI Profit From Margins, Not Price
Jeff Bezos said, "Your margin is my opportunity." Does this apply in software & AI? Yes—but not on price. 🧵
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Jan 28, 2026
A Coxswain on Your Shoulder
Tom Tunguz created an AI meeting‑review agent that acts like a coxswain, silently analyzing recordings of pitch meetings, one‑on‑ones and investor calls. The system scores each conversation on a five‑point rubric—active listening, empathy, questioning, clarity and technical depth—providing concrete feedback...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Jan 26, 2026
The Model T Comes to Silicon Valley
The early 20th‑century assembly line slashed Model T production time by 90%, triggering a wave of consolidation that left only 44 automakers by 1929. Today, AI‑driven coding assistants are delivering comparable productivity gains—55‑81% faster development—in roughly five years. The auto boom...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Jan 22, 2026
AI Managing AI
Recent advances have pushed tool‑calling accuracy for large language models past the 90% mark, a dramatic leap from the sub‑50% success rates seen two years ago. This improvement is driven by trillion‑parameter models that excel at context‑rich orchestration, while smaller...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Jan 21, 2026
High‑growth SaaS Firms Thrive While Low‑growth Tumble
Will designers design first in a world where AI can code software immediately, or just describe the design? Will large enterprises pay for premium observability when AI can migrate & monitor open source competitors? As Michael Mauboussin writes, there’s information in...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Jan 20, 2026
AI Powers the Next Evolution of Data Stacks
After a decade of success, the modern data stack has entered consolidation. What comes next? The postmodern data stack is AI. The modern data stack created more than $100 billion in market cap with a simple promise : move the data via...
By Tomasz Tunguz
![Eleven Steps to the Epiphany[^1]](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/w8txbopuyfkpsbw6rwka)
Blog•Jan 13, 2026
Eleven Steps to the Epiphany[^1]
The author describes how Anthropic’s Claude Cowork scanned a personal folder of scripts—email, CRM, research, and drafting tools—and incorporated them into its memory, enabling the same capabilities through a conversational interface. This transformation turns static, terminal‑bound utilities into a portable...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Jan 11, 2026
Incumbents Shift From Open APIs to Closed Walls
Salesforce, Datadog & Epic are building walls. After two decades of flourishing through open APIs & data portability, the software industry's largest incumbents are locking down. https://t.co/7n6Tio3aJK
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Jan 10, 2026
Open APIs Are Over
After two decades of thriving on open APIs, major software platforms are erecting barriers. Salesforce limited Slack’s API calls, Datadog disabled a rival observability startup, and Epic faces a lawsuit over restricting patient‑record access. The acceleration of AI‑driven development enables...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Jan 9, 2026
Trajectory
The post argues that the software era has moved from merely adopting tools to mastering the specific paths—called trajectories—through which those tools are used. By tracking how users interact with CRM, IDEs, or AI assistants, companies can automate processes, refine...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Jan 6, 2026
Effective Strategy Demands Painful Trade‑offs and Clear Ownership
strategy should hurt. if you aren't making painful trade-offs, you haven't prioritized. • one goal, one owner • shared ownership = no ownership molly graham on @lennysan: https://t.co/RW7eAWk6kI
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Dec 31, 2025
Meta Pays $2B for $100M ARR Startup
Meta is acquiring Manus for $2 billion. Manus disclosed $100 million in ARR achieved in eight months, 147 trillion tokens processed since launch. Can we use those figures to explain the acquisition price?
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Dec 30, 2025
Gross Profit per Token
Meta announced a $2 billion acquisition of Singapore‑based AI agent firm Manus, which reported $100 million annual recurring revenue and 147 trillion tokens processed since its March 2025 launch. The deal underscores the relevance of gross profit per token as a valuation lens,...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Dec 29, 2025
Motive's S‑1 Shows Growth Outpacing Samsara's IPO
Motive, the AI-powered fleet management company formerly known as KeepTruckin, filed their S-1 this week. The company has grown tremendously & in this post, we compare it to Samsara at IPO :
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Dec 23, 2025
2025 Predictions: Strong IPO Surge, Google Leads AI
Every year I make a list of predictions & score the previous year’s. You can find my 10 Predictions for 2026 here. 2025 was a good year : I scored 7.85 out of 10. 1. The IPO market rips. Score...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Dec 22, 2025
AI Agents Will Outprice Human Labor by 2026
11 Predictions for 2026 Every year I make a list of predictions & score last year’s predictions. 2025 was a good year : I scored 7.85 out of 10. Here are my predictions for 2026 : 1. Businesses pay more for AI agents...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Dec 22, 2025
12 Predictions for 2026
Tom Tunguz outlines twelve 2026 forecasts, from AI agents commanding higher fees than human workers to a record‑breaking liquidity wave driven by IPOs from SpaceX, OpenAI and others. He predicts vector databases becoming essential AI infrastructure and agents autonomously handling...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Dec 16, 2025
Proprietary AI Keeps Pricing Power Despite Cheaper Open‑Source Alternatives
Despite open-source AI models being 10-100x cheaper, proprietary providers haven’t lost pricing power. OpenRouter’s data reveals a market splitting in two. Over the last year, open-source models’ market share has remained stable around 22-25%, briefly spiking to 35% during the explosive...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Dec 16, 2025
The Bifurcation in the AI Market
The AI market is splitting into two distinct camps: open‑source models, which remain roughly 22‑25% of usage despite being 10‑100× cheaper, and proprietary providers that retain pricing power for high‑value workloads. Open‑source share held steady, briefly spiking to 35% during...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Dec 12, 2025
The Average Founder Ages 6 Months Each Year
The median age of founders raising venture capital is climbing about six months each year, a shift driven by three forces: the surge in AI‑focused funding, the growing dominance of B2B models, and a media narrative that over‑highlights youthful, consumer‑centric...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Dec 10, 2025
The Two Context Databases Powering Enterprise AI
Enterprises are adopting two distinct context databases—operational and analytical—to serve as the new system of record for AI agents. Operational databases capture procedural knowledge and trade secrets, while analytical databases encode metric definitions and reasoning logic. The article emphasizes that...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Dec 9, 2025
AI Saves Workers Hours, Yet Vendors Capture Only 5%
A new study from OpenAI shows AI saves the average white-collar worker 54 minutes per day. Where does all that value go? BLS data shows median weekly earnings for full-time workers hit $1,165 in Q3 2024, or $60,580 annually. Across 2,080...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Dec 9, 2025
The AI Value Gap : Where Does the $7,000 Per Seat Go?
A new OpenAI study finds AI saves white‑collar workers 54 minutes daily, translating to roughly $7,282 of recovered productivity per seat each year. Current SaaS pricing—ChatGPT Plus, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Workspace AI, and Gamma—captures only 3‑5% of that value,...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Dec 8, 2025
IBM's $11.1B Confluent Deal Signals Streaming Consolidation
Streaming is the next category to consolidate within the modern data stack. IBM announced its intent to acquire Confluent. The deal values Confluent at $11.1 billion, or 10.0x LTM revenue. Confluent commands more than 40% of the Fortune 500 as customers...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Blog•Dec 8, 2025
Streaming Comes Into the Fold
IBM announced an $11.1 billion acquisition of Confluent, valuing the streaming‑platform provider at 10 × its last‑twelve‑month revenue. Confluent, the commercial arm behind Apache Kafka, serves more than 40 % of Fortune 500 firms and posted Q3 revenue of $298.5 million, up 19.3 % YoY, with...
By Tomasz Tunguz
Deals•Oct 14, 2025
Fivetran and Dbt Labs Announce All-Stock Merger to Consolidate Data Stack
Fivetran and dbt Labs announced an all-stock merger combining the two companies into a single entity approaching $600M in ARR. The deal unites ingestion and transformation layers of the modern data stack to better compete with larger incumbents like Snowflake...
Tomasz Tunguz