AI and Hollywood

Speaker 1:
Good morning and afternoon, everyone. Hope you’re doing well. My name is Sophia Zao and I’m a Senior Principal with Alumni Ventures AI Fund. Thank you for joining our Hollywood AI webinar. With the recent Golden Globes and Emmy ceremony so fresh in our minds, we find ourselves amidst the glam of red carpets and outstanding films. Yet beyond all this razzle-dazzle, the profound impact of AI on the creative industry emerges both as a compelling opportunity and a looming threat.

In our webinar today, we’re excited to dive deeper into the subject beyond the scope of our recent blog. Before we get started, this presentation is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to buy or sell securities, which are only made pursuant to the formal offering document for the fund. Please review important disclosures and materials provided for the webinar, which you can access at www.abfunds.com/disclosures.

Please note you’ll be on mute for the entire presentation, and this webinar is recorded and will be shared after the event. We encourage you to submit questions throughout the webinar, and we’ll try to answer your questions during the Q&A session. Please enter your questions into the question section of your GoToWebinar control panel and click submit.

Our agenda today includes an overview of our fund and portfolio. Then we’ll dive into the panel discussion and hear perspectives from three distinguished leaders representing the creative, technology, and investment sectors. Finally, we’ll address questions from our audience.

And now I’d like to invite our Managing Partner, Edward Sai, to speak on the next few slides.

 

Speaker 2:
Great, thank you Sophia. Great that everyone can join. We have a really exciting topic. I wanted to take a few moments to set the conversation for people who are new to venture or new to AI and technology, and then we’ll jump very quickly into our discussion.

The first thing is venture capital. As an investment class, it has outperformed the public markets over a long period of time. A lot of that’s due to the companies we’re investing in—these are often disruptive, innovative companies with growing opportunities and markets, and we’ll talk more about that as we discuss AI.

Second, venture is largely uncorrelated. The innovations startups are building—whether its OpenAI, the performance of these underlying models, LLMs, stable diffusion, or their applications—are uncorrelated with public market movements. Public markets can go up and down, but technology can continue to grow.

The third point: significant value is being created in private markets. Companies are staying private longer. As you saw with DoorDash or Uber, these were multi-billion-dollar companies, tens to hundreds of billions in value, growing significantly before going public. That growth is captured by VCs and their investors, as well as startup founders and employees.

Finally, VC portfolios, if properly sized and diversified, have favorable risk and reward profiles. There’s definitely risk in startups, and we’ll talk about that and some of the dynamics, but hopefully this provides a helpful intro to venture investing.

Next slide. A little bit about Alumni Ventures. We were the most active VC in 2022. The league tables are still in process, but PitchBook ranked us number one in the US. Since 2014, we’ve raised over $1.2 billion and have built a rapidly growing portfolio. On the right-hand side, you can see our returns have outperformed the S&P over time.

And finally, our AI Fund—what is it? We have a fund dedicated to AI, with 15 to 20 investments made over 12 to 18 months. It’s open to accredited investors with a $10K minimum. People find this compelling as a way to take advantage of AI. Many people ask, “How do I get involved in AI? How do I participate?” Well, we offer a product for that—our AI Fund—which people find compelling to add to their portfolio.

Now, Hollywood AI. What makes this topic so interesting—and why we’ve seen so many signups and great questions (thank you for those)—is how technology has historically impacted society.

Think back to the Industrial Revolution: it impacted labor through physical machines and new ways of manufacturing. Then came the Information Age, with data, storage, and the internet creating a wealth of new opportunities by facilitating access to information.

Now, with AI—particularly generative AI—we’ve entered a realm where creativity is being significantly augmented by technology. We’ve especially seen this over the last year to year and a half. Some people might ask, “AI has been around for a long time. What’s different now?”

In the pre-read we sent to all registrants, there are examples and pictures you can see, but the TLDR is that the technology has matured to a point where we now have human-level performance for generating and understanding content.

This is true with text—large language models from OpenAI, like ChatGPT, have advanced from version 3.5 to 4 in just six months, achieving human-level performance. For instance, GPT-4 scored in the 88th percentile on the LSAT—it really understands text and can generate meaningful responses.

We’re seeing similar breakthroughs in image and video generation. Startups like Runway ML, DALL·E 3, and HeyGen are enabling dubbing, content creation, script writing, and even scene generation. The breadth of how AI is touching Hollywood is massive and very exciting. We’ll dive into a few questions on that.

In Alumni Ventures’ portfolio, we have a number of AI companies, spanning many industries. What’s interesting is that startups can now build small teams of three or four people, raise a $2M seed round, and access AI technology that three years ago would’ve required a $20–30M raise.

This is democratizing AI, just as Amazon democratized cloud storage.

Our AI team includes Ray, myself, Jack, and Sophia. Sophia has significant experience in finance and investing, particularly in blockchain, with exposure to entertainment from that background. My experience: I previously worked in institutional venture at DCM and also in China at two tech companies, both of which IPO’d. We’ve been looking at this field for a long time, especially focusing on AI.

Now to our panel. We have a very strong panel today, and I’d love to ask them questions. Their profiles are below, but I’ll transition to each panelist to introduce themselves. I’ll start with Jason.

Speaker 3:
Hey guys, Jason Ma. First of all, I just want to say thank you to Alumni Ventures—we’re proud investors in Open, a super app powered by AI and Web3. We’re solving for the creator economy by empowering creators to become entrepreneurs and launch their own branded products, automated through AI and blockchain. Our super app platform is launching in Q2, and we’re very excited. If anyone wants to test it out, hit me up.

I’ve been in the media, entertainment, and technology space for pretty much my entire career. I started a few companies, including 88 Rising and a Hollywood movie studio called Stampede Ventures. I was also part of the founding team at Goodwater Capital, a VC firm focused on consumer tech.

Now at EST Media, the parent company for Open, we’re producing Asian news, movies, films, TV, and documentaries, while also building Open, our super app. We’re proudly invested in by Alumni Ventures.

Speaker 2:
Great, thank you Jason. Okay, Gigi.

Speaker 4:
Hello. Glad to be here today. It’s wonderful hearing Jason talk about his whole career doing something similar. I hate putting years on things because it shows how long the career has been, but I’ve spent 10 years as a media banker at Bank of America, 10 years looking at digital disruption at UCLA’s Anderson School, and another 10 years at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music running the Center for Music Innovation.

Currently, I run two organizations. One is the Merrill Institute, where we work with organizations on big technology changes—like what we’re discussing today—through advising, programs, and projects. The other is Rethink Next, a nonprofit where we work with community organizations to explore what’s happening with creative technology and work.

This is my zone. I’m a tech geek on the creative side, so I love talking about this stuff.

 

Speaker 2:
Excellent. Okay, Robin?

 

Speaker 5:
Cool. I’m Robin. I’m part of the A16Z Games Fund. For context, Andreessen Horowitz is a $35B+ AUM venture fund. Our Games Fund is dedicated to investing in entertainment infrastructure, tools, games, and consumer experiences that are gamified or game-adjacent.

We’re a $660M fund. I’ve been here for two years, since we launched the fund in 2021. Before that, I was at Riot Games, where I did corporate venture capital—Riot is behind League of Legends, Valorant, and other games you may know. Before that, I worked in biotech.

Looking forward to the panel discussion.

Speaker 2:
Great. Well, thank you to our esteemed panelists, and I’d like to now transition back to Sophia to help facilitate our discussion.

Speaker 1:
Thank you. It’s an honor. I’m extremely looking forward to this discussion. It’ll be great, especially since ChatGPT took the world by storm in 2023. I’m sure we’ve all witnessed an explosion of creativity and the adoption and development of generative AI.

Personally, I’ve been captivated by a lot of fun and entertaining mainstream AI content and trends. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the 90s viral yearbook photo trend where GenAI adds a nostalgic touch to your current photos, or you’ve probably seen funky videos on TikTok or Instagram. I saw one where the Statue of David is busting out hip-hop moves.

So, there’s a lot of creative possibilities out there and it seems limitless. I’d be curious to hear from each of the panelists: how is AI being adopted in your space or your ecosystem?

Speaker 3:
I’ll go first. I think, in general, AI is both a problem and a solution for Hollywood. Obviously, it’s been in the news this past year with the writers’ strikes and the actors’ strikes. You see both SAG and WGA in their charters and demands saying, “Hey Netflix, you can’t own me.”

It’s actually kind of crazy when you think about it. Whether it’s a studio or a streamer, they could say, “Okay, if you want this role, you’ll sign this contract. We’ll pay you minimum wage—say $1,500 an episode—but you also need to sign away your AI rights to us. We can recreate your likeness, your image, and put you in our next movie without even asking you.”

That’s a big issue: ownership of your actual likeness, your image, your identity—you as IP. And the reality is that the technology is getting better and better at light speed. It’s very scary in many ways. I always say Web3 is hard and AI is scary.

One example: a friend of mine in Korea worked on a movie called Smugglers, one of the big summer hits in South Korea. It got bought by a company called Flawless AI at the Toronto Film Festival last year. Why? Because Korean content is hot—think Squid Game or Parasite—but language is no longer a barrier.

What Flawless AI does is literally translate the Korean dialogue in the film and make the mouth movements and voices match perfectly in any language. They can dub the movie in English, German, French, Chinese, Swahili—you name it—and it sounds 100% authentic with the same voices and intonation.

This is a huge unlock. It solves the challenge of dubbing, which is a baseline issue for Netflix. Take Money Heist, for example—I loved that series, but the English dubbing felt like watching a 70s Kung Fu movie where the lip sync was off.

Gen Z doesn’t want that. They want authenticity. That’s why people watch Narcos, Glory, and Squid Game in their original languages with subtitles. But imagine if we can now dub them perfectly with AI. That’s a massive breakthrough.

At the same time, it raises big challenges about ownership of your identity. I’ll stop there and see if anyone else wants to chime in.

Speaker 4:
I was going to comment that those are jobs. If you look at dubbing in Los Angeles alone, there are dozens, if not over a hundred shops doing language dubbing. Every time we say, “This is a great solution,” we’re overlooking the fact that people currently earn their living doing it.

There’s a survey I’m looking at right now from Variety Intelligence Platform. They asked creative executives twice—in June 2023 and September 2023—if they’ve used AI or will use it. Forty-seven percent said they never have and never will. But the thing is, it’s already baked into the process.

They might think of GPT as “AI,” but tools like Adobe Premiere Pro now have AI features. AI is already being used for mastering, editing, and more. Each time we add these layers, we solve problems that people used to solve manually.

Take a writers’ room: they might use MidJourney to create pre-visuals for a scene instead of hiring an artist to draw concept art. It speeds up the process. AI is deeply embedded in production—it’s not coming; it’s already here. It’s just becoming normalized now.

Speaker 3:
And to Gigi’s point, all those dubbing shops will become obsolete. Hundreds, if not thousands, of voice dub professionals are going to lose their jobs. That’s a problem too.

Speaker 4:
Exactly—and not just in Hollywood. There are dubbing shops all over the world tied to Netflix productions and other platforms. The whole nature of local production could be transformed.

Speaker 5:
I just want to push back a little bit on the conversation around job loss. With any technology shift, you’re always going to see changes in the job architecture—what people actually do.

From cars to computers to air travel, every major technological change has altered job roles. I don’t think AI, as a technology, will inherently be more harmful than good.

AI is a tool. People will have to adopt it, and it can make workflows like VFX, rotoscoping, and animation faster.

In gaming, for example, we’re seeing rapid development in text-to-3D, 2D-to-3D, and even 3D-to-3D generation. If you want to create a game model today, you have to rig it, animate it, and texture it manually. AI is going to simplify that.

It takes a long time and it’s a lot of manual labor. If you can do that job much faster and more efficiently, I think that’s a good thing. Of course, there are real conversations around who owns the IP. With Midjourney, for example, there were 4,000 artists whose work was used, leading to important discussions around IP ownership, payouts, and job structure changes. But overall, at Andreessen, we firmly believe AI is a force for good rather than something to be scared of.

Speaker 4:
I agree, especially because it breaks the barriers where only large organizations could previously afford big productions. Now, individuals using these tools can produce high-quality content without climbing the traditional studio ladder.

This is already happening in other sectors. In music, for example, there are 120,000 new tracks produced every day. Amazon even had to cap uploads to three books per day because of the sheer volume. The speed and scale of production could escalate dramatically, both in formal pipelines and informal, independent ones. Other industries are already experiencing this shift.

Speaker 2:
Jumping in with a VC perspective: AI is here. In 2023, $50 billion was invested in AI. Most of that went into core LLM models—OpenAI, Cohere, Mistral—but tools like Runway ML (which raised $141 million in June) and Character AI (which raised $150 million) are also seeing huge funding.

All this money and infrastructure will, as Gigi said, make production cheaper and more accessible. Previously, you’d need a large team for tasks like rotoscoping. Soon, it’ll be click-click-click with a green screen effect, rather than editing frame by frame.

The biggest change is that more people—small companies, independent creators—will be able to produce high-quality content. One person even suggested that in the future, a major advertising campaign could be executed by a 14-year-old using Runway ML. This democratization opens opportunities for much more creativity.

Speaker 3:
Robin, I’m curious—

Speaker 1:
Before you answer, Jason, I just want to say there’s a lot to unpack here. Jason, Gigi, and Robin have already touched on many important topics—job impact, IP ownership, and more.

Since we’ve already discussed employment a bit, let’s explore that further. This is one of the most common audience questions: how will jobs change in the next 1–2 years?

The idea of AI replacing jobs is on everyone’s mind. Hollywood’s writers’ strike lasted nearly six months last year, and while a new contract added guardrails on AI’s use in film and TV, it only provides partial protection. Let’s expand on the employment impact in your respective spaces.

Speaker 3:
Go ahead, Gigi.

Speaker 4:
I’d say the velocity of work is changing. It’s not just about whether you keep your job—it’s about whether you can use these tools to work better, faster, and cheaper.

I’ve been around long enough to have edited video by physically cutting tape. When digital editing arrived, we thought it would speed things up. Instead, clients expected to see 25 versions of everything.

Now, tools can take a single script or design and automatically generate multiple variations. Marketing teams, for example, are being asked to output 5–20 times more content per person. Tools like Descript or Clipmagic can turn audio into social media posts instantly, which accelerates expectations.

It’s becoming harder for people who don’t know these tools to stay employed. Small teams are now expected to produce much greater output. Music editors working on film or TV scores are asked to deliver stems so directors can experiment with 25 different mixes.

Tools unlock options but also raise expectations. To keep up, people must learn to stack tools. You might start with Photoshop’s AI features, then move into ControlNet, then Stable Diffusion. The ability to multi-stack—understanding how all these puzzle pieces fit together—is critical.

Benedict Evans said in 2018 that AI is like having “infinite interns.” That’s true now. But it raises a question: what happens to real interns? Universities worry that graduates won’t find junior roles because AI will handle much of that work.

However, students can also walk out of college and immediately start their own production companies using these tools. There’s opportunity here—not just in content creation but in building and selling these AI tools. Still, if you don’t understand these workflows, it’ll be hard to stay securely employed in this sector.

Speaker 2:
That sounds like the DevOps version of Hollywood—with automation and visibility layered on.

Speaker 5:
Exactly. I think there are two main options: adopt these tools, or risk being left behind. Workflows are evolving fast.

For example, AI video creators today might use PIKA Labs or Runway ML to generate footage. Then they’d use Magnifi AI or Topaz to upscale it. Eleven Labs could generate voiceovers, and Epidemic Sound could supply the music.

If you’re an artist meticulously hand-drawing every hair on a dog, AI might automate that away. But if you’re creating a manga series that requires hundreds of panels quickly, AI massively boosts productivity.

The other exciting aspect is accessibility. Artists who aren’t technical can now use tools like Code Interpreter to rig assets or animate images. Modern UIs let you simply highlight an image region and type “make this person walk” to animate it. This is far easier than learning complex animation software.

Speaker 3:
Robin, in gaming specifically, have you seen tools or companies that are transformative for asset development?

Speaker 5:
The most production-ready example right now is voice generation. Eleven Labs, which we’ve invested in, powers a lot of in-game commentary.

Take the game The Finals: it’s an arena shooter where in-game announcers comment dynamically—“You just got a multi-kill!” or “Team Blue is winning!”—all generated by AI.

Text-to-3D asset creation is also on the horizon, but it’s not quite ready yet. 3D assets are much harder than 2D: you need correct topology, rigging, semantic understanding (knowing which part is an arm, which is a face, etc.).

So there are various reasons for that, but I think we’re getting there. The other space that I think will likely evolve soon is AI NPCs or AI agents. This is what Edward mentioned earlier with companies like Character AI, Convey, or Replika, which are already popular. These let you, for example, “talk” to Elon Musk or interact with fictional characters. The implication for gaming is massive—you might play Skyrim or Elden Ring and every NPC would be an AI agent with its own intelligence, backstory, and unique behavior. We’ll see how this develops, but there’s already a lot of activity here.

Speaker 3:
Yeah, I’ve seen an app in the store called Talkie—it’s quite popular now. It’s similar to Character AI but has a distinctly Japanese anime vibe. You can have an anime girlfriend or boyfriend, talk to them, and even customize their emotions and tone of voice.

Backing up what Gigi and Robin said: I joke that AI is scary, but in reality, it’s going to help us. For example, I work with a Midjourney artist named Mother Worm, one of the top AI artists on Instagram. He’s been a designer for Apple, Disney, and Google over his 30-year career. A year ago, when Midjourney first came out, he started using it to create incredibly detailed mech and Gundam-inspired art.

He told me it used to take him a month to sketch out those illustrations in Adobe Illustrator or other tools. Now, with Midjourney, he can do it in minutes and continually improve his prompts to make the output better and better. For him, tools like Midjourney, DALL·E, and Stable Diffusion are not threats—they’re additive. They’re like creative friends that let him work faster, more efficiently, and more effectively.

One example of a new platform enabling creators is Lore Machine, which just launched. If you follow accounts like GPT Tricks or Metaverse on Instagram, you might’ve seen it. My friend Toby—who was previously at Vice and founded Motherboard (the tech journal publisher)—built Lore Machine to help storytellers go beyond just writing scripts.

With Lore Machine, you can input detailed prompts about characters, settings, weapons, and story arcs. It will generate visual assets, character sheets, backstories, and even comics. For example, you could create “Edward Tie as the new Batman taking over the world from Shanghai and Palo Alto,” specifying his look, outfit, and car. Lore Machine will output full storyboards or comic pages, complete with dialogue and structured into Hollywood-style acts.

Platforms like this will empower creators to be more visual and more immersive in their storytelling without needing to manually sketch or hire large teams.

Speaker 4:
Some of these tools are like having a first draft instantly. I love Blockade Labs’ Skybox AI—if you want to build a 3D world, you can just enter a few words, and it generates a complete panoramic environment you can drop into a Unity project.

The real power here is in brainstorming and rapid prototyping, but it also raises a challenge: we’re about to be flooded with massive amounts of content. The competitive advantage won’t just be the ability to produce content—it will be storytelling skills and originality.

We may see a lot of “junk food” content that captures quick attention, but the volume multiplier from these tools will be enormous. Good stories will still matter more than ever as the barrier to content creation drops.

Speaker 5:
I think that’s right, Gigi. We can already see this in UGC (user-generated content) gaming platforms like Roblox or Fortnite’s Unreal Editor (UEFN). About 90% of the content isn’t great. The challenge is discoverability—surfacing the top 1% of high-quality content.

Platforms will need better algorithms to identify retention, core user engagement, and quality IP so that the best creations rise to the top. Tools like Skill, IP tracking, and ranking systems will be key.

Speaker 4:
I don’t think there’s a strong equivalent in film or TV yet to something like Eureka (spelled “Eureka with two A’s”), which scans books and courses to do competitive analyses, identify market gaps, and highlight winning elements. It’s only $20 a month but can scrape entire ecosystems for insights.

I think there’s a big opportunity in discovery tools—finding not just how to market but how to cherry-pick great content in this flood. In music, tools like Chartmetric already help artists find collaborators and spot gaps in the market.

I haven’t yet seen that level of discovery tooling in film and TV. Jason, Robin, Ed, Sophia—have you come across anyone doing this well? If I found someone building that, I’d want to invest in them immediately.

Speaker 2:
I think one thing…

Speaker 5:
Hosting websites…

Speaker 2:
Oh, go ahead…

Speaker 5:
Robin, sorry—go ahead, Ed.

Speaker 2:
I was going to comment…

Speaker 5:
Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
There are hosting websites like Civic AI and Hugging Face where you can surface different models that people have tuned, but I don’t think there’s anything else yet. Obviously, there’s TikTok discoverability, where people post AI-generated animations, but no one’s really solved this problem fully yet.

Speaker 4:
I want to mention one other thing. People often ask me for a list of tools, and I usually point them to Matt Wolfe’s Future Tools. He’s done a great job keeping up a well-organized database of tools. It’s a solid search resource for finding things that are no longer in beta. I fan-girl him extensively whenever I see him at conferences because his site is incredibly helpful.

Speaker 2:
I think what Jason mentioned about Crane’s storyline is relevant. The best AI tools will evolve beyond simple text-to-2D or text-to-3D conversions. Eventually, creators will have much more control. Imagine generating a movie scene but being able to pull out the 3D models individually. Over time, these assets will become “long-living,” reusable across different scenes and projects.

That’s also true with companies like Character AI. Eventually, you could have a local model—a digital “you”—that knows exactly what you want and understands you even better than a generalized model in the cloud.

Speaker 4:
That’s already happening in some sectors. Companies are building massive databases of their own assets and running large language models on top of them. For example, Adidas has cataloged every shoe they’ve ever designed into a massive asset base that their AI can draw from.

Digital twins are also becoming common. Organizations are digitizing all their assets—including physical spaces—and creating virtual replicas to optimize operations. We could have a whole separate discussion on how digital twins will impact entertainment, both in production processes and in redefining what creative companies do.

One concern I have is that we’ve mostly talked about creative jobs, but there are many non-creative roles in these companies that just move money around or manage spreadsheets. A lot of that backend work will likely be automated by AI. That will force companies to rethink what roles humans should focus on.

Speaker 1:
It sounds like we have a positive group consensus that AI will ultimately help us, particularly by alleviating tedious, labor-intensive work in gaming and creative industries.

Personally, my favorite game since high school has been Diablo, and I had to wait over a decade for Diablo IV to come out. I’m hoping great games and movies will now be made faster, cheaper, and potentially even better.

That said, many people in our audience and blog readers are concerned about staying relevant in the age of AI. Do you have any advice for them before we switch gears to more investment-related questions?

Speaker 5:
It’s hard to predict exactly where AI development is headed because it’s been very lumpy. For example, there were years of progress in LLMs before the Transformer architecture was introduced, but the real explosion happened with ChatGPT and its consumer-friendly chatbot interface.

What we do know is that people should experiment with AI tools. Play around with them and see how they can speed up your workflow. Every job is different. Personally, I use Perplexity for search and ChatGPT for brainstorming and writing. There are tools for audio-to-text, writing assistance, and podcast voiceovers with 11 Labs. Everyone should try these tools and figure out how they fit into their daily tasks.

Speaker 4:
I’m probably more cautious. Last year, a Googler said, “There is no moat,” referring to competition between LLM ecosystems. I think that idea applies more broadly—there’s no moat for many companies now.

A new startup could easily duplicate what an established creative company is doing. So if you’re in a stable job at a large creative organization, you probably want to re-skill quickly. Don’t assume that because you know how to do your job, you’re safe. These companies will likely be restructured or re-architected, and you’ll need transferable skills to adapt and stay relevant.

Speaker 3:
I don’t have much to add, except to agree—use the tools available to make your role more effective. At Open, we’re already using DALL·E and Stable Diffusion for text-to-image product design.

Our platform automates everything from designing hoodies and glasses to creating logos. We’ve built manufacturing and logistics into the backend, so when you design a product, we can automatically produce and deliver it.

This means someone who wants to launch their own “Skims” or “Honest Company” or “Fenty” brand doesn’t need dozens of staff or tens of millions of dollars. They don’t need separate teams for design, manufacturing, logistics, payments, or delivery—we’ve automated all of that with AI.

It gets even more exciting when we move from text-to-image to text-to-3D CAD models. Soon, you’ll be able to prompt a design and print a physical 3D product or statue from it.

So my advice is: use AI to your advantage and figure out how to generate more value from it—whether that’s saving time or making more money.

Speaker 5:
I’ll add that AI is a tool for generalists. If your role is very narrow—like making horseshoes as a blacksmith when cars were invented—you might need to pivot to something else. For example, you could start producing metal for cars instead.

Generalists who can adapt and use these tools across different areas will likely thrive.

Another point is that market forces exist with or without AI. In the gaming industry, we’ve seen big layoffs recently at companies like Discord, Epic, and Twitch. These layoffs weren’t caused by AI—they were market-driven. Unfortunately, workforce reductions happen in tech regardless of new tools.

Speaker 4:
Hopefully, some of those laid-off people will go build new companies.

One other thing: don’t just think about entertainment. AI is transforming other sectors too—advertising, retail, and personalization technologies are exploding. Media professionals could transition into these industries where opportunities are opening up.

Personalized media of one—to create unique versions of content for each individual—is becoming possible thanks to AI. That could open new opportunities for creative professionals beyond traditional Hollywood roles.

Speaker 2:
I’d probably add two more things. There are really two questions here—one for you personally and one for your company.

On a personal level, we’ve been using AI at Alumni Ventures to create a lot of blogs. I think you just have to force yourself to adopt an “AI-first” mindset and practice using it. Early on, AI didn’t always give me the right information, but I learned to ask for an outline first or request longer, more detailed paragraphs. Just like Excel or Google search, there are better ways to use these tools, and everyone needs to embrace that and learn.

Now that you have this technology, you have opportunities to do more—maybe publish more on LinkedIn or create TikTok videos. You just need to start experimenting.

For companies, they also need to think “AI-first.” People often ask me about building moats. My view—controversial perhaps—is that creating strong moats is becoming harder. But now that we all have access to this powerful AI engine that didn’t exist three years ago, you must focus on building a strong product and achieving product-market fit. You need to optimize your user workflow and experience.

The playing field has been leveled—everyone has this technology now. If you’re not doing something with AI, the person next to you probably is.

Speaker 1:
Excellent. Thank you, everyone. Lots of opportunities here. Let’s put on our investor hats for a moment. From your perspective, what are some of the investment areas you’re excited about or bullish on?

 

Speaker 5:
I can start. At Andreessen, we’ve been investing in AI across the entire stack—from infrastructure (observability, data hosting, data labeling) to applications (NPCs, Character AI, video, voice, etc.), and in gaming, we’re looking at production tools and studios leveraging AI.

For us, the key is making sure we back the winner in each space. There will likely only be a few foundation models that truly dominate, much like how Google monopolizes search. Social media only has a few major players as well.

So, we’re looking for clear leaders—companies with strong retention, growth, engagement—and we focus our bets in each vertical. It’s difficult to predict exactly which niche will take off. For example, we’ve made several investments in text-to-3D, but we don’t know if it’ll be production-ready in one year, two years, or five years. That’s inherently hard to predict.

Speaker 2:
I’ll jump in. I agree with Robin—there are so many companies doing similar things. Take legal AI as an example: there are tons of startups in that space.

For me, two things matter most:

1. Winning Team: Especially for AI startups, I prefer founders with vertical expertise. If you’re building legal AI, have you worked in legal tech before? Do you understand the industry? This helps you identify workflow needs quickly and build product-market fit faster.

2. Navigating the AI Giants: With massive players like OpenAI dominating the space, it’s risky to build something too close to their core offerings. At any time, they could release a new feature that competes directly with your product. Having vertical expertise helps you stay differentiated and less vulnerable to that kind of competition.

Speaker 3:
I want to echo what Ed and Robin said. My friend Toby is a good example. He’s the founder of Motherboard and a major movie producer. He experienced firsthand the pain points of production and realized how AI could solve many of them.

He created a product that he personally wanted to use—a tool that his peers would love and recommend. That’s powerful. Founders who come from the industry and deeply understand the problems are more likely to build successful AI solutions.

Someone asked if AI could make movies with the same emotional depth as today’s films. I was discussing this over dinner last week: could AI create a movie like Oppenheimer?

Right now, I don’t think so. Christopher Nolan’s work has very specific nuances that AI can’t replicate yet. But could AI create something similar? Probably, by analyzing all of Nolan’s past films and recreating something that feels close.

We’re not there yet, but it’s not impossible in the future. I’m very curious to see how AI evolves in feature filmmaking and storytelling.

Speaker 4:
I’m bullish but also still searching for real “under-the-hood” tools that help creative organizations run better. Every creative AI conference I’ve attended has people asking for practical solutions to manage their businesses more efficiently—and they’re not getting them yet.

I think there’s a big opportunity for tools that provide real, measurable ROI for creative companies.

Beyond that, I believe in the “selling jeans to gold miners” approach. With so many creators entering this space, there’s a lot of money to be made by supplying them with essential tools.

For example, NAB is hosting its second creator economy conference next year. The “prosumers” attending these events want to be the next breakout filmmaker or storyteller. Maybe not making the next Oppenheimer, but perhaps the next Mad Max: Gio—if you’ve seen that trailer, it’s wild, full-on AI craziness.

So yes, toolboxes that genuinely enhance workflows and efficiency for creative teams will be extremely valuable. And there’s a huge market opportunity in selling to the growing number of creators exploring AI.

Speaker 5:
Yeah, the last thing I’d say—thank you very much for the discussion on investment—is that there are many different VC strategies out there. Different types of funds take different approaches. Some strategies will work, others won’t.

For example, we’re a very large fund, and many of these AI deals are expensive. You need to be able to “pay up” to get into some of the winners.

Smaller funds, on the other hand, might take a basket approach, making multiple early-stage bets on founding teams. Growth-stage funds may wait until there’s solid traction and then write a $5–10 million check for a company that’s clearly working.

There are lots of strategies in VC investing—and many can be successful depending on the approach and timing.

Speaker 1:
Great. Excellent. Well, thank you everyone for taking the time to join our panel today. This conversation has been incredibly organic, and I feel like we could easily have a part two or keep going much longer.

We truly appreciate you sharing your insights with us.

To the audience: if you’re interested in being part of our AI Fund, you’re very welcome to book a call with us to learn more. If you’d like further details, my colleague will provide two links in the chat.

If you’re a founder looking to partner with a large network for your company’s growth, please visit us at AV VC Entrepreneurs.

Finally, once the webinar ends, you’ll see a quick three-question survey on your screen. Please complete it to help us understand your experience today and how we can improve. We’ll also follow up with the recording of the event.

Thank you again for joining us.

 

Sam:
Welcome back to the Tech Optimist, the podcast where we uncover the ideas and innovations shaping the future. Today, we’re diving into an exciting Three Breakthroughs episode, where we’ll explore cutting-edge advancements that are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible—from trailblazing AI models and record-breaking funding announcements to unbelievable tech applications in the natural world. We’re uncovering stories that highlight human ingenuity and our relentless drive for progress. So, buckle up. It’s time to get inspired and optimistic about what lies ahead. We’re going to get some housekeeping out of the way now, but then we’re going to dive right into the show. So, hang tight.

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Sam:
As a reminder, the Tech Optimist podcast is for informational purposes only. It’s not personalized advice and it is not an offer to buy or sell securities. For additional important details, please see the text description accompanying this episode.

Welcome to the first Three Breakthroughs episode of 2025. Mike Collins and Lucas Pasch dive headfirst into the transformative tech trends shaping the new year.

Mike Collins:
I try to do this with one of our young and rising talents, and this quarter, I’m going to do it with Lucas.

Lucas Pasch:
Thank you so much. And as a recently minted 34-year-old with a newborn, I appreciate being called young and up and coming. I appreciate that.

Sam:
So, they kick things off with a thrilling discussion about AI’s unstoppable momentum. From OpenAI’s jaw-dropping updates to Google’s Gemini research assistant, they unpack how these tools are rewriting the rules of productivity and problem-solving.

Next, they explore a fascinating new frontier: physical AI. Lucas highlights NVIDIA’s vision for robotics that adapt, think, and act, hinting at a not-so-distant future where AI isn’t just digital but deeply integrated into the physical world.

The conversation then heats up as they tackle net neutrality’s repeal. Mike and Lucas break down the game-changing ruling and its potential impact on internet fairness, innovation, and even your favorite streaming service—and how that might play into all of this.

And then lastly, they round out this episode with a look at drones and how robotics are shaping logistics. From Amazon’s decade-long journey to launch drone delivery to Waymo’s self-driving taxis hitting the streets, 2025 is poised to revolutionize how we live, work, and move.

Now, this episode is a roller coaster ride of tech breakthroughs, bold bets, and future possibilities. So, buckle up and let’s dive into it.

Mike Collins:
Hey, welcome to the new year and this episode of Three Breakthroughs, an Alumni Ventures podcast. In 2025, we’re offering this exclusively to our AV customers. We have something like 11,000 customers now. They value what we’re talking about, what we’re thinking about, what we’re excited about. So, we’re going to just hop right into it.

It seems like we’re recording this on January 8th. The last month has been a little crazy. I just think we have to recognize that the pace of AI is continuing to be mind-boggling—that we have trillion-dollar companies in blood sport, and we had OpenAI with the 12 days of AI introducing new models, new features, new price points.

We had a bunch of commentary coming from Sam Altman about feeling that we’re on the path to agents, superintelligence—that this is now near-term, not long-term.

And I think people are very excited about the power of these models. Every day, they’re able to solve harder things. I think there’s recognition that some of it is overkill for normal people looking at normal things, but if you’re doing hard, hard stuff, there is now a model and a pricing tier that is still disruptively advantageous to you over hiring three PhD students to do the work.

I also think it is very clear that Google is in the game in a full-throated way with Gemini. Their research tool—where you put in a prompt, it goes, searches 50–100 websites, writes a research report that is commensurate with an MBA in minutes—is just one example of it, as well as access to its reasoning model.

So, I was talking to a group at lunch today about AI being more than one thing. There’s definitely the research angle. There’s definitely a language model to help you write better. There’s definitely reasoning, which takes you through multiple steps of problem-solving—that is shipping, and it is shipping in a disruptively compelling way.

And I think we are on the verge of even more powerful reasoning models. And then I think agents are coming—where the ability to take multistep business tasks, break them down, and assign some or all of that workflow to software—is coming and coming fast.

So, I think the pace of innovation and change is happening quickly. A lot of the inside scuttlebutt is that 2025 may even, if not exceed, at least match the pace of 2024. If we look at how much has been accomplished on this front in 2024, I think we’re going to see at least that amount, if not more, in 2025.

I think it is impacting jobs today. It is starting to impact employment. There are groups of small companies trying to do the work of big companies. There are big companies hiring five people, not 50 people. There’s efficiency, there is quality, and then there are companies like ours, where we’re saying, “Hey, we hold the number of people constant, but we want 2–3x productivity and outcomes and all the good stuff.”

So, that would be my five-minute flash report around the horn about stuff going on with all these amazing companies.

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah, I think that’s an insightful take on where AI is heading in 2025. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t add on to that. On top of these new powerful models that are driving incredible change in research and in enterprises, you also have to think about Jensen Huang’s keynote address at CES earlier this week, where—

Mike Collins:
Must listen. Must listen.

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah.

Mike Collins:
Just incredible.

Sam:
Tech enthusiasts, listen up. Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s founder and CEO, brought the house down at CES 2025 with a keynote bursting with innovation and big ideas. Here’s what you need to know from this 90-minute powerhouse presentation. If you haven’t seen it already, I definitely, definitely recommend a listen and a watch because the keynote is just fantastic.

Huang described the first leap in AI evolution, coining it the era of physical AI. This includes NVIDIA Cosmos, a revolutionary development platform designed for robotics and autonomous vehicles, offering tools to build world foundation models for physical AI systems.

And then gaming fans, you’re going to love this—NVIDIA unveiled the GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs built with Blackwell architecture, delivering unprecedented realism and performance for gamers and creators alike.

And for developers, Huang introduced Project DIGITS, a personal AI supercomputer designed to supercharge innovation by bringing NVIDIA Grace Blackwell capabilities right to your desktop.

Partnerships also took center stage. NVIDIA is collaborating with Toyota to redefine autonomous vehicles and with companies like KION and Accenture to integrate AI across various industries.

Robotics was another highlight, with NVIDIA teasing major AI advancements in agentic AI and humanoid robots capable of adaptive actions. From AI foundation models to RTX PCs to drone-like robots reshaping logistics, Huang painted a picture of 2025 powered by AI that doesn’t just think—it acts. As he said, this is the year AI moves from digital to physical.

Lucas Pasch:
The tectonic shift that he’s talking about in robotics as well, like the rise of physical AI. For years, the promise of AI has been mostly confined to the digital world—analyzing data, generating content, automating workflows. But NVIDIA’s vision and Jensen’s vision go a lot further, bringing AI into the tangible, physical world where robots aren’t just executing deterministic tasks but really thinking, adapting, and acting.

Mike Collins:
They’re running the whole farm. Yeah.

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah. Yeah, so I don’t know if that’s a 2025 thing that is in market, but the path is getting illuminated more quickly than—

Mike Collins:
And I do think it’s very important for those of us that are interested in technology and innovation and venture capital—it’s very important to listen to these voices. I think it’s required listening to hear Jensen’s CES keynote.

I think you’ve got to look at when Sam Altman does a tweet storm about reflections in 2024, predictions in 2025—you need to read that stuff. They have the most information, the most insight, the most money, and, to the benefit of humanity, they are now in a very competitive environment where they’re all trying to outdo each other, find their niche, think about what’s next four chess moves ahead. These are all very smart, incredibly talented people. So, one does well by listening intently to these conversations.

And yeah, I agree, Lucas. I think 2025 could be the year of the robot. I think there was cool stuff at CES. Clearly, we’ve seen this in the drone world where it’s redefining military information. You have a $50,000 drone taking out a $5,000,000 tank. So, I think this stuff is going to really start hitting the world of consumers and work a lot in the next 24 months.

What do you have? What’s your second breakthrough of the week you want to talk about?

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah, so I don’t know if breakthrough is the word that I’d use on this one, but it’s just a hot topic in technology and the internet that has to be discussed—a recent ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down federal net neutrality protections, which now allows internet service providers (ISPs) to prioritize, throttle, block, or promote.

Mike Collins:
They used the Chevron ruling, I believe.

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah.

Mike Collins:
Again, for our listeners that aren’t familiar with this, this was a pretty significant 2024 Supreme Court ruling. It basically said a lot of federal agencies have to really prove that they have explicit mandates to do stuff or prove it in court. And so, it throws a lot into question.

And again, we’re not taking sides on whether this was a good, bad, or appropriate ruling—but it is the ruling, and it has a significant impact on regulation. This is one of the first examples of it, which is: “Hey, Congress did not authorize this agency to do it, so we’re striking it down. And if you disagree, let’s go to court.”

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah. Or if you disagree, Congress should remove political gridlock and actually give us some better guidance on what we can and cannot do.

So, in this case, the court basically decided Congress never explicitly told the FCC to treat ISPs like utilities. So, their net neutrality rules were considered by this court to be an overreach, and now, the responsibility for net neutrality shifts to Congress. But without federal laws, ISPs have more freedom now to dictate how we access the internet.

And without taking sides—because there are good points to be made—

Mike Collins:
Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Lucas Pasch:
The way that I talk about it with people is: imagine trying to watch your favorite TV show on Netflix. Maybe you’re pulling up Squid Game season two, but Xfinity slows down the streaming performance because Netflix and Xfinity failed to come to an agreement on how much Netflix would pay for fast-lane access.

Maybe Netflix is not the best example because they’re well-resourced; maybe it’s Paramount+. Those scenarios are a possibility following this decision.

And for years, net neutrality has been the principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally. This court decision flips that on its head and suggests ISPs should not be treated like utilities. Rather, they should be responsive to free-market dynamics and pressures that encourage quality service and innovation.

So, it’ll be interesting. ISPs are not just going to turn around—we shouldn’t expect ISPs to turn around and be like, “We’re going to throttle the crap out of you now because we can,” because that would be a terrible customer experience.

I think opponents of this new—

Mike Collins:
And if they did that, it would likely lead to congressional action, right?

Lucas Pasch:
Yes.

Mike Collins:
So, this is where businesses are going to, I think, try to walk a fine line. They want to do enough to maximize value for their business while not triggering legislation that explicitly does what they don’t want done, right?

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah.

Mike Collins:
So, I think this is a great case study of the profound nature of this ruling and how it can and will impact people’s lives, good and bad.

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah. And we’ll also see opponents of what just happened in striking down net neutrality will say, “Okay, sure, it’s not in the ISPs’ best interest to throttle people unnecessarily, but a lot of these ISPs operate in somewhat monopolistic capacity in a lot of different regions. So, it’s not the free-market competitive nature that you would want to make sure they’re keeping service quality out there for customers.”

So…

Mike Collins:
This is…

Lucas Pasch:
Interesting arguments—

Mike Collins:
This is always one of the issues where people just fall back on a quick and easy libertarian, let-the-market-decide mindset. If you’re in Northern Maine, there’s one provider for a lot of services. It is not a free market. And so, if you want to say, “Hey, that’s tough luck, that’s economically tough beans that you live in a remote area with one ISP provider,” okay—that’s the kind of society we want to live in.

I don’t think that’s always the case. I think there are still parts of society and life here where we say, “Hey, we are a community, we are a country. There are things that we want to exist for all people.” But again, that’s where Congress has to act and be explicit about it, and not just say, “Hey, we’re just going to give this to the FTC and they’re going to do whatever the hell they want.”

Because sometimes, what they do, I think, is always well-meaning but isn’t necessarily the right way to do it.

Lucas Pasch:
Hey, if it gets more and more expensive to watch Squid Game, you might find an issue here that unites both sides of the aisle.

Mike Collins:
There will definitely be people hauled in front of Congress if their favorite shows are getting throttled.

Sam:
So, let’s talk about the major court ruling that could change how you experience the internet. On January 2nd, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down the FCC’s net neutrality rules. Here’s what that means:

The court decided that broadband providers, like your internet company, are classified as offering an information service—not a utility. Because of this, the FCC doesn’t have the legal authority to enforce net neutrality—those rules that make sure all internet traffic is treated equally.

This decision follows the Supreme Court’s 2024 overruling of the Chevron Doctrine, which we’ve talked about quite a few times on this show, which limited how federal agencies can interpret ambiguous laws. Now, internet service providers have more freedom to prioritize, slow down, or even block certain sites or services.

Now, imagine Sarah, a small business owner in Northern Maine running an online shop. Her internet service is provided by her local ISP—the only one available in her area, a common situation in rural communities.

With the recent court ruling eliminating federal net neutrality rules, her ISP can now prioritize certain websites or services for additional fees or throttle access to others. For Sarah, this might mean slower load times for her website unless she pays extra for faster service.

Streaming platforms she uses for marketing or customer engagement, like Zoom or YouTube, could also face slower speeds if they don’t strike deals with her ISP.

In areas like hers, where competition among ISPs is almost non-existent, Sarah has little recourse to switch providers. This could lead to higher costs for her small business and potentially alienate her customers due to poor online experiences.

Meanwhile, in urban areas with more ISP options, businesses may remain relatively unaffected, further increasing the urban-rural digital divide.

This example highlights how the court’s decision could disproportionately impact those in remote regions, reinforcing the need for state-level protections or alternative solutions to ensure fair internet access.

Now, Mike and Lucas here are going to talk about both sides of this argument—the other side being where we need more innovation in the field, an opportunity for more people to be innovative and to create solutions around this ruling.

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Mike Collins:
The last one is, again, kind of Amazon, really… I think this is the bigger story of drones. We talked about this a little bit—2025 being a year of robotics. CES had a bunch of consumer stuff that looked super interesting.

There are clearly now robots that are going to come out at the $1,000 to $2,000 range that will be able to do things in your home—providing security, providing simple task management. These things are coming. I think they’re going to be affordable.

I think delivery—again, some of this is happening, and we’re probably a little behind what’s going on in China—but the ability to get food delivery from a drone to drop it on your porch exists there much better than it does in the United States. But Amazon has some stuff coming, and the percentage of Americans who get stuff from Amazon on a weekly basis is enormous.

So, I think 2025 is the year where… In 2024, we started to see Waymo robotaxis. And for people in San Francisco and a few other markets that have experienced them, they love them.

You look at market share for Waymo in San Francisco—it’s growing really, really fast. And a lot of things that start in California bleed to the rest of the country. That just says in five years, that’s in Des Moines, and in 10 years, it’s everywhere.

So, Waymo was the story of self-driving taxis in 2024. I was out in Vegas and was starting to see them. I think 2025 is when you’re going to see drone delivery starting to appear—again, in a few markets, anecdotal, weird stuff happening that’ll make local news—but I think 2025 is going to be the year when you’re going to get your stuff dropped on your porch.

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah.

Sam:
So, let’s talk about Waymo, the autonomous driving company that’s been redefining how we think about transportation. Their journey from experimental tech to practical innovation is nothing short of remarkable.

Waymo vehicles have now covered over 40 million miles on public roads, including operations in urban hubs like San Francisco and Phoenix. In fact, in 2024, Waymo saw a 30% year-over-year increase in ride requests across its operational cities, with over 250,000 monthly users opting for self-driving rides.

So, what’s fueling this growth? Waymo’s ability to operate efficiently in complex environments is what’s fueling it. Recent reports highlight their Phoenix operations, where 80% of rides are fully autonomous with no backup driver on board. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, they’ve seen significant adoption with 50% of rides autonomous—a huge leap compared to just two years ago.

Waymo’s impact is expanding beyond the consumer market as well. Partnerships with logistics companies are piloting autonomous delivery and freight services, contributing to Waymo’s $2 billion revenue forecast for 2025.

So, whether it’s commuting, delivering packages, or simply navigating city streets, Waymo is accelerating toward a fully autonomous future. And it seems like 2025 is shaping up to be the year where self-driving truly becomes mainstream.

Lucas Pasch:
I think 2025, on Waymo—I think 2025 is the year where, at least in San Francisco, you have more Waymo rides by volume over the course of the year than you do driven Uber and Lyft rides. I think it’s—

Mike Collins:
You look at the charts, it’s just happening, right?

Lucas Pasch:
Yeah. And for Amazon and the drone delivery program, what a testament to how much effort and resourcing this takes.

Jeff Bezos first announced Amazon’s drone delivery program—I think it was a 60 Minutes episode in 2013—and it felt like a really big, audacious claim, this symbol of Amazon’s obsession with pushing boundaries. But it took over a decade to materialize.

I think this is the year, 2024, where the FAA shifted its guidelines about letting Amazon operate its drones out of sight. So, it officially made it possible for them to take this on, and they’ve been launching in Arizona and Texas. I think they’ve already sent—they say—thousands of packages in those two states. There’s not a lot of detail, but they’re finally taking flight.

They have a lot of ground to cover for coming down the cost curve. The New York Times did a big exposé on their program just a few weeks ago. I think they could only operate like seven drones inside of an hour right now, and it’s one package at a time.

Mike Collins:
Yeah, it’s sucking.

Lucas Pasch:
But it’s happening though, and it’s cool to see them take flight.

Mike Collins:
No, and again, I think it also points to a couple of things. One is—listen, we all believe in capitalism. We hate monopolies, we want innovators, but sometimes, things just take a lot of money and a lot of time.

And it takes an entrepreneurial persona who is going to be insanely committed and persistent and gritty to solve problems. Bezos falls into that category. For 30 years, he’s been willing to make big bets, big investments, do hard things, fail, do things that take a decade of trial and error, and stick with it.

And yeah, he’s one of the richest men in the world because he’s basically compounded a bet in one company over and over and over again for 30 years. I’m not deifying him or Musk or any of these guys, but I think you have to acknowledge that society gets moved forward by innovators and innovative companies doing hard things—and doing things that are more than just what’s going to make a quick buck for the next quarter.

So, I think when they solve, when they have breakthroughs like Waymo—again, think of the money, the time Google put into that to just make it work in one city—it’s enormous, probably beyond the capital of private venture capital.

It took a huge company willing to make a big-ass bet for a long period of time to see that, but that’s worth doing. So, hats off. Drones, AI, innovation—2025 is going to be an amazing year. Buckle up.

Lucas Pasch:
Buckle up indeed. It’s going to be a ride.

Mike Collins:
All right, we’ll do it again next week. Thank you, Lucas.

Lucas Pasch:
Thanks, Mike. See you.

Sam:
Thanks again for tuning into The Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d really appreciate it if you’d give us a rating on whichever podcast app you’re using, and remember to subscribe to keep up with each episode.

The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions. Please email us at [email protected] with any of those and be sure to visit our website at av.vc.

As always, keep building.