Mark Jung

Commoditized Magic 🪄 - post #2! 🎉🥳 What happens when software is magical, powerful, and ubiquitous, but also completely commoditized?! 🤔 The previous post (https://lnkd.in/e5pxckMN) ended with a cliff hanger 😱 - what are the moats in this new world? What are the opportunities we see for investments?! Check out the new updated deck: https://lnkd.in/eh7cYYKR tl ; dr; This short presentation presents a somewhat provocative view on how AI is fundamentally reshaping the software industry, suggesting it's 'eating' software, human labor, and ultimately, its own tail. Covering: * The contrast between the 'Old World' of rigid, costly software and the 'New World' of commoditized magic. * The emergence of agent-and-data marketplaces and the deflation of the SaaS stack. * A critical examination of whether traditional business moats will endure in this new landscape. * The new moats of data and expertise, and the new opportunities in complex high value automations, and disruptive AI technology It touches the future of software, business models, and what it means for startups, investors, and professionals alike. I hope it sparks valuable discussion! #ai #disruption #software #venturecapital #innovation

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I’m thrilled to share Earthshot Ventures most recent investment, Unlimited Industries! Unlimited is an AI-native construction company that both designs and builds. Its platform can generate and evaluate hundreds of thousands of design configurations in parallel, automatically identifying optimal layouts for cost, safety, and performance before construction begins. Why did we invest? Solving a real need we know well: Over the last decade, we have worked with hundreds of companies that are ready to deploy their technology, but struggle with slow construction timelines and cost overruns. Unlimited makes it feasible for emerging infrastructure companies to bring projects to life reliably and efficiently. Massive market potential: The EPC market is ~$800B. While this entire market is not addressable from day one, early adopters will pave the way for the mass market, enabling massive possible scale over time. Exceptional team: The company is led by Alex Modon, a repeat founder and multidisciplinary engineer. To accelerate the company, Alex teamed up with Tara Viswanathan and Jordan Stern, who previously built and scaled Rupa Health as the founder/CEO and first teammate respectively, from zero to millions in revenue before its successful nine figure acquisition in 2024. Software is eating the world, and AI will eat engineering: Software engineering is increasingly being augmented and automated by AI, aided by large repositories of coding data like Github. Other engineering disciplines will be transformed over time as analogous data sets are compiled and software encodes the operating principles of the real world. Companies that can create proprietary datasets, like Unlimited’s burgeoning catalogue of projects, will gain defensibility through data moats. Lastly, since a good portion of my network here consists of founders who could be customers of Unlimited and their investors, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say - hit me up if you’d like to connect with Unlimited to deliver your next project on time, on budget! Welcome to the Earthshot portfolio, Unlimited!

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Two weeks ago on Swimming with Allocators, we sat down with David Clark, CIO at VenCap, to talk about what decades of venture data can teach allocators. One takeaway that stood out: discounts don’t matter as much as people think in venture secondaries. Because venture is such a power-law asset class, outcomes are driven by exposure to a few massive winners. Whether a stake is bought at a small discount, or even a premium, often matters far less than the quality of the underlying company and its upside. Great conversation on venture returns, manager selection, and the nuances of how allocators should think about secondary investments. 👇 Link in the comments.

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