a16z
a16z|Sep 30, 2026 15:04
a16z's David George, Sarah Wang, Alex Immerman, and Santiago Rodriguez on the State of Markets, from AI and infrastructure to the next investment cycles: 1. Tech is the everything cycle. High-tech equipment, software, and R&D are now about 55% of US capital spending, and the AI buildout just passed the railroads as a share of GDP. The five largest hyperscalers will spend about $780B on capex this year, heading past $1T in 2027, and demand still outstrips supply at every point in the chain. 2. It's an earnings story. Stocks are up about 20% while multiples are down about 20%, and the S&P trades under 20x earnings. The market is up 90% since ChatGPT, on 15% earnings growth. 3. AI adoption is broad and shallow. 69% of the S&P 500 has a live AI deployment, 30% report a quantified result, and just 2% have AI doing a job they'd notice if it stopped. The power users are pulling away: the top 1% of AI spenders spend eight times the top 10%. 4. The private markets are enormous. Six private companies, Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Stripe, Waymo, and Revolut, add up to about $2.4T by last round, more than every IPO of the past decade combined. "The founder is the asset class. The IPO is another financing event." Plus: why a data center can lower your electricity bill, what Amazon saying no to Muse and Instacart saying yes tells you about marketplaces, and the seven areas the team is most excited about next. 0:59 Charts from State of Markets II 2:59 Tech is the everything cycle 4:56 Is it a bubble? 6:31 Hyperscaler CapEx: $1T next year 12:12 CapEx is someone else's order book 14:36 Data centers can lower your bills 17:06 OpenAI and Anthropic vs. some of the best software companies ever 18:22 Enterprise AI: 69% adopted, 2% measured 20:32 The top 1% spend 8x the top 10% on AI 24:36 Spending on AI for growth or for savings? 28:46 Only 2% of households pay for AI 31:36 Amazon blocks Muse, Instacart welcomes 36:16 Software traded growth for profit 42:56 6 startups vs. a decade of IPOs 45:46 Why employees are turning down liquidity 48:44 Seven areas they're excited about YouTube: https://youtu.be/lr3hNhA0IfQ @DavidGeorge83 @aleximm @santiago__rdz @sarahdingwang
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