Exuberance is coming back to venture, but the real action is happening in public markets first. This episode breaks down where AI stops being a story and starts showing up in earnings, margins, and cash flow. It traces how liquidity returns, why precautionary thinking keeps missing incentive driven adoption, and which companies are positioned to capture real value as AI moves from experimentation into core workflows. This is a forward looking map of the next risk on cycle, grounded in incentives, accounting, and competitive pressure, not hype. If AI really is a platform shift, this is where the scoreboard lights up.