1/ Millions of small businesses, from law firms to medical practices, still spend hours manually processing unstructured data—faxes, emails, PDFs—to enter into industry-specific systems of record.

We call this the "messy inbox problem" and AI is stepping in to fix it. A 🧵: 2/ Replacing this historically judgment-intensive work with LLMs is quickly becoming one of the most effective wedge strategies when building AI-native applications. Why is that the case?

1/ Excited to share our latest @a16z piece on the biggest prize yet to be claimed at the intersection of Healthcare x Fintech! 2/ Most healthcare providers are flying blind when it comes to their finances. Once a provider treats a patient - many don't know how much they'll be paid, when they'll get paid, and if that payment is more or less than they're owed... this is true for providers large and small

1) A new generation of private market exchanges will bootstrap liquidity through software. I expand upon this thesis "Come for the Tool, Stay for the Exchange" in a new essay that just dropped on @future. future.a16z.com/liquidity-priv… 2) We've seen dramatic growth in private market assets (up over 10X to $6T) in the last 20 years. This has been driven by low interest rates, companies staying private longer, the need for diversification post GFC, and a general outperformance of private assets vs. public markets

The most common issue with "innovation" at big companies is the belief that anything new needs to address a very large TAM. 1/ This comes from recognition that for a new initiative to move the needle it ultimately needs to be able to achieve very significant ($1B+) revenue scale. 2/

I am thrilled to share that I am joining @a16z as a General Partner based here in NYC! It’s been over a decade since @pmarca coined his famous phrase - “Software is Eating the World” and this couldn’t be more true in financial services.

Schwartzman's three tests for starting a business:

1)"It’s as hard to start and run a small business as it is to start a big one... If you’re going to dedicate your life to a business, which is the only way it will ever work, you should choose one with the potential to be huge.” 2) "Second, it should be unique. When people see what you are offering, they should say to themselves, “My gosh, I need this. I’ve been waiting for this. This really appeals to me.” Without that “aha!” you are wasting your time."

One of the interesting trends that I think we’ll see more of over the coming years is the intersection of traditional private equity and disruptive technology companies. In many ways - it’s the “financialization” of the tech industry. We’re seeing this play out most often with fragmented, legacy services businesses where companies are rolling up smaller fragmented players (at low multiples), raising equity (at high multiples) and building better software to operate more efficiently...