AI Ascent 2025

• AI-native companies grow faster, more efficiently; incumbents face existential choice.
  • Sequoia framing: “Accelerate or Die.”
• Coding achieves “screaming product-market fit”; gen AI retention rates improving.
  • Sonya Huang: “token maxxing” is the corporate survival strategy.
• Every software revolution preceded by a hardware revolution.
  • Shaun Maguire: most AI capital now flowing into hardware, not software.
• Services are the new software; next $1T company sells outcome, not tool.
  • Alfred Lin: intelligence is not zero-sum — “there is really no price on intelligence.”
• AI breaks org structure by measuring how work actually happens.
  • Jack Dorsey: management layer is the problem AI is dissolving.
• Pat Grady: “tremendous sucking sound” in market — go at maximum velocity.
• 100+ top AI founders/researchers; several sessions held off the record.

X discourse

• @buccocapital: “AI-native companies grow faster, more efficiently. Existential moment for incumbents: Accelerate or Die.” (1127 likes)
• @tbpn: “Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire: most money in hardware over 25 years. ‘Every software revolution is preceded by a hardware revo’” (938 likes)
• @sourceryy: “Sequoia’s Alfred Lin: ‘it’s not a zero-sum game. There is really no price on intelligence.’” (16 likes)
• @IsabelleBiscuit: “Sonya Huang at Sequoia: ‘We all should be token maxxing’ for corporate survival.” (4 likes)
• @Lehenchuk_J: “Sequoia: services are the new software. Next trillion-dollar biz sells AI outcome, not tool.” (0 likes)

Team Sequoia (Grady, Sonya Huang, Buhler, Alfred Lin, Shaun Maguire); guests: Altman, Jensen Huang, Jeff Dean, Bret Taylor, Mike Krieger · 2025-05-08 · Read on sequoiacap.com