Young Founders and the Evolving SMB Market in AI

Charley Ma, co-founder and Managing Partner at Pathlight, joins us to unpack the changing landscape of AI adoption across SMB and enterprise segments. He shares why the most promising vertical AI startups are being led by younger, first-time founders—and why these teams are winning by building fast, iterating directly with customers, and delivering products that “just work.”

We also dive into Pathlight’s thesis on govtech as an emerging AI opportunity. Charley explains why local governments are more ready than ever to adopt new tech, how procurement barriers are changing, and why this is a once-in-a-generation opening for builders in the public sector.

Finally, we cover Google’s launch of Veo 3, Anthropic’s new Claude 4 models, OpenAI’s $7B data center loan, and Mozilla shutting down Pocket.