Why Did Menlo Go All in on AI?

Matt Murphy says Menlo put all its chips on the table when the AI wave arrived. Conviction inside the whole firm was incredibly high. The shift came shortly after the launch of ChatGPT, and he puts the timing at roughly six months before Menlo funded Anthropic.

Menlo had sat out crypto and had sat out VR, passes he treats as probably good moves. Crypto money was made, but in terms of real businesses a lot of trading companies were in the mix. The category was not for Menlo. The firm could not be all things to all people, and the AI wave was the moment for a full commitment.

Menlo was, in his view, the first firm to put out a market map of the AI infrastructure stack. Every technology wave brings a new infrastructure stack, and the map was internal thesis work to guide where Menlo should invest.