▶ 93:00 · AI Agents · Computer use models leap from 30% to 95%+ accuracy unlocking legacy system automation

episode briefing

John Gruber, Kyle Kuzma, Brad Gerstner

2026-05-29 · 15 company · 10 thematic

sentiment

14 bull1 bear0 neu

speakers

Founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, a technology investment firm, and host of the BG2 podcast. Known for concentrated growth bets and widely-read public memos on big tech.

ron

Former DeepMind researcher and Windsurf (acquired by Google DeepMind) founder; left $2B acquisition proceeds to start Trajectory; building continual learning platform for AI agents with $15M from Conviction.

zayn mountcastle

CEO of Pico Grid, defense technology company building integration layer for autonomous military systems; raised $45M Series A from Bessemer; 7x production scaling; contracts with Pentagon and NATO.

jamie

CEO of Pace, AI operations platform for insurance industry; raised $46M Series B from Driving Capital/Emergence/Proven; 100% pilot-to-production rate; customers include Credential, WW, Convex, Palomar.

now playing · AI Agents

Defense Techtailwindscore 8/10zayn mountcastle

Military integration bottleneck acute; Pico Grid 7x production, allied demand expanding

Autonomous systems (sensors, drones, robots, weapons) face critical integration challenges; Pico Grid's open infrastructure layer solves this for Pentagon/NATO with 7x production scaling in…

AI Agentstailwindscore 8/10jamie

Computer use models leap from 30% to 95%+ accuracy unlocking legacy system automation

Pace's insurance agents now automate green-screen CLIs, desktop apps, and legacy web apps via computer use models. This breaks the API integration bottleneck for enterprises, enabling end-t…

Enterprise AI Adoptiontailwindscore 8/10brad gerstner

Early innings: coding penetration low, knowledge work near zero; optimization coexists with 50-90% spend growth

Altimeter's 300-firm survey shows enterprises actively optimizing token spend but still projecting 50-90% YoY API growth because coding adoption is just starting and knowledge work automati…

AI Economics & Business Modelsmixedscore 8/10brad gerstner

Software multiples reset to market (22x); token-flow companies get AI premium, competitors face below-market risk

Software multiples compressed from premium to market multiples (~22x GAAP). Companies in the token flow (Snowflake, Databricks, ClickHouse) see query growth exceeding token growth and earn…

Grid & Power Infrastructureriskscore 9/10brad gerstner

Data center moratorium would thrust US into recession and cede AI leadership to China overnight

All US GDP growth comes from data center buildout driving AI productivity. Moratorium would cause recession, high unemployment, and immediate loss of global AI race to China (100 fission re…

Nuclear Energyheadwindscore 8/10brad gerstner

China building 100 fission reactors vs 1 in US; clean energy deficit threatens AI buildout

Activists shut down nuclear in US while China scales aggressively. Data centers require massive baseload power; nuclear is the only viable clean solution at scale. US regulatory capture on…

AI Infrastructuretailwindscore 9/10brad gerstner

Token-constrained world: no dark GPUs, physical limits on intelligence production

Unlike 2000's dark fiber, every GPU and token is fully utilized today; Google, Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic all report token constraints limiting revenue. Memory/logic wafers, power…

Semiconductorstailwindscore 9/10brad gerstner

Memory/logic wafer scarcity creates structural bottleneck; Nvidia at decade-cheapest multiple

Token production is gated by memory wafers (Micron/Hynix single-digit multiples) and logic wafers (Nvidia 13x earnings for 70% growth). Physical supply constraints mean semiconductor capex…

Space Economytailwindscore 8/10brad gerstner

SpaceX evolving into full-stack AI compute: Starlink distribution + EWS + orbital data centers

SpaceX's unique ability to turn electrons into tokens at scale (Cursor, Anthropic deals) transforms it from launch provider to AI infrastructure platform. Elon Web Services (EWS) monetizes…

Venture Capitalmixedscore 7/10brad gerstner

Series B/C frozen; early stage capital flows to token-flow companies, growth stage 'too hard'

Traditional software Series B/C ($5-15B valuations) have no takers because AI disruption risk is unpriceable. Altimeter focuses early stage on token-flow (compute, semiconductors, data cent…

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