Undoubtedly, the output from LLMs, and the output from AI image generation software, appears like magic. There are a handful of "magical" moments I've seen with computing over the years. These include seeing real-time rendering and shading on a SUN station, seeing a rocket launched from one desktop appear on another player's screen in DOOM, and realizing that I was chatting with a real person on the other side of the world in some early internet chat room. Now these events are lost in time, and are as mundane as watching a jet engine spin and an airplane fly, which were magical in their own right in their time.
So, AI is the new technological sorcerer, and a flood of "AI companies" have now all replaced a flood of "blockchain" companies from merely 4 years ago. And with that, there will be new unicorns, decacorns, and companies so valuable we'll need to dig into the Pokedex to find a good name. However, those will be the exceptions. There will also be...thousands...of companies that embrace AI where it simply offers no value, or the company itself will provide nothing unique. Because of this, there's actually a risk that good data analytics companies get drowned out in the noise.
And I use that phrase intentionally. The vast majority of companies in Thin Line's portfolio are big data analytics companies. Get access to a large pool of data and use it to provide insights or predictive analytics that wouldn't otherwise be available. Then use this to target various climate verticals, such as the rise of renewable energy, the growth of EVs, the decarbonization of industry, or the increasing threats of climate change. That thesis has been consistent since the firm's creation in 2017. Very few of my companies are ones that I would want to be associated with the AI-hype, but that's simply because once you enter that storm of hype and noise, it can be very hard to stand out.
So, to all entrepreneurs pitching an "AI" company, please be clear up front what value you offer. Be proud of what you have built and don't hesitate to showcase it. Explain where you get your data, the improvements that come from your analytics, and the value you can bring to an industry. Those metrics have stayed consistent across hype cycles, and they will let investors and customers really appreciate what you've built. And what magic you've created.
