Mitali Pattnaik

This week's Waymo revelation hit differently for me. Turns out those "fully autonomous" robotaxis navigating Los Angeles streets? They're being remotely assisted by human operators in the Philippines during complex scenarios. Not occasionally. Regularly!!! It reminded me of Builder.ai's spectacular unraveling in 2021, when journalists discovered their "AI-powered app development platform" was actually dozens of human engineers in India manually writing code. The AI was mostly PowerPoint. And they're far from alone: Facebook's "AI" content moderation in 2018? Thousands of human moderators in developing countries watching traumatic content for $1/hour while the company publicly credited AI. Amazon Go's "Just Walk Out" technology? Required 1,000+ human reviewers in India checking transactions because the computer vision struggled with accuracy. They quietly phased it out last year. Google Duplex's restaurant booking demo in 2018? 25% of calls were actually made by humans. Even today, many "AI assistant" calls have humans in the loop. I'm not anti-AI. As someone who's spent years analyzing technology markets, I'm bullish on where we're heading. But here's what bothers me: the gap between marketing promises and operational reality erodes trust in genuinely transformative technology. When companies oversell AI capabilities: - They set unrealistic expectations for the industry - They exploit low-wage workers in developing countries while claiming automation - They make it harder for honest innovators to get funding - They delay necessary conversations about AI's actual limitations and ethical guardrails The irony? Waymo's technology IS impressive. Acknowledging human oversight doesn't diminish that—it actually makes their safety record more credible. But they waited until investigative journalists forced the conversation. *Here's my ask*: If you're building or investing in AI, be honest about what's AI and what's humans-in-the-loop. There's no shame in hybrid models. There IS shame in calling something autonomous when it manifestly isn't. The real breakthrough won't be perfect AI. It'll be building systems where humans and machines complement each other transparently, ethically, and effectively. What other "AI" companies have surprised you with the reality behind their technology? #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #TechEthics #AutonomousVehicles #Innovation #TechAccountability

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Even the most skeptical voices are starting to acknowledge the value of LLM generated code. Not as a replacement for deep expertise, but as a practical tool for acceleration, exploration, and iteration. When someone as famously disciplined about code quality as Linus Torvalds publicly acknowledges that AI generated code can be useful, it signals a shift worth paying attention to. The takeaway is not that AI writes better software than humans, but that good engineers are learning where and how these tools create leverage. https://lnkd.in/eFbNFqYN

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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Thrilled for OVNI Capital to be backing RIFT in a pre-seed round led by AlleyCorp (Luc Ryan-Schreiber). Rift is building the first real-time aerial intelligence network, a new layer of infrastructure for persistent, on-demand visibility where it matters most. This funding will scale production of their autonomous stations, accelerate deployment in high-stakes environments, and expand the team leading the next phase. 🗞️ Explore the full story: - StartupMafia: https://lnkd.in/dARrg25N - BFM Business (FR): https://lnkd.in/eADSUsn7 - Les Échos (FR): https://lnkd.in/eFG3zAy5 👨‍🚀 Join the mission → https://lnkd.in/erm_SrTG

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Owning your narrative is leadership. Last week in San Francisco, we gathered with AAF SF Bay Area to talk about positioning in competitive markets. Three themes emerged: Be memorable. Be clear. Be consistent. The market doesn’t reward talent. It rewards clarity. Grateful to everyone who showed up thoughtfully. #personalbrand #careergrowth #leadership

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Tech doesn’t have to be lonely. SMBs are expected to scale like startups and secure like enterprises—often with a fraction of the resources. That’s why mentorship and real-world guidance matter just as much as the tech stack itself. This San Francisco Business Times piece echoes what we see every day: tools are just one piece of the puzzle. What really drives growth? Clarity, community, and making intentional tech decisions that actually serve the business. Because strong tech foundations aren’t a luxury. They’re what keep your momentum moving forward. https://lnkd.in/epGKeQrE  #SmallBusiness #TechStrategy #SMBsupport 

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A few weeks ago, we spent time in the San Francisco Bay Area meeting founders, operators, and investors who are building at the frontlines of this shift. Across conversations with people like Aliisa Rosenthal, former Sales Head at OpenAI, Emily Cohen, Head of Operations at Cognition, Malte Ubl the CTO at Vercel, and Alfred Lin, Partner at Sequoia Capital, one theme kept coming up in operating discussions: The real AI advantage is not intelligence. It is reliability. Teams are no longer asking, “Can AI do this task?” They are asking, “Can this system run every day, without supervision, and still deliver predictable outcomes?” That shift changes how products are built. In many of these companies, the conversation has already moved beyond models and prompts. The focus is now on: • How decisions flow across systems • How data moves in real time between teams • How errors are caught before they become operational problems • How workflows keep running even when conditions change In other words - AI is becoming part of the operating layer, not an add-on feature. That lens resonated strongly with me because construction has always been an execution-heavy industry. If you’ve spent time on live sites, you know the challenge isn’t a lack of effort or intent. Contractors, engineers, and site teams are professionals who manage enormous complexity every day. The friction usually comes from systems that don’t reflect how projects actually run - fragmented information, delayed visibility, and decisions that arrive too late. Small gaps compound quickly: • A material delay turns into idle labour • A missed update turns into rework • A cash timing mismatch turns into project stress None of these are intelligence problems. They are system coordination problems. What I saw in the Bay Area conversations was a clear direction: AI is being used to close these coordination gaps: quietly, consistently, and at scale. Not as a mere feature. As operational infrastructure. Over the past few months, we’ve been taking these ideas and pressure-testing them against the realities of the Indian construction ecosystem: across projects, teams, and workflows that run every single day. The goal is simple: - Build systems that reduce surprises - Improve predictability, and - Help teams focus on execution instead of firefighting On Thursday, we will share the next step in that journey for Powerplay. More soon.

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Bezos reentering the arena as co-CEO of Project Prometheus signals a shift, elite founders formerly devoted to bits are now building atoms or AI for the physical economy, not just software. With $6.2 billion raised and nearly 100 researchers from Meta, OpenAI, and DeepMind, Prometheus aims to industrialize engineering and manufacturing with simulation-driven AI. https://lnkd.in/drkFdqzG

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Trying something new this week - a studio industry roundup with my take on what matters. The studio model is no longer an experiment being run in a handful of places. It is infrastructure being built across geographies, sectors, and institutional types. 5️⃣ stories from the past seven days:  1️⃣ OSS Ventures hit a EUR 40M first close on a EUR 75M follow-on fund -- capital raised specifically to back the 30 companies their studio created since 2019. The "build then fund" lifecycle is maturing. B'More Venture Studio with a similar thesis: studio operations first, then dedicated capital to scale what's working.  2️⃣ Delta40 raised $20M from 54 investors across 13 countries to launch Africa's first integrated venture studio and fund. The LP base is almost entirely DFIs and foundations. Impact capital is discovering the studio model as a deployment vehicle, something I seeing across geographies (conversations with Michael Bob Starr and Damias McDonald this week alone) 3️⃣ Start Holdings launched Start.vc out of NYC and Barcelona after a $200M EV infrastructure exit. Another operator-turned-studio-founder. This is the pattern we see quite often in our work at 9point8 -- experienced operators like Jason Goldsmith who've built and exited deciding the studio model is how they want to build next.  4️⃣ UBC HATCH admitted 10 new deep-tech spinouts for Winter 2026 -- mostly climate tech. University venture builders are quietly becoming one of the fastest-growing segments. Follow Evan Allen and Jaimie Testai to keep track of its rapid evolution.  5️⃣ The INVEST Act is advancing through the Senate. If passed, it expands qualifying VC fund size from $10M to $50M and loosens general solicitation rules for accelerator and university events. For studio-funds -- and for folks in the The Venture Studio Forum community tracking policy -- this could be the most significant capital formation legislation since the JOBS Act. If this roundup format is useful, I'll keep it going. What other noteworthy news hit your desk this week, and what stood out to you?

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This week, on Benchmark's new podcast Uncapped 😂, I sat down with Bret Taylor, founder of Sierra and Chairman of OpenAI. He's easily one of the most impressive people I’ve met in tech or in general. We talked about AI and the saaspocalypse, the unique considerations of building an AI native / agent company, whether young or experienced founders have the advantage right now, Codex and OpenAI ads, and much more. Learned a ton from Bret, hope you enjoy. https://lnkd.in/gFDcuYJ3

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