August 22, 2024

On the battlefield

Hi there,

Here is this week’s Hot or Not.

Hot: AI in defense

The battlefield is being transformed by AI.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e., drones) have taken to the skies to support surveillance, supply transportation, precision strikes, and other missions.

Meanwhile, autonomous tech is also making its way to the ground, ocean surface, and underwater domains.

For example, 15+ companies on this market map are working to develop unmanned surface vehicles — vessels designed to perform military and security missions without a human crew onboard.

Discover how AI is disrupting defense via unmanned vehicles, geospatial intelligence, and beyond in our AI in defense tech market map.

Not: Unicorn births

The magic has fizzled out in climate tech, digital health, and insurtech.

In H1’24, climate tech did not see a single unicorn birth (i.e., a private company reaching a $1B+ valuation).

Digital health and insurtech didn’t see any new unicorns in the first half of 2024 either.

Dive deeper into the downturns in the following reports:

• State of Climate Tech Q2’24
• State of Digital Health Q2’24
• State of Insurtech Q2’24

Hot: Swole CEOs

Companies with CEOs that lift weights or compete in fighting sports are killing it vs. the S&P 500, according to a very rigorous recent analysis. 

That includes Zuck's Meta (sample based on X user @levelsio’s analysis of Google images).

Brian Chesky (Airbnb), who says he deadlifted 585 lbs in his early 20s, and Brian Armstrong (Coinbase) asked to be added. 

Move over, MBA. The new path to the C-suite? More sets and fewer spreadsheets.

Source: X

Not: Search dominance

Google (who didn’t make it into the Deadlift ETF fwiw) is facing the heat. 

Earlier this month, a US judge ruled that Google was illegally maintaining an internet search monopoly. 

It’s also being pushed to lean into AI to defend its position, rolling out AI Overviews to users in the US in May. 

Google faces a new crop of AI search players — notably led by the unicorn Perplexity. 

But can Perplexity actually threaten Google? We look at the strategies the startup is using here.

The +1

More y-axes. Just weird. 

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

P.S. Our analysts are diving into Google's and Amazon’s fintech strategies on September 19. Register here.

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