Andrew Grauer

For decades, software made people more productive. But AI eliminates the need for humans to perform work altogether. That shift matters more than most AI discourse suggests. We’re moving from hundreds of billions in SaaS spend to trillions in labor spend. And in the midst of all this, AI is quietly coming for the services industry. A new business category is emerging: AI-native services These businesses have software-like margins but still offer customers a high-touch services orientation as well as accountability for specific outcomes. Often they charge a fraction of the cost of their traditional peers, have radically shorter turnaround times and yield better outcomes. If you’re interested in the full argument, why this is happening now, where it shows up first, and how to tell durable AI-native services from hype, check out the full essay on Substack. https://lnkd.in/d-J2S_bw

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Education has long been a challenging space for VCs to invest. From products that use shallow game mechanics in traditional lesson content to try to trick kids into learning, to the uphill battle education startups face in selling to schools that increasingly have restricted budgets to support new classroom products. That’s why we’ve been looking for a founding team that approaches the space differently and is ready to challenge these constraints. Additionally, in today’s climate of concern around screen time, schools and parents often see technology as something to shield children from, rather than as a tool to enable better learning outcomes and have a greater positive impact on a child’s education. At Patron we believe that it has never been more important to take advantage of breakthroughs in technology to empower kids to learn more effectively and actually enjoy the process. And that the classroom, where children spend most of their early learning years, is the best place to introduce this technology. That’s why we were so excited to connect with Jinseo Park and Sohan Choudhury when they sought out to meet with investors with a strong consumer background, who really understood the nuance of building products both students and teachers would love. And why we’re thrilled to team up with our good friends at Basis Set to co-lead the Series A for Flint, a personalized education platform reimagining how kids learn and unlocking great teaching for students anywhere, everywhere. As a father of two elementary school-aged daughters, I am especially inspired by Flint’s vision of creating student-facing, AI-native experiences. Their starting point includes dynamic worksheets, personalized study apps, and assessments. But the roadmap goes much further, with interactive roleplay scenarios and group projects powered by LLMs that open up new, engaging ways for kids to learn both in class and at home. Flint’s model is designed to scale. Beyond its early traction, we see the platform evolving into a full ecosystem: a marketplace of content, interactive experiences, and tools across every subject. The more schools and teachers adopt Flint, the more valuable it becomes, as best practices and innovative modules are shared back across the network. Looking ahead, we believe every classroom should have access to the best possible teaching — a blend of subject expertise and personalization that meets kids where they are and tracks their progress in real time. Flint has the potential to democratize that access and solve the shortage of high quality teachers across all subjects which exists worldwide. That’s why we don’t see Flint as just another edtech company or an AI tutor. It’s building for the next generation of AI-native students—kids who will use technology not just to learn, but to think, create, and explore in entirely new ways.

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Gregory Raiz and Izabella (Bella) Pivo are building something genuinely valuable through FoundersEdge: rooms where founders and investors can skip the performance and talk candidly about what is actually working. The idea that stayed with me: one buyer, one workflow, one wedge. Especially in enterprise AI, focus and trust are how you earn the right to expand. Grateful to be part of the first SF lunch. If you value high-signal founder conversations, keep Founders Edge on your radar. Thank you Greg and Bella for bringing this community to SF, and Puya Vossoughi and Mercury for supporting it!

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My biggest takeaways from Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (ex-Chief Business Officer at Stripe, currently Vercel COO): 1. What failed seven years ago now works with AI. In 2017, Jeanne tried to build a system at Stripe that would automatically personalize outbound emails based on company data. Despite working with world-class data scientists, it failed due to too many errors. Today, that exact same approach works. This shows how AI has made previously impossible ideas suddenly viable. 2. A single GTM engineer at Vercel reduced a 10-person sales team to 1 (in just 6 weeks). Jeanne’s team at Vercel had an engineer build an AI agent that handles inbound lead qualification, outbound prospecting, and deal loss evaluation. The agent costs $1,000 per year to run versus over $1 million in salaries for the sales team. The nine displaced team members moved to higher-value work rather than being laid off, and the remaining salesperson is 10 times more efficient. 3. Their AI deal-loss agent has become better at understanding what went wrong than humans. When Jeanne analyzed her biggest loss of the quarter, the salesperson blamed pricing. But an AI agent reviewed every email, call transcript, and Slack message and discovered the real reason: they never spoke to the person who controls the budget, and when ROI came up, the customer clearly didn’t believe the value claims. They are now using AI to analyze sales calls in real time and send alerts like “You’re halfway through the sales process and haven’t talked to a budget decision-maker yet.” 4. Wait until $1 million in revenue before hiring your first salesperson. Founders should continue selling themselves until they reach around $1 million in annual revenue with a repeatable process. The key is having a defined ideal customer profile—customers who look alike. 5. Segment customers on what drives their buying decisions, not just company size. OpenAI has roughly 3,000 employees, which would typically put them in the “mid-market” category. But they’re a top-25 website globally by traffic, so Vercel treats them as enterprise customers requiring complex sales. Effective segmentation combines company size with growth rate, web traffic, workload type, and industry—because selling to e-commerce companies requires completely different language than selling to crypto companies. 6. Most customers buy to avoid risk, not to gain opportunity. About 80% of customers purchase to reduce pain or avoid problems, while only 20% buy to increase upside. This means you should focus your sales messaging on what could go wrong without your product—like falling behind competitors or damaging their reputation—rather than just talking about exciting features. This is especially true when selling to larger companies, where individual careers are on the line. Full conversation: https://lnkd.in/gj47Efek

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This week in EdTech, Ben and I cover: - The WIRED takedown of Alpha School and what it reveals about AI-based education - Microsoft and Google’s new K–20 alliance for responsible AI - Chegg Inc. cuts 45% of staff amid AI disruption - Kaplan launches AI tools built on 85 years of learner data - Mem0 raises $23M to build a universal AI memory layer - The California State University’s OpenAI deal sparks new debate on Big Tech in HigherEd Plus, special guests: - Rebecca Winthrop & Jenny Anderson, co-authors of The Disengaged Teen, on student agency, engagement, and the four learner modes - Justin Reich, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Teaching Systems Lab, on AI in Schools: Perspectives for the Perplexed and how educators can experiment safely Listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/exai8Xje #EdTech #AIinEducation #FutureOfLearning

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