Episode summary
Blumberg Capital's David Blumberg on AI Agents, Venture Capital, and the Next Fortune 500 Companies
How I Invest With David Weisburd
· · Hosts: David Weisburd · Guests: David Blumberg
Summary
David Blumberg argues that agentic AI is still in the first inning, but it will reshape how white-collar work gets done by automating repetitive tasks like logging in, security checks, transfers, and other back-office workflows. He compares the shift to agriculture and other productivity revolutions, saying that more efficient tools can eliminate waste, raise output, and ultimately create new kinds of jobs rather than simply destroy work.
He focuses on B2B agentic AI because that is where the biggest inefficiencies and the most valuable proprietary data sit. Blumberg points to companies in his portfolio such as Overview, Trulioo, and Telen AI as examples of the hidden infrastructure behind autonomous business transactions: computer vision on factory floors, identity verification for agents, and one-click audit workflows that can unlock daily reconciliation and new credit products. He argues that vertical software companies with unique data will have durable moats because generic LLMs cannot easily replicate complex process knowledge.
Blumberg also says the market is underestimating how large this opportunity could become. He claims agentic AI could make the software market two or three times larger over time as wages get converted into software-like spend and productivity gains. At the same time, he argues that human relationships remain essential, especially for small venture firms and founders building the next generation of Fortune 500 companies.
Key takeaways
- Blumberg says agentic AI is still early, but it can automate routine white-collar tasks and materially change how work is done.
- He argues the biggest opportunities are in B2B workflows where proprietary data and complex processes create defensible vertical AI businesses.
- He says companies like Trulioo and Telen AI are building the infrastructure for identity, audit, and financial trust in an agent-based economy.
- Blumberg expects AI to increase productivity and wages over time, not just eliminate jobs, much like past industrial shifts.
- He believes the next Fortune 500 companies are being built now, especially by teams closest to universities and new technical talent.
Notable quotes
“Agentic AI is liberating us from the drudgery of mundane work. I'll give you one example, cut and paste”
“The first time a user interacts with that data, as small as it is or if it's substantial, the data is increased because of the user interaction”
“Most people think, oh, the large LLMs are going to take over everything. No, they're going to become, I think, a little bit more like AWS, Azure, and and other cloud vendors”
“The next Fortune 500 companies are being created right now, and many of them will be in vertical domains where they are masters of complicated processes”
How the episode opens
David, you're a founder and managing partner of Bloomberg Capital, and you're going all in on AI agents. Why is now the right time to do that?
Agentic AI is liberating us from the drudgery of mundane work. I'll give you one example, cut and paste. How many of us do that over and over and over, and it's so mind-numbing, and it's it's not very productive.
So, the agent, the agentic worker for you, can do a lot of that kind of stuff, the logging in, the security protocols, the money transfer, ba ba ba ba ba. It it goes on and on, and that we're just at the first inning of this game, and in the next 10 20 years, I predict that the work world will be entirely changed.
There's essentially two narratives in the market about AI. One is it's going to take everyone's job, and everybody will be jobless, and the other one is that there's going to be 10 times more jobs. Where where's the ground truth?
You talk about ground truth. That's why I started with agriculture. I mean, most people don't know this. I think it's a fun fact. Remember, 250 years ago, 95% of Americans worked in agriculture or the rural economy. Today, do you know what that percentage is?
Less than 1%. — It's about that. I think it's one between one and two percent, and and falling. So, all those people, quote unquote, lost their jobs, and yet we produce far more food, much more nutritious, much safer, um with far fewer accidents in the farm world, uh and that cost of food as a percentage of our worker daily wages is much lower. And we export to the many countries in the world. So, we do a lot more with less.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai agents
- agentic ai infrastructure
- venture capital
- proprietary data moats
- vertical ai and data flywheels
Companies and tickers mentioned
- NTNX
- BRZE
- DV
- TRUU
- CHKP
- TROW
- Blumberg Capital
- Nutanix
- Braze
- DoubleVerify
- Trulioo
- Check Point Software Technologies
- Claridge
- Apax Partners
- Adler & Co.
- T. Rowe Price
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from How I Invest With David Weisburd
-
Hunter Walk: Why Venture is Getting Harder, Picking Great Founders, and Investing Against Consensus -
True Anomaly’s Even Rogers on Space Warfare, China’s Military Advantage, and the Defense Tech Boom -
Finding the Next Anthropic, Quantifying Venture Capital, and the Science of Picking Winners -
Why 95% of AI Projects Fail, Anthropic still at $2T?, and Why AI Is Still in the First Inning -
Peter Thiel's 27-Year Partner on the AI Bubble, the Venture Capital Crisis, and the PayPal Mafia -
Why Venture Is Eating Public Markets, Picking Great VCs, and the AI Boom w/Brijesh Jeevarathnam
How I Invest With David Weisburd, this episode and its artwork belong to David Weisburd. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
