"They've Got This Handled"

The same VC fallacy, recycled every decade since 1999

This week, we’re talking:

• VCs have been saying “I’m sure they’ve got that on lock” since 1999. They’ve been wrong for 27 years. 🥱🔁📉

• The Daylight Principle is real and unforgiving. But so is the lazy consensus that kills companies before they start. 🤖⚡🧠

• A federal judge told the Pentagon its Anthropic blacklisting “looks like an attempt to cripple” the company. Ya think? ⚖️🤖🏛️

• The FBI doesn’t need a warrant. They’ve got data brokers. 📱🕵️📍

• FISA 702 expires April 20 and FBI searches of Americans jumped 35% last year. Democrats might save the surveillance state anyway. Call your senator? 🔍🐘🐴🏛️

• OpenAI killed Sora six months after launch. The $1B Disney deal is DoA. Capital discipline has entered the chat. 🎬💀💰

• New Mexico just hit Meta with a $375M verdict for endangering kids. First state to win at trial. Jury took less than a day. 👧⚖️💸

• The White House wants to override 38 states’ AI and privacy laws in one fell swoop. . 🏛️🤖📜

• Software stocks have shed nearly $1 trillion since January. Wall Street thinks AI agents are coming for SaaS. 📉🤖💼

• CFOs are budgeting for fewer humans this year. 502,000 roles on the chopping block. Admin goes first. 📊👔✂️

My Take:

In 1999, if you walked into a venture capitalist’s office with an idea for a company, you likely heard a variation of the same theme: “Cool but I’m pretty sure Oracle is going to do that.” Or: “I’m 100% certain Microsoft’s got that covered.” The message was clear: Hang up your cleats. The big guys have this handled.

By 2009, the refrain had updated its cast but not its logic. I was building Krux, and if only I had a quarter for every time I heard, “I’m certain Google’s doing that.” “I’m certain Google’s got that on lock.” I saw slides from Google in 2010 that described exactly what we were building. They were out there saying it and selling it, and a lot of VCs heard that and moved on. “Wrap it up, Google’s got this bagged up.” A smaller player sold early to Adobe, and a chorus of VC’s told us the same thing: “Adobe’s got this.”

Except they didn’t.

But now here we are in 2026, and this shit is getting tiring. “I’m certain Anthropic’s got that on lock.” “I’m positive OpenAI is going to do that.” Same fallacy, new logos.

The long arc of tech and innovation tells the same story: nope, they don’t have the whole thing on lock. They never do. And upstarts keep creeping in, spoiling their best-laid plans.

So maybe it seems like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth. A few weeks ago I wrote about the Daylight Principle: the argument that the models are going to eat a lot of people’s lunch.

Forty Years of the Wrong Floor Plan

And now this week: quit losing your shit, the model isn’t going to eat everybody’s lunch.

Both of those things are true, and we can hold them in our heads at the same time without our brains exploding. The velocity of AI is genuinely different, and you cannot be nearly as cocky or complacent of a founder as you might have been in prior eras. You’ve got to be way more paranoid. But the lazy consensus, “I’m sure they’ve got that,” leads somewhere just as dangerous. Founders who never start and investors who never write the check.

The truth is a lot more interesting than either pole.

The oligopoly is not going to stay put. Microsoft is already disentangling from OpenAI, spreading bets across models and infrastructure. They are not going to be dependent on the kindness of strangers to do the whole thing. Benioff is doing what Benioff does: fuck it, I’m buying Slack. Fuck it, I’m buying Tableau. Oracle is hedging. Nvidia is... well, Nvidia requires its own story. (More on that in a second.) These companies have different interests, different ambitions, and different reasons not to let a single platform winner take the whole board. They’re not going to sit around and wait for things to just happen to them.

Back when Intel was the undisputed king of chips, their CEO Craig Barrett got on the phone with Jensen Huang. “Hey, we want to buy your company.” Barrett makes the pitch: “We have the dominant CPU. You have the winning graphics chip. It just belongs together.”

And Jensen said: “I’m not going to be your fucking graphics chip.” Click. Hung up.

That’s some baller shit right there.

Fast-forward to today. Nvidia is not playing by the old supply chain rules. They’ve got CUDA. They’ve got an open-platform strategy. Jensen refused to be a well-behaved little chip player who minded his place and his lane. He chose to do the whole fucking thing. He didn’t compete within the existing map. He redrew it.

Which is to say, you can’t weed out the human dimension. The long arc of tech tells us the oligopoly always fractures. The behemoths never have it all on lock. And the founders who refuse to accept their assigned place, the Jensens of the world, keep showing up to spoil the best-laid plans. (Which by the way, is what OpenAI did to Google.)

So if you’re hearing “I’m sure they’ve got that” right now, take it seriously. Examine it. Ponder it. Make sure you’re building with the Daylight Principle in mind, because the waterline is real and it is unforgiving.

And then remember that VCs have been saying the same boring thing since 1999. They’ve been wrong about this for 27 years. Keep cranking. Keep building.

☕ MY STACK

Federal Judge Rips Pentagon Over Anthropic Blacklisting: “It Looks Like an Attempt to Cripple Anthropic” VIA CNBC 🏛️⚖️🤖

Anthropic refused to let the military use Claude for autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance. The Pentagon slapped hem with a “supply-chain risk” label normally reserved for foreign adversaries like Huawei. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin wasn’t having it: “I don’t know if it’s murder, but it looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic.” A ruling could drop any day now.

Sources: CNBC · NPR · Axios

Your Data Is Everywhere. The Government Is Buying It Without a Warrant VIA NPR 📱🕵️📍

Data brokers sell your cell phone location data — where you sleep, worship, protest, get medical care — to ICE, the FBI, and the Pentagon. No warrant needed. Sen. Ron Wyden asked FBI director Kash Patel if he’d commit to stop buying Americans’ location data. Patel declined. Congress gets a chance to close this loophole when FISA 702 comes up for reauthorization on April 20. Don’t hold your breath… but maybe call your Senator?

Sources: NPR

OpenAI Kills Sora, Tanks $1B Disney Deal VIA Hollywood Reporter 🎬💀💰

Six months after launch. Downloads cratered 75%. Disney walked away from a $1 billion licensing deal — no money ever changed hands. OpenAI is consolidating GPU resources around ChatGPT and enterprise as the arms race with Anthropic and Google intensifies. Sam Altman stepped back from direct safety oversight to focus on fundraising and data centers. Even OpenAI can’t fund infinite experiments. Capital discipline has arrived in AI.

Sources: Hollywood Reporter · Axios · Variety

Meta Hit with $375 Million Verdict for Endangering Children — First State to Win at Trial VIA CNBC 👧⚖️💸

A New Mexico jury deliberated less than a day. $375 million in civil penalties. The state AG sued after an undercover operation — a fake 13-year-old’s profile was “simply inundated” with predatory solicitations. This is the first time any state has beaten a major tech company at trial over child safety. Phase two starts May 4 to decide whether Meta funds public programs to address the damage. Meta says it’ll appeal.

Sources: CNBC · NPR · NBC News

White House Unveils AI Legislative Framework — Wants to Preempt All State AI Laws VIA CNBC 🏛️🤖📜

The Trump admin told Congress to override 38 states’ AI laws and keep regulation “minimally burdensome.” Translation: don’t let Sacramento tell OpenAI what to do. The framework would block states from regulating AI development, imposing liability on developers for third-party misuse, or “unduly burdening” AI deployment.

Sources: CNBC · Roll Call · CNN

Wall Street Is Convinced AI Will Kill SaaS. History Says Otherwise VIA Fortune 📉🤖💼

Software stocks have shed nearly $1 trillion in market value since January. The thesis: if AI agents can handle procurement, HR, compliance, and back-office work, the per-seat SaaS pricing model cracks. Zoom tumbled 11.5% in a single session. Bank of America’s Vivek Arya calls the selloff “indiscriminate” and “logically inconsistent.” Whether he’s right or wrong, the repricing is real.

Sources: Fortune · CNBC

CFOs Admit AI Layoffs Will Be 9x Higher This Year — but Still a Fraction of Doomsday Predictions VIA Fortune 📊🤖👔

An NBER survey of 750 CFOs: 44% plan AI-related job cuts this year, up from near-zero last year. That’s roughly 502,000 roles — a 9x increase but still 0.4% of the workforce. Admin and support roles go first. The shift from “AI might replace jobs someday” to “we’re budgeting for fewer people this year” is the inflection point. The doomsayers and the deniers are both wrong. The truth is in the middle.

Sources: Fortune