Author: Rex Woodbury

Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Overview: Rex Woodbury from Daybreak Ventures outlines key trends for early 2026 through 10 charts.

Key Findings:

(1) Newspaper stocks collapsed 5 years before earnings declined; SaaS stocks are now replaying this scene;

(2) 84% of humans have never used AI, and only 0.3% have paid;

(3) The usage duration of AI applications has surged, competing for time with Netflix and TikTok;

(4) Healthcare accounts for 15% of U.S. employment, driving nearly 100% of job growth;

(5) The secondary market runs parallel to IPO/M&A;

(6) Gen Z's "Financial Nihilism": the average age of first-time homebuyers is 40, better to take a gamble;

(7) Retatrutide (Eli Lilly's new drug) could be a trillion-dollar peptide;

(8) The gaming market is $200 billion, with Roblox user engagement exceeding Steam + PS + Fortnite;

(9) Anthropic agent calls are 50% in software engineering;

(10) Citrini's research report triggered market panic selling – we live in a meme economy.

The full text is as follows:

It’s that time again: time for another edition of the "10 Charts" series.

I try to do this quarterly, and we’re overdue: the last issue was in October. This is our 11th issue (!), you know the rule: I'm a visual learner, and charts help me process information. Charts are also an effective way to showcase how the world is changing.

We will cover 10 charts spanning a wide range of topics:

1. Newspaper stocks vs. earnings
2. Still in the first inning
3. AI application usage duration
4. Healthcare driving employment
5. Secondary market reshaping VC + employee returns
6. Gen Z: the last generation in the alphabet
7. Peptides and Reta
8. Gaming status
9. Calling for more agent calls
10. Citrini sell-off

Without further ado...

Newspaper Stocks vs. Earnings

This chart shows the comparison between newspaper stocks and earnings. You can see that the stocks plummeted about five years before the earnings decline, indicating that the market saw the writing on the wall before it appeared on the income statement.

Source: Twitter; thanks to Emily Man for sending

Of course, there’s some timing distortion here; the decline in forward earnings coincided with the Great Recession. But it seems directionally accurate that the market foresaw the internet disrupting newspapers. We are seeing this again now, with SaaS stocks plummeting last month ahead of AI disruption.

As we wrote last week, SaaSpocalypse (SaaS apocalypse) takes time to unfold. I attended a panel discussion this week where a panelist remarked, "Campbell Soup Company isn't going to vibe-code their own CRM," which is a clever saying. But the market is pricing in a final reality: software profit margins are compressing; the "new normal" is a 70% gross margin rather than a 90% gross margin.

On the topic of AI taking a long time to unfold...

Still in the First Inning

This is a cool visualization of where we are in the AI adoption cycle. Each point below represents 3.2 million people. There are 2,500 points, totaling 8.1 billion people.

• Gray = 6.8 billion who have never used AI
• Green = 1.3 billion free users
• Yellow = 15-35 million paid users
• Red = 2-5 million coding users

Source: Noah Epstein on Twitter

About 84% of the world has never used AI, and only 0.3% (!) have paid for AI products. This is the best visualization of "we're still early days" I've ever seen.

AI Application Usage Duration

In the previous edition of 10 charts, we looked at ChatGPT's "smile curve":

From that article:

This chart commits what I call "y-axis crime," meaning the y-axis misleadingly does not start at zero. But in this instance, the y-axis crime actually hurts ChatGPT! When you realize that the worst groups approach the line (and then "smile") at ages over 40, the curve looks even better.

These types of curves are usually reserved for markets or social products with network effects, which means they improve as more users join the platform (for example, Uber improves with more density of riders/drivers, or Instagram improves as more of your friends are on the app). For a single-user product without social features to have this kind of retention is impressive.

In addition to improving retention, AI applications are also seeing improved engagement. This is a visual that shows this trend line:

Overall, this is a very impressive growth in usage.

In 2017, Netflix's Reed Hastings had a famous saying: Netflix's biggest competitor is sleep. Netflix's business is to absorb more and more viewing time (more viewing time = better subscriber retention + willingness to pay), so naturally, sleep conflicts directly with the business model.

We are now seeing media usage time leveling off at about 12.75 hours per day:

The increase in AI usage must come at the expense of time spent elsewhere. Perhaps Claude's biggest competitor is sleep? I also imagine Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, etc., are watching the AI usage charts above with vigilance. A half-hour spent on Gemini is a half-hour not spent watching short videos. AI tools are clearly not just Google replacements; they are also social + content products. Just wait until generative media truly starts to take off; we will see existing large companies' engagement metrics face enormous pressure.

Healthcare Driving Employment

Healthcare is the largest employment category in the U.S., accounting for about 15% of employment. Healthcare is the engine behind almost all job growth. Take a look at this chart:

Overall, healthcare will drive about 40% of new jobs over the next decade. Meanwhile, the single fastest growing job in the U.S. is “home health aide,” driven by a rapidly aging population (with 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day).

Healthcare benefits from several major tailwinds:

1. LLMs are well-suited for healthcare management, which is a trillion-dollar market, as healthcare relies on language to operate.
2. Consumers are increasingly willing to measure, personalize, and spend on their health.
3. Telemedicine is expanding healthcare access, driven by new regulations expanding coverage post-pandemic.
4. Our population is aging and becoming sicker. "Silver tsunami," etc.

Many healthcare jobs are also "AI-protected," and I believe this means we will see more young people entering the field.

Secondary Market Reshaping VC + Employee Returns

This is an underrated shift in venture capital. The secondary market now runs parallel with IPO and M&A exits:

Source: Tomasz Tunguz on Twitter

This changes the game for early funds like Daybreak and startup employees. The liquidity timeline is compressed. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see multiple returns to funds by selling shares in growth-stage financing rounds. This is not a new phenomenon – IA Ventures' Roger Ehrenberg has publicly discussed selling about 2.5 million shares of The Trade Desk in a secondary sale to return capital to LPs – but it is becoming more common.

For employees, they no longer have to wait over 10 years to see some liquidity. Clay and ElevenLabs each completed two tender offers in the past 12 months, while Anthropic is currently undergoing a $6 billion (!) tender offer. The latter will undoubtedly impact the San Francisco real estate market.

Gen Z: The Last Generation in the Alphabet

Kalshi reported over $1 billion in bets on Super Bowl Sunday, a year-over-year increase of 2700% (!). Here’s a chart on Super Bowl pre-predictive market trading volumes showing a 1205% growth within six months:

These markets are new and controversial. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt abruptly ended a briefing in early January, raising insider trading concerns:

During the Super Bowl, my partner placed a small bet after Cardi B appeared on stage for her performance with Bad Bunny. Then he lost that money, and Kalshi claimed that the performer had to sing to be considered a "performance." This led to at least one person filing a complaint with the CFTC. It’s the Wild West!

But despite the controversy, I believe predictive markets are here to stay. Last fall, we wrote in Speculation Nation about the forces behind the rise of predictive markets. That article focused on empowering technologies colliding with Gen Z behaviors, including the rise of FAFOnomics (FAFO = Fuck Around and Find Out).

My friend Jackson Denka wrote an interesting article this week called "Financial Nihilism or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Market". He referred to Gen Z as "the last generation in the alphabet," which struck me. Some statistics he cited:

• The unemployment rate for U.S. college graduates in 2025 is 9.3%, higher than during the Great Financial Crisis
• The wealthiest 1% of households own nearly 30% of the nation’s total wealth
• The average age of first-time homebuyers is now 40 years

No wonder we are becoming a speculative economy? If upward economic mobility is Sisyphean, why not bet everything for a chance at wealth? Note: this is not a good thing, but I think it's one of the defining currents for the next generation.

Peptides and Reta

Amidst the AI hype, it’s easy to overlook other seismic shifts. One area I’ve been spending a lot of time on: peptides, which are starting to gain mainstream attention.

Peptides are amino acid chains that function as signaling molecules in your body. The most well-known peptides are Ozempic and Wegovy, which are brand names for the peptide semaglutide. The peptide market is booming, as consumers show genuine interest and willingness to pay. My friend Khushi articulated it well in this tweet:

Our first investment in 2026 is a peptide company System Labs, which launched last week. Unveiling the mystery of peptides for everyday consumers, becoming a trusted source for reliable and safe peptides in the U.S., shows great potential.

You can see the expected market growth here:

The most underrated drug right now is Retatrutide, or Reta. The Reta being developed by Eli Lilly is a triple agonist drug, while Ozempic is a single agonist; this is a fancy way of saying that Reta targets three receptors: GLP-1, GIP, and Glucagon. This means the drug enhances satiety, improves insulin sensitivity, and increases metabolic rate (fat burning). Ozempic only addresses GLP-1, which mainly focuses on appetite reduction.

Reta is a potential trillion-dollar drug. Here’s a chart showing Reta's weight loss:

Source: CTCD

Looking forward to hearing more about Reta soon.

Gaming Status

Matthew Ball recently released a lengthy report on the state of gaming. Here are some highlights:

Gaming continues to be the largest media category, with annual spending at $200 billion, which is greater than the total of movies + TV + music. After a brief decline post-COVID, growth has resumed:

Mobile is driving most of the gaming growth:

Despite market growth, venture capital funding has decreased significantly since the post-COVID peak:

AI will reshape gaming, although this hasn’t really happened yet (we are still primarily at the text stage of AI). Soon, game generation rather than rendering will become the norm, opening up new possibilities for narrative + world building.

Returning to our earlier point about AI applications competing with sleep and Netflix: we might also see AI applications encroach on gaming time. This tweet resonated with me:

The most impressive company in gaming remains Roblox, driving a large portion of gaming growth:

Roblox now has 150 million daily active users, and you can see that the share of users over 13 is growing particularly fast:

Roblox's average engagement now surpasses the sum of Steam + PlayStation + Fortnite.

Calling for More Agent Calls

This is an interesting chart showing Anthropic agent calls across various industries:

Clearly, there are huge opportunities for agents beyond software engineering. Or as Garry Tan put it:

As for what will happen to jobs in these categories: I believe the workforce impact will take longer to realize. We have written here extensively about the Jevons Paradox. To give another example, here’s a great visual from Coatue regarding ATMs:

People believed ATMs would destroy bank teller jobs. Instead, from 1970 to 1988, the number of bank tellers increased by 81% and enjoyed 40 years of stable growth.

Citrini Sell-off

Another week, another viral blog post. This week is a Substack article from Citrini that triggered a market sell-off:

What’s crazy to me is that a casual article about the future, with no factual or data basis, can trigger such widespread market panic. To me, this is a sign that (1) the market is overheated, looking for reasons to correct, (2) we are officially in a meme economy.

I found this article quite naive. Fintech and market companies are harder to disrupt than the Citrini article suggests. DoorDash's Tony Xu has a great response.

The true revelation of the Citrini sell-off event: No one knows exactly what will happen.