2026: the biggest year of M&A in history?

• 2026 poised for record M&A: Goldman CEO Solomon calls it history’s largest.
  • Rate cuts + fiscal stimulus + AI capex supercycle align simultaneously.
  • Q4 2025 BCG M&A sentiment index spiked across Finance, Tech, Healthcare.
• AI breaks the mythical man-month: capital now proportionally accelerates results.
  • First time in info age: more compute/GPUs = faster outcomes, not just more cost.
• Public companies structurally blocked from bold AI bets — Goldman equity base $110B.
  • Private firms freely burn capital for market share; public can’t.
• Enterprise AI adoption still early — banking at ~20% despite structural advantages.
• Value creation has shifted decisively to private markets over public.
  • Four largest companies contributed $400B spend = 1% of 2025 US GDP growth.
• Andy Grove principle: leaders must create winning conditions, not wait for them.

David Haber (a16z General Partner) · 2026-02-02 · Read on a16z.com