Ai As An Underwriting Filter And Defensibility Lens
Oren Zeev disputes the claim that AI will broadly kill incumbents, arguing incumbents often have superior data and can benefit if they adapt quickly.
Oren Zeev disputes the common VC anti-portfolio narrative by arguing that seeing a deal does not imply one could have gotten allocation, so repeated appearance of the same great deal across many anti-portfolios can be unrealistic.
Oren Zeev disputes that growth expectations have fundamentally changed, arguing the compounding math is unchanged and the key question is sustainability and health of growth.
Macro And Capital Markets: Stimulus, Confidence, Regulation, And Dealflow
David Solomon warns that increasing multipolarity raises the risk of a geopolitical shock that slows growth compared with the post–Cold War era.
Goldman Sachs was the largest wholesale funder in the world 10 years ago and has since prioritized reducing reliance on wholesale funding toward more stable sources.
David Solomon says Goldman spent about $6B on technology last year and could not spend $8B without reducing returns, implying efficiency savings are needed to increase investment while maintaining performance.
Crypto Financial Infrastructure Stack And Moats
BitGo originally believed it could build a SaaS-like crypto service used primarily by banks, brokers, and financial institutions, but later concluded that thesis was naive because adoption is harder when the product is money and includes many novel elements.
BitGo began IPO preparation in January 2025, interviewed about eight banks, filed a confidential S-1 around September, iterated with SEC comments, and then publicly filed ahead of the roadshow.
BitGo claims its IPO timing delay was primarily due to an SEC shutdown starting October 1 rather than to crypto-market liquidations or market spookiness.
Market-Structure-Shift-To-Curation-Layer
Morpho's design goal is to isolate risk at the vault and asset level so users are exposed only to risks they explicitly select rather than system-wide pool contagion.
Protocols tend to keep distribution-partner fee splits private because public disclosure would likely trigger fee race-to-the-bottom dynamics.
DeFi lending needs broadly accepted third-party risk ratings to benchmark yields so users do not treat different APYs as comparable risk.