MBI Deep Dives

MBI Deep Dives

Some charts that caught my attention

a16z recently published their “State of Markets” presentation. I will share some of the charts from the presentation that caught my attention. First of all, I do want to highlight a key limitation of a16z’s data; they mention that the presentation only includes data voluntarily provided to a16z by

The Bull Case for AI Content on UGC Platforms

Yesterday, Ben Thompson interviewed Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters. I don’t cover Netflix, but this particular bit on “AI Slop” caught my attention: Ben Thompson: Is AI slop going to save you? If it overwhelms the UGC platforms and basically it’s like you’re a refuge, so this is

The Case for Giving Employees More Agency in Compensation

Whenever software companies take a beating in the market, their elevated stock based compensation (SBC) becomes a talking point between bulls and bears. As the stocks tumble, some atypical investors start to look at SaaS companies and often get dissuaded pretty fast after taking a look at their excessive executive

The Great SaaS Debate

Software is having one of its periodic identity crises. Instead of writing yet another think piece on the future of SaaS, let me curate today a wide range of point of views that I came across on this debate which I think will help you think through the high pitched

The Slow Singularity

I often come across almost a steady stream of tweets from people mostly in tech (and sometimes in finance) that imply you have a very short period of time left to “escape the permanent underclass”. These tweets have a tinge of humor and warning associated with such an outlook of

Incentives > Intelligence: The Real Barrier(s) to Agentic AI

A few days ago, I came across this reels through which I got to know about Amazon’s new “Buy For Me” feature. This feature, however, created some controversies. From Modern Retail: “Amazon’s “Buy For Me” feature allows users to purchase products from third-party websites without leaving Amazon’s

The Misunderstood Utility of Search Ads

I have been increasingly noticing an overwhelming negative perception on search ads. Ben Thompson often mentions how search ads can feel like skimming the advertisers as Google collects rent on economic activity that would likely happen anyway. Notice this piece from 2022: “…oftentimes search ads feel like a rake on

TSMC's Green Signal

A Programming Note: I will take a personal day tomorrow, so there won’t be any new post tomorrow. TSMC’s 4Q’25 call was quite reassuring for AI bulls. Many investors look at TSMC as an important barometer for assessing the cycle as TSMC is deeply incentivized to ensure

Airbnb: Inbound Headwinds, AI Moat Question, and a CTO Shakeup

The travel industry has received some not-so-encouraging news in the last couple of days. First, Skift reported that international travel to the US went down for eight consecutive months. Overall overseas visitation to the US fell 2.5% in 2025. With this year’s Football (Soccer) World Cup in sight,

"File over App", Veeva at JPM Healthcare Conference

Back in 2023, Steph Ango, CEO of Obsidian, wrote an intriguing piece titled “File over app”. It’s a bit philosophical piece. Some excerpt from the piece: “File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in