Satya Nadella discusses Microsoft's massive AI infrastructure build-out, the transition to AI-driven business models, and the company's multi-pronged strategy for navigating competition, in-house model development, and the geopolitical landscape of AGI.
Gavin Baker, CIO of Atreides Management, and David George, General Partner at a16z, provide a macro view of the AI landscape. They discuss the trillion-dollar data center buildout, compare the current AI boom to the 2000 telecom bubble, analyze the competitive dynamics in AI infrastructure between Nvidia and Google, and explore the evolving business models for AI applications and the future of SaaS.
Alex Rampell of a16z explains how software is evolving from digitizing records to performing labor, shifting the industry's focus from the $300 billion SaaS market to the $13 trillion labor market. This transition, accelerated by AI, is forcing a change in business models from seat-based pricing to outcome-based pricing, creating new opportunities and expanding the total addressable market.
Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, discusses the transformative impact of AI on search, enterprise business models, and cybersecurity. He explores the shift from search to agentic AI, the challenges and opportunities for enterprise adoption, and how AI is fundamentally compressing cyberattack timelines while enabling new, data-centric defense strategies.
Box CEO Aaron Levie discusses the paradigm shift from cloud to AI, arguing that AI will augment jobs by automating non-strategic work and create massive opportunities for startups to tackle previously unsolvable problems with unstructured data. He covers the evolution of SaaS business models, the 'build vs. buy' debate, and offers key advice for founders in the AI era.
Chris Best, cofounder and CEO of Substack, joins a16z to discuss the platform's origin, its cultural impact on free speech and media business models, and its evolution from a newsletter tool to a full-fledged creator network. The conversation explores the future of media in an attention-scarce world, the role of AI in content creation, and how rethinking algorithms and incentives can build a healthier cultural ecosystem.