Abhishek Jain

As we stand on the brink of 2025, the world's technology, infrastructure, AI, Data, Cloud, Crypto, venture and everything else in tech are poised for a transformative year. I am excited to share my predictions for 2025 — insights that I believe will guide us through the next wave of innovations as important as the internet and smartphones. Together, let’s explore the trends that will not only guide and influence our thinking and investment strategies but also inspire us to create a better world through entrepreneurship. Here are a few predictions 💡💡💡: -  Imagine the creation of HealthGPT, BioGPT, NuclearGPT, LogisticsGPT, GovGPT and more - Establishment of a US Bitcoin Reserve by the end of 2025 - SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe, SHEIN, Databricks, Canvas, Chime, Anduril, and Scale AI are anticipated to go public - 50% of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) new hires are from Silicon Valley. #prediction #2025 #venture #funding #M&A #DOGE #bitcoin #AI #GPT #IPOs #exits #startups #venturecapital #USmarket #databricks #chime #anduril #scaleAI #OpenAI #stripe #spaceX #bytedance #canvas Read more on my Substack  👉 👉 👉

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It seems that every week another CEO announces that they are no longer doing 1on1 meetings… At first, Jensen Huang (CEO of Nvidia) announced he doesn’t do 1on1s. Then others from across the tech world started to do the same: Zeb Evans from ClickUp  Karri Saarinen from Linear  Howard Lerman from Yext I also started experimenting with 3-person meetings instead of my weekly 1on1s (every other week). There seems to be a new trend - a shift in meeting practices. Meetings are important, but you’ve got to be purposeful about how you meet. Anyone else experimenting with removing 1on1 meetings?  Or is this trend doomed to end?

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Instacart is a market leader when it comes to leveraging AI tools to boost productivity at work. I had an amazing conversation with JJ Zhuang, Instacart’s Chief Architect, who has shepherded over 50 AI-driven initiatives to market across the org. We explored what catapulted Instacart to the forefront of AI integration, supporting radically diverse use cases across various functional areas. One striking insight (echoed by Ethan Mollick and others elsewhere) is that you often don't need specialized tools for specialized work. Frontier models like GPT-4 can seamlessly adapt to a wide range of functions and use cases. They're not just for engineers; they're incredibly versatile tools used by marketing, comms, and legal teams. From generating code to proofreading and ideation, GPT-4 empowers every department to leverage AI for enhanced productivity and innovation. By integrating LLM’s like GPT-4 into their workflows, teams can streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock bandwidth for new creative possibilities. How can you harness the power of AI in your own work to boost productivity? Share your thoughts below 👇 Want to hear more insights from JJ? Check out the full podcast episode by clicking the link in the comments.

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Grammarly just acquired startup Coda (last valued at 1.2bn) with a goal of a possible IPO. This could be a big move in productivity, especially for product teams. Coda CEO Shishir Mehrotra was recently on Lenny's podcast (first comment below). https://lnkd.in/gmgfcm2P

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Reflections from Day One of SF Tech Week: Relationships at the Core It’s only day one of SF Tech Week, and I’m already absorbing so much. The energy here in San Francisco is unmatched, but what really stands out isn’t just the groundbreaking tech—it's the conversations and the people behind the innovation. Grabbing a beer with Puya Vossoughi, a friend and the biggest advocate of the “relationships come first” mindset, reminded me that even in the most tech-driven environments, it’s the human connections that propel us forward. AI and Responsibility Today’s session on "Disruptive Technologies: Balancing Opportunities and Risks in AI" hit home for me. As we push the boundaries of AI at Konfront, especially in the fintech space, I’m more aware than ever of the need for balance. Innovation is exciting, but it also comes with a responsibility to build ethically. The discussions here have reinforced that the true power of AI lies in using it thoughtfully, ensuring it benefits people without compromising their trust. The Future of GTM: Staying Lean and Ready for Change The talk on lean Go-to-Market strategies for 2025 was a timely reminder of how important it is to stay flexible. With Konfront’s Product as a Service model, we’ve seen how quickly the landscape can shift, and this week is proving once again that agility is key. No matter how solid the plan, being able to adapt to changes is what will keep us ahead. AI Beyond the Usual Suspects AI’s application in the construction industry was a real eye-opener today. It got me thinking about how innovation can—and should—expand beyond the usual sectors. There’s incredible potential in industries we might not immediately associate with advanced tech, and this broader perspective is something I’m eager to explore back home. Inclusivity and Building Ecosystems The session on inclusivity and the importance of diversity was a highlight. Being part of both the U.S. and Latin American tech ecosystems, I’ve always believed that diverse perspectives are crucial to sustainable growth. SF Tech Week is a powerful reminder that creating inclusive spaces isn’t just about representation—it’s about fostering innovation that stands the test of time through meaningful collaboration. This is just the start. I’ll be sharing more insights as the week unfolds, but today’s takeaway is clear: While technology evolves rapidly, the relationships we build are what give it meaning. Here’s to more conversations, more connections, and more learning in the days to come.

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Thanks to Taylor Soper and GeekWire for asking the questions! I asked ChatGPT and Claude what they think of my predictions for 2025.... ChatGPT: Ken, you nailed the AI prediction—agents are definitely coming for our boring tasks, but if you’re hoping they’ll take over your meetings, we’ll see how that pans out. Your skepticism on crypto feels like a safe bet; it’s the trendy tech with a lot of bluster, but not enough muscle to transform the world just yet. As for remote work, I agree that it's not going anywhere, but predicting it’ll morph into a “flexible utopia” is like predicting everyone will suddenly love pineapple on pizza—possible, but not guaranteed. Solid overall, but maybe leave room for the remote work revolution to surprise us! Claude 3.5 Sonnet: Ken, you've got a pretty solid crystal ball there, especially on the AI agents trend and the analytics companies needing to evolve or die. Your take on remote work playing it safe (basically "same as 2024") was probably the most boringly accurate prediction - like choosing "water" as your favorite beverage. I think you underplayed the potential crypto comeback after the Bitcoin ETF approval, and your biotech AI prediction feels a bit early - we're still figuring out how to get AI to reliably order lunch, let alone design drugs. Next year, I'm turning to the LLMs for my predictions 🤣 Great to see smarter people in the article thinking in similar ways Erik Benson, Heather Redman, Sri Chandrasekar and Kyle Lui 👏👏 On to 2025!! https://lnkd.in/gUf63kRZ

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Curious about what it’s like to work at Google and manage teams that impact millions? In this episode, I sit down with Kanad Das who shares his incredible journey from Microsoft to Google. Kanad provides an insider’s perspective on leading teams and driving impact at one of the most powerful tech companies in the world. What We Cover in This Episode: * Navigating Complex Organizations: How to master strategies for thriving and making an impact in large, multifaceted companies. Interviewing at Top Tech Firms: Insights into the importance of behavioral interview preparation and how to stand out among tough competition. * Staying Ahead in AI: Must-know resources and tips to keep your skills current and future-ready. * Crafting Your Narrative: The art of creating a personal story that demonstrates depth, trust, and certainty, setting you apart as the ideal candidate. Why You Should Listen: If your career vision includes working at a tech giant or enhancing your product management skills, this episode is packed with practical insights and actionable advice from someone who’s been there and succeeded. Kanad’s strategies can help you turn interviews into job offers and chart a course for long-term career success. Podcast: https://lnkd.in/grB_ptpi Youtube: https://lnkd.in/g69ADm7R

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Congrats to Vultr on raising $333M from AMD and LuminArx Capital, achieving a $3.5B valuation. Impressively, this is Vultr’s first-ever capital raise, having been fully bootstrapped and funded by operating cash flows. It’s a great example of a disciplined growth strategy, which minimizes dilution and compounds equity returns — nail the business model, prove out ability to scale with attractive unit economics, and THEN (perhaps) use outside capital to accelerate growth. #AI #Cloud #CapitalMarkets #VC

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My cofounder Saumil goes on the Stack Overflow Podcast to deep dive on AI Agents! He goes into detail how we leverage AI agents to power automated workflows to accomplish the most complex tasks. Including agents firing off tasks to other agents to tackle the details. Need an agent to verify your work? No problem. Give it a listen and let us know what you think!

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Hey folks, I think you might be aware that what we're building at DeepCast includes a podcast discovery and exploration platform for listeners at www.deepcast.fm. We also recently unveiled www.deepcast.pro -- a promotions, marketing, and monetization platform for podcasters (and folks like networks and agencies who support them). "You make the shows, let us help you with what comes after." Shows claimed and processed via DeepCast Pro are also published for listener consumption on DeepCast. High value all around! If you're a podcaster, claim your show at www.deepcast.pro to get started. Free speaker-labeled transcripts for all your episodes as well as generated insights for each (key takeaways, quotes, topic & keyword sets, summaries, and more) plus many more features—and growing daily! We're shipping fast over here! (Thanks to Rachel Perez Hosna Qasmei Kim Burgaard Benjamin Moon Rachel Magana Hari Ramachandran!)

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AI, Longevity and Love - how are they all connected? They make each other better and are essential to each other’s success Lots of fantastic discussions about how AI will bring out the best in humans including augmenting our time and ability to connect at DOC in Napa and Wisdom 2.0 in SF this past week. Huge thanks to Jordan Shlain, MD, Kevin Ryan and John Battelle for organizing leaders across traditional medicine, longevity, academic research, and biotech and Soren Gordhamer and Mark Hyman, MD for bringing together the best of AI and longevity AI shows incredible promise for healing humans and increasing longevity, here are my key takeaways from these events: We can live to 95 today if we focus on longevity and healthspan, there are biotech solutions using AI to epigenetically reprogram cells to reverse aging and disease that will enable us to extend lifespan by 20+ years but it will take for these to be real Fun to see Mark Hyman, MD interview Eric Verdin, they both discussed how they lowered their biological age by 10+ years and feel the best ever There are so many simple things we can do, walking 30 minutes a day reduces cardiovascular, alzheimer’s and cancer risk by 40% but 80% of the US doesn’t even do this Within 5 years we will have a whole new set of FDA approved psychedelic drugs for depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. Immunotherapies will also expand so we can avoid chemo and living cancer free will be in reach We need the US to move to a functional medicine, integrative care model and get out of this sick care model, this level of innovation is more likely to come from upstarts, the incumbents have too much revenues to lose in this transition AI will not replace physicians, instead those physicians that don’t use AI will be replaced. 50% of physicians are burned out, AI can help! Fantastic connecting with so many brilliant minds, including Mark Hyman, MD, Eric Verdin Neal Khosla Laura Esserman Abby Levy Sheila Lirio Marcelo Leonard Zon Arjun Desai David Eagleman Lois Quam Vinod Khosla Emi Gal and many others #healthcare #longevity #ai

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Interesting conversation between Jason Calacanis and Tekedra N. Mawakana Mawakana, CEO of Waymo (Google's self-driving project).... (Paraphrased) Jason Calacanis: Why are you not testing your Waymo self-driving on highways? You seem focused primarily on city environments like San Francisco, yet in my experience being a tesla-owner from the very beginning (and using both auto-pilot and then full self driving) it is better on the highways. You seem to be taking the opposite approach. Is it because speed kills? Tekedra: Our mission is safety and to get to Level 4 driving (the highest level of autonomous driving, no driver behind the wheel, no drivers' license) and so we’ve made a deliberate decision to focus on crowded urban environments because that is the hardest problem. Anything that doesn’t contribute to our getting to Level 4 is not interesting to us (not intended, but could be back-handed compliment to Musk 🙂) You don’t learn anything new self-driving on the same boring monotonous highways. --- Great point! #waymo #allin #selfdriving #google

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Can probabilistic models, like LLMs and Nate Silver's election forecast model, ever truly be perfect, with no errors? According to Nate Silver: "We don’t talk about it much, but there’s a small amount of error introduced into the model because it’s probabilistic rather than deterministic. The margin of error on 40,000 simulations is about ± 0.5 points of win probability for either candidate; after 80,000, it declines, but only to ± 0.35." Sounds like a familiar refrain around Infactory as we discuss the limitations of LLMs... P.S. Vote!

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🤯 Imagine the CEO of the world’s hottest company says the next trillion-dollar opportunity is something your startup has already been delivering results with for over a year in stealth! #JensenHuang and #MarkBenioff have the world buzzing about #AIAgents. 🐝  But at #CalvinBallTech, we've been quietly delivering game-changing results with them for over a year!  🤫 Don't get caught up in the hype 🙅‍♂️ Stay tuned. CalvinBall Tech is about to come out of stealth, and we're bringing proven AI Agents that have already solved critical problems for real businesses. 💪 Here’s a quick couple of questions for anyone showing you fancy roadmaps and dazzling demos: Do they have proven results already? Can they start delivering tomorrow? Gurnoor Dhillon Ratu Nadiah KhairunnisaSahal ZainEva ZuliyaFaris -Yoga Wigardo Dharnesh GordhonAntoine de CarbonnelFrançois Walewski #AICanSolveThat #AISuperAgents #AIRevolution #FutureOfWork #EnterpriseAI #CalvinBallTech #StartupJourney  #CalvinballerCode

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#SanFrancisco VC Contact Database. Over 275 venture capital firms, more than 2,100 VC professionals (including partners and principals), and 1,600 email addresses available. https://payhip.com/b/idx8b #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

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Excited to build an AVS with the Sreeram Kannan, Nader Dabit & Eigen Labs! What does that look like? Imagine staking and re-staking on the agents or collective intelligence you’re most bullish on… Building a decentralized marketplace of AI agents is no small feat. To make it work, we need a robust validation system that ensures each node’s output can be trusted. For AI agents making requests across a network of nodes, every node has to prove its reliability. If nodes aren’t up to standard, domains—acting as routing agents—won’t permission their work. Nodes providing inference are incentivized to maintain strong performance and reliability. Each node that consistently delivers validated, high-integrity outputs is rewarded, establishing a marketplace standard. By leveraging trust from Ethereum through re-staking on EigenLayer’s Actively Validated Services (AVS), Gaia 🌱 is embedding trust into AI agents, enabling communities and DAOs to determine which nodes and domains are reliable enough to join the network. We're at the very beginning of this decentralized AI future state. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eP9sAenf

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NVIDIA tops the Axios Harris Poll 100, which ranks company reputations. FYI, this poll is done using this three-step process: 1. January 2024 Survey: 6,273 Americans identified the 100 most visible companies. 2. March 2024 Survey: 16,500 Americans rated these companies on nine reputation dimensions, creating a Reputational Quotient (RQ®) score. 3. May 2024 Surveys: Two waves of surveys provided additional context on brands and politics.

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