In this special episode of the MAD Podcast, Matt Turck and Aman Kabeer from FirstMark delve into the AI market from a venture investor perspective, in the final weeks of an incredibly packed and exciting 2024. They comment on their favorite news stories, such as OpenAI's record-breaking $6.6 billion funding round and the massive $200B investments in AI infrastructure by Meta, Google, and Amazon. They tackle the latest trends in funding and valuations in both public and private markets, debate the critical question of whether we're in an AI bubble, examine the current state of AI demand, the potential of scaling laws, and the future of AI-driven innovation. They then discuss where they see opportunities for startups and investors across AI hardware, compute, foundation models, AI tooling, and both consumer and enterprise AI applications.

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

Aman Kabeer (Investor)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-kabeer/

X/Twitter - https://x.com/AmanKabeer11

(00:00) Intro

(02:20) The Year of Record-Breaking Evaluations and Investments

(05:23) AI's Environmental Impact and Nuclear Revival

(06:48) AI Valuations and Market Dynamics

(17:01) Are We in an AI Bubble?

(25:01) AI Progress and Demand

(35:06) AI's Role in Consumer Applications

(41:02) AI's Influence on SaaS and Business Models

(50:55) AI's Role in Enterprise Transformation

(01:04:00) The Future of AI: Apps and Agents