As transformative as those digital breakthroughs have been, there’s something even bigger on the horizon. We’re beginning the innovation transition from the digital world to the physical one.

Around us are signs that we’re entering the age of physical agents. These are not the simple robotic systems of the past, like automated vacuums and manufacturing robots. They’re the general-purpose systems that can actually think, adapt, and make decisions in real time. We’re talking about robots in every form you can imagine—from cars and delivery drones to humanoids—all acting with judgment and learning from experience.

Today’s breakthroughs in robotics are driven by the same core technologies behind language models. But while LLMs are trained on vast text datasets to predict the next word, robotic foundation models learn to predict the next physical action using video, simulation, and human demonstrations.

The promise is similar. Just as an LLM can predict the next word or sentence zero-shot or few-shot, that is, with little to no examples, robotic foundation models are beginning to show early signs of the same adaptability to predict the next physical action. They’re letting robots learn general-purpose skills and apply them to new tasks with limited or in some cases no extensive training. We’re already seeing incredible progress, from four-legged robots trained to complete parkour courses to humanoid systems that can load dishwashers and prepare food.

Despite their advancing technology, robotics present challenges that make them far more complex than language models. For one, while LLMs can be trained on internet-scale text, there’s no equivalent corpus of ready-made data for physical work. Each robot must learn from simulations, demonstrations, and real-world trial and error, which makes progress slower and costlier. Second, physical AI is inseparable from hardware. In language, text can be a standard input and output for models that are hardware agonistic. In robotics, inputs and outputs are hardware dependent. A robot may perceive the world through a variety of sensors and output control instructions to a diverse set of motors and actuators. This diversity makes it harder to define a standard input–output representation. Third, robots operate in an endlessly uncertain world. The physical environment is unpredictable and unforgiving, from navigating a cluttered construction site to carefully handling fragile goods in a warehouse.

At Obvious, we see massive opportunity in addressing these challenges, because the companies that do will lead transformative breakthroughs that touch every industry. Imagine solar construction crews made entirely of robots building clean energy infrastructure on a scale we’ve never seen before. In hospitals, bots could help restock supplies and even assist with surgeries. The jobs that are most ripe for automation are those that are dangerous, hard to fill, or that people just don’t want to do. Obvious portfolio companies Dexterity and Pyka are already using robotic systems to take on high-risk tasks, such as loading trucks in warehouses and spraying crops from the air, both jobs historically prone to high injury and fatality rates.

We’re optimistic about the future we can build with these systems, not just to create new companies and products, but to build a new kind of infrastructure that can transform every industry and unlock entirely new ones. We’re focused on the “nervous system” for tomorrow’s change agents, working with founders and innovators to build the systems that will work alongside us, help us grow sustainably, and take on tasks that were once off-limits to automation.

This week at TEDAI in San Francisco, in a “AI’s Next Frontier” session hosted by Obvious, I’ll be talking more about this next wave of robotic AI. I think this change will be bigger and faster than most people expect. We’ll also discuss the critical ways we manage this transition with foresight and moral responsibility.

For a deeper look at our outlook on robotic AI and other world positive technologies, you can find my upcoming essay in Obvious’ 2026 World Positive Report coming this fall.

In the meantime, follow me and Obvious on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on this and other exciting innovation frontiers.

The post Beyond Words: Why Physical AI Is the Next Frontier appeared first on Obvious.

But it’s also easy to see the cracks. The same system that fuels progress has also produced deep imbalances. It has widened inequality, strained natural systems, and often prioritized short-term gain over long-term resilience. In today’s world, shaped by climate disruption, economic volatility, and public health crises, it’s clear that the old model is no longer sufficient. Capitalism needs an overhaul.

The good news is that something better is emerging. At Obvious Ventures, the firm I co-founded in 2014, we call it World Positive Capitalism. It’s a new approach that embraces possibility over constraint, one that leverages innovation to substantially improve lives, and generates large profits as a result of that impact. Authors like Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson describe this as a future of abundance, where progress fuels not only growth, but long-term wellbeing for people and the planet.

I’ve seen this model at work throughout my career. At Patagonia, my colleagues and I helped prove that effective capitalism begins with high-quality products and an inspiring and authentic business model. In 2006, I worked with friends to help start B-Corp, a nonprofit guided by principles to recognize companies that were beneficial to our society. I’ve spent my life surrounded by evidence that innovative mission-driven companies can solve big and complex problems.

The idea behind World Positive Capitalism is not partisan. We’re living in a time of deep political division and economic uncertainty, where trust in institutions is low and bold action often meets resistance. There’s also growing tension between global imperatives, like climate action, trade imbalances, and supply chain resilience, and the need to deliver tangible, local benefits, like good jobs, stable communities, and shared prosperity.

And yet, this is exactly when a new framework is most needed. In this context, a new capitalism offers a unifying path forward, the kind all voters can get behind. For those focused on building strong economies and creating jobs, it provides a practical, innovation-driven roadmap. For those prioritizing equity, climate, and public health, it delivers real solutions. At its core, it’s about moving forward with boldness, optimism, and purpose, even when the path is contested.

World Positive Capitalism isn’t some far-off ideal. I see it already taking shape in budding companies across our economy. It’s real, it’s working, and it’s growing. To realize its full potential, we need to invest in it boldly and at scale, and we need to do it now.

SHIFTING FROM EXTRACTION TO ABUNDANCE

Traditional capitalism has largely operated on an extractive model, taking from natural resources, vulnerable labor, and communities without properly aligning incentives or considering long-term consequences. Even well-intentioned corporate efforts, like corporate social responsibility initiatives or Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) goals, often focus more on minimizing harm than maximizing potential.

World Positive Capitalism is different. It’s not about reducing risk, it’s about creating regenerative, compounding benefits. The shift requires rethinking how we define and measure success. Frameworks like Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness and Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, point to more sustainable and inclusive measures of progress. Instead of optimizing for short-term goals, like quarterly GDP growth, we need a shared long-term goal, something as unifying and ambitious as going to the moon.

We could think of this measure as a new kind of scorecard, something like a Global Flourishing Index (GFI). Not just a measure of economic output, but a way to track how well people and communities are actually doing. It could mix in things like health, education, environmental sustainability, and social resilience. The goal wouldn’t be perfection, it would be to ask whether growth is truly improving life.

The equation may be complex, but the underlying principle is simple: instead of exploiting the planet and its people, we invest in their renewal. Instead of cutting down, we cultivate and replant. Instead of extracting value and walking away, we build systems that replenish what they use. This isn’t the work of charities or nonprofits. It’s the future of capitalism. With the right incentives in place, the visionaries building this way won’t just change the world, they’ll be financially rewarded too.

THE THREE PILLARS OF WORLD POSITIVE CAPITALISM

To make world positive capitalism a reality, we need a framework that prioritizes sustainable growth. At Obvious, we divide this broad goal into three major pillars—Planetary Health, Human Health, and Economic Health—that overlap and intersect in a way that drives exponential progress.

Promoting planetary health means moving away from systems that deplete and constrain, like fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and throwaway materials, and toward ones that restore and regenerate. Clean energy, circular economies, and sustainable materials aren’t just better alternatives, they’re the foundation of long-term abundance.

Big challenges like climate change and environmental durability are perfect problems for World Positive Capitalism to solve. A World Positive approach considers sustainability a growth driver. It incentivizes building the next generation of clean energy infrastructure, enabling energy independence through distributed power, and backing innovations in water, food, and materials.

At Obvious, we’ve made investments that proved this concept. We supported Diamond Foundry that is pioneering innovative methods to make diamonds and reduce the need for destructive mining, and Beyond Meat that revolutionized plant-based proteins to reduce reliance on industrial animal agriculture. A company in our energy portfolio, Zanskar, has used AI to dramatically advance the process of finding and harnessing clean geothermal energy.

Finding planetary solutions will have widespread benefit. But we also need to improve life at the level of the individual. That means transforming human health from a reactive, fee-for-service based system—what many call “sick care”—to one centered on prevention, curative therapies, and true well-being.

Traditional healthcare is often expensive, inefficient, and misaligned with actual patient outcomes. A world positive approach flips that model by focusing on results first, prioritizing care that measurably improves lives. It also pushes to make cutting-edge tools, data, and research more accessible and equitable. I see this approach in companies like Virta Health that is rethinking care to reverse Type 2 diabetes and Recursion that’s using AI to accelerate drug discovery. Devoted Health is also redesigning healthcare for seniors with a more personal, proactive, and coordinated approach.

This same mindset—proactive, with clear intentions—can transform economic health as well. Building a stronger, fairer economy means shifting from concentrated wealth and exclusionary systems to models that expand participation and opportunity.

You can see these advances in a company like Gusto that helps small and medium businesses scale by simplifying payroll and HR. Or one like Corvus that is building cybersecurity infrastructure and insurance to safeguard businesses in our interconnected world. Or one like Dexterity Robotics that’s building economic resilience by taking over dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks that will enable workers to get safer and better paying jobs.

We’ve all seen ways a thriving economy doesn’t just grow — it brings people along with it. It empowers small businesses and inspires creators to build something. It also expands financial access so more people can participate. The goal of World Positive Capitalism can’t be to replace people with machines, but to leverage innovation to unlock human potential and create prosperity that’s broadly shared.

​​A powerful thing happens when planetary, health, and economic progress combine: it unlocks a self-reinforcing engine of progress. Clean energy reduces pollution, which improves public health. Healthier people contribute more meaningfully to the economy. A more inclusive economy invests more in education, innovation, and sustainability. This results in more people equipped with tools and capabilities to work on bigger problems, which creates a virtuous cycle.

PLANNING FOR WHAT CAN GO RIGHT

One of the most powerful shifts in World Positive Capitalism is moving away from a risk-based mindset to one that prioritizes opportunity. Traditional business strategy often focuses on mitigating what can go wrong, analyzing threats, hedging against downturns, and minimizing liabilities. But the people and companies that truly change the world succeed by maximizing what can go right, setting bold visions that attract investment, talent, and public support.

History’s most famous inventions are the ones that did exactly this. The printing press, the telephone, and the automobile were all World Positive in how they improved life and changed what was possible. Of course, they came with downsides too, such as dependence on fossil fuels, materials with heavy environmental costs, and inequitable distribution. But those challenges don’t negate their value, they present the next set of opportunities for World Positive Capitalism to solve.

Some companies have been operating this way for years. Tesla didn’t just build electric cars, it redefined what a clean energy-powered car company could be and forced competitors to follow suit. YouTube took a decentralized approach to media and unlocked new income streams for millions of people around the globe. Whole Foods made organic and natural foods mainstream, bringing healthier options to millions while reshaping the food industry. During the pandemic, Moderna delivered vaccine development and delivery at unprecedented speed. Genentech’s first-in-kind medicines dramatically improved serious diseases like diabetes and colorectal cancer. And Shopify built a platform for e-commerce companies of all sizes to deepen engagement with their customers.

We’ve now entered the next leap of intelligence democratization. With generative AI, we have tools that can help us solve problems once thought out of reach across healthcare, education, material science, manufacturing, climate, and beyond.

To make it happen, we need entrepreneurs, investors, philanthropists and policymakers all pulling in the same direction. We need business and engineering schools to teach students to aim high and pursue big goals. And we need catalytic grants and a systemic investing approach that illuminates the path to big ideas.

More than anything, we need to nurture a new generation of change agents—the people who will run toward the hardest challenges and biggest opportunities facing humanity.

A BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE

The seeds of this new economic system have already been planted. Or in the words of science fiction author William Gibson, “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”

What does an abundance mindset, a mindset of possibilities actually look like in practice? The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman has described himself as a “Waymo Democrat,” not to endorse any single company, but to illustrate that it’s possible to build transformative technology in a regulated, safety-conscious environment without getting bogged down in endless red tape or ideological gridlock. World Positive Capitalism shares that spirit, underscoring that we can build bold solutions that serve the public good, and do it with both speed and integrity.

Forward-thinking investors, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and policymakers must now work together to mainstream that playbook. We need to shift investment paradigms to reward long-term, regenerative value creation rather than short-term extraction. Policymakers must reform incentives to favor sustainability, responsible AI, and equitable economic participation. And more entrepreneurs must be encouraged to build businesses that tackle big societal problems.

You can already start to see the shift around the venture world. When we started Obvious, few investors were thinking about building world positive companies. Since then VCs like a16z, Union Square Ventures, Generation IM, and General Catalyst are backing companies focused on climate, health, and economic vibrancy. We’re seeing real breakthroughs. Rivian and Samsara are reimagining transportation. Pivot Bio is helping improve soil quality. And Solugen is helping build next-generation chemicals using sustainable feedstock.

The momentum is almost contagious. As world positive companies succeed, more companies see their value. The list is long: Chime is making banking more accessible for everyday consumers. Sweetgreen is rethinking food systems through sustainability and health. Oak Street and One Medical are reshaping how care is delivered. Meanwhile, companies like Tempus and Grail are working towards precision medicine and early diagnostics. Platforms like AirBnB and Substack are creating new avenues to making money. Toast and Mindbody are helping small businesses thrive with tools once reserved for the enterprise level. Duolingo, Coursera and Guild are innovating in education, and companies like Flock Safety and Verkada are developing new ways to reduce crime and keep us safe.

All of these are early proof points that World Positive Capitalism is already working. And if we commit to it fully, it’s easy to imagine just how different the world could look in 50 years.

Picture cities powered by clean, abundant energy, and transportation networks that are fully electrified, autonomous, and efficient. Closed-loop manufacturing systems will replenish resources, not deplete them. Synthetic biology will drive a sustainable material economy, and prefabricated housing supported by smart policy will make homeownership more attainable. Intelligent, networked fleets of drones and robots will help mitigate wildfires and enhance safety while preserving core values like privacy.

We can have a healthcare system that’s proactive rather than reactive, with AI-powered diagnostics and generative science that promise to eliminate once-deadly diseases like cancer and heart disease. Personalized care will be the norm, and healthcare knowledge will be democratized and easily shared.

Imagine a world with an education system that’s lifelong and accessible, with AI tools that will empower creators and entrepreneurs to scale with unprecedented speed, making opportunity no longer a privilege for the elite.

As these advances unfold, the Global Flourishing Index can track the transformative progress, and measure how much each one truly improves life on Earth.

Critics of capitalism argue that it’s fundamentally flawed. Defenders insist it just needs refining. The reality is that capitalism is neither good nor bad—it’s merely a tool, shaped by how we use it. History belongs to those who build the future. So let’s get to work.

The post World Positive Capitalism appeared first on Obvious.

• Economic Protection
  This is the foundation, and it starts with affordable insurance and robust fraud prevention so Americans aren’t vulnerable to unexpected shocks.
• Economic Mobility
  Expanding prosperity requires access to the tools and opportunities that help people find, perform, and continually upgrade their best work. This is especially necessary for small business owners who are spread thin and can benefit from specialized skills at lower prices. 
• Economic Independence
  At the top, independence is for individuals and businesses of all sizes to not only survive financially but thrive—through personalized financial advice and better access to services traditionally limited to the wealthy. 

We focus on solutions that directly address these core areas. And we believe AI can supercharge this progress. Here are the major opportunities we see:

ECONOMIC PROTECTION

Making insurance more affordable 

Homeowners in many states are grappling with soaring property insurance rates. Between 2018 and 2023, premiums rose nationwide by 29%—dramatically faster than general inflation—driven by escalating material costs and the rise in costly climate-related disasters.  Worse yet, a growing percentage of Americans (now around 7%) have lost coverage entirely, translating to an estimated $1.6 trillion in unprotected market value.​

We believe a solution to runaway insurance premiums is reducing administrative costs, which account for an eye-popping 35 to 40 percent of insurance premiums. AI co-pilots and agentic workflows can streamline underwriting (especially for complex commercial use cases), claims processing, and back-office tasks (like BDX reporting). By lowering operational overhead, these tools can help stabilize or even reduce costs for every policyholder. 

Reducing fraud via enhanced prevention and detection 

AI is making malicious impersonators ever more convincing—it now takes just 3 seconds of audio to clone a voice. And the costs are staggering: According to the FTC, consumer-reported fraud losses hit nearly $10 billion in 2023, and are expected to climb higher. At the institutional level, 60 percent of financial institutions and fintech companies reported an increase in fraud over the past year.  

We believe AI can be just as powerful for prevention and detection as it is for perpetration. Just as AI can be used to mimic real human behavior, it can also be applied to analyze massive datasets and identify anomalous behavior with far greater accuracy than humans or static rule sets. We’re particularly excited about fraud consortiums that enable real-time data sharing, higher-quality SMB verification networks to protect merchant identity and block bad actors, and improved deepfake detection that identifies AI-generated manipulations before they do damage. 

ECONOMIC MOBILITY 

Helping people find and do their best work

Frequent job changes and the “silver tsunami” of retiring workers will further strain the labor market. Obvious has long invested in labor marketplaces for skilled workers (i.e., Incredible Health and Howdy), and we continue to be excited about building in this area. We see growing demand for worker coaching and upskilling, especially as AI automates many low-skilled roles. According to the World Economic Forum’s most recent Future of Jobs report, 40 percent of workers will be outdated within five years, and 63 percent of business owners cite skill gaps as the primary barrier to business improvement. We are particularly interested in solutions that help workers to uplevel, adapt, pivot, or shift their skill sets toward work that cannot be easily automated.

Supplementing work with agents 

We believe certain jobs simply shouldn’t be done by humans or can substantially benefit from AI support, making them ideal candidates for agentic solutions. These are jobs in industries that are:

• Dangerous, with high injury or fatality rates, like in warehouses and last-mile delivery. More advanced robotics can make an especially big difference here. 
• Inflationary, in industries where cost is outpacing the Consumer Price Index, such as in healthcare, education, and government. 
• Scarce, in areas where a shortage of human talent is limiting growth and efficiency, such as in accounting and wealth advisory. 
• Computational, requiring coding and web development, where democratization can enable anyone to create custom websites and applications. 

We seek agentic solutions to address jobs that fill critical gaps in our economy in a way that benefits all stakeholders, including existing workers, their employers, and the recipients of their services.

Reducing cost and boosting outcomes for SMBs

Small businesses make up 99.9% of U.S. companies in America. They employ nearly 46% of American workers and are responsible for 44% of the country’s GDP. Today, they spend close to a fifth of their budgets on outsourced professional services—such as accounting, bookkeeping, and legal counsel—and are frequently led by owner-operators juggling countless responsibilities.

Agentic solutions offer a way for these businesses to reduce reliance on external providers without sacrificing results. Agentic bookkeepers can reconcile all sources of financial data, close the books, and pinpoint savings opportunities; agentic marketers can create customized websites, regularly publish targeted content, and refine it using performance insights; agentic lawyers can deliver affordable, real-time legal advice; and agentic customer service agents can promptly and accurately handle customer inquiries. In some cases—such as with one-employee “solopreneur” businesses—an all-in-one package of these tools can transform an idea into a viable business faster than ever before. Taken together, these are powerful advances that we believe will enhance broader economic mobility.

ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE 

Opening hyper-personalized financial advice to all 

As we wrote in our 2025 World Positive Report, the idea of “wealth management” is irrelevant for many Americans—37 percent can’t cover a $400 expense, and only one-in-three workers feel on track for retirement. High-quality and personalized financial advice remains accessible mostly to the wealthy. Although robo-advisors have expanded access to basic portfolio management, they often lack nuanced personalization and can’t address the complexities of an individual’s full financial life.

AI can. AI can train on vast financial behavior and market performance data while dynamically “learning” each person’s needs. Tactically, AI can put financial management on autopilot by automatically transferring extra cash to a high-yield checking account, redirecting a paycheck to pay off loans to optimize credit performance, and ensuring appropriate retirement savings. Yes, the stakes are high, and the fiduciary standard is stringent, but the upside for consumers is immense.

If you’re tackling any of these challenges, we want to hear from you. Get in touch at [email protected] or catch Katie, Kahini, or Vishal in person March 10-12 at HumanX or Fintech Meetup.

The post Building Economic Health With AI appeared first on Obvious.

At Obvious, our Champions program unites extraordinary individuals who truly embody both meanings of the word “champion.” Launched in 2022, this initiative continues to thrive, bringing together inspiring leaders committed to making an impact. Across our three core pillars—Planetary Health, Human Health, and Economic Health—our Champions, both new and returning, serve as mentors, motivators, and catalysts for the next generation of changemakers.

Today, we are excited to announce eight new Champions joining Obvious:

• Amy Abernethy, MD, is the co-founder of Highlander Health, a clinical trial startup, and the former president and Chief Medical Officer of Verily Life Sciences.

• Julie Blunden is the former COO of Plus Power, a company that builds battery energy storage systems that enhance the electrical grid.

• Phil Edmundson is the founder and former CEO of Corvus, the cyber insurance company. After many years in InsurTech, he is now Managing Partner of Edmus Ventures.

• Shereef Elnahal was U.S. Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health in the Biden Administration, and formerly the president and CEO of University Hospital.

• Brian Hamilton is the president of Coastal Community Bank, and the co-founder and former CEO of the online banking app One Finance. 

• René Lacerte is a fintech entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of BILL, one of the nation’s leading digital business payments companies.

• Vivek Murthy was the U.S. Surgeon General from 2015 to 2017 and from 2021 to 2025. He co-chaired President Biden’s Covid-19 Advisory Board and the inaugural World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection.

• Richelle Parham is the President of Global eCommerce and Business Development for Universal Music Group and eBay’s former Chief Marketing Officer.

These new additions join our current roster of Champions, which include: 

• Joanne Bradford, is the Chief Money Officer for Domain Money, having previously served as President of Honey and COO/CMO of SoFi.

• Rodney Brooks, the CTO and co-founder of Robust.AI, and co-founder of five previous companies including iRobot and Rethink Robotics. 

• Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang, a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and co-founder of Desktop Metal and more.

• Aneesh Chopra, the President of CareJourney, an open data and analytics platform, and previously the U.S.’s first CTO in the Obama Administration.

• Sachin Jain, President and CEO of SCAN Group and Health Plan, having previously served in C-level roles at CareMore, Merck, and in the Obama Administration.

• Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, a technology-powered real estate brokerage.

• Eric Ryan, the co-founder of multiple consumer businesses including Method, Olly, and Welly.

• Sue Siegel, currently serving on the boards of Illumina, Align Technologies, and Nevro.

The post Our New Champions to Guide World-Positive Founders appeared first on Obvious.

Beebe learned the value of standing firm in his beliefs early on. Raised in New York City by parents who prized purpose over convention, he grew up witnessing his father, Walter, leave a corporate law career to found the New York Open Center, a non-profit holistic learning center. His mother, Robin, pursued her own path, leading spiritual tours around the world and farming avocados in Ojai, California. Their lives taught him that meaningful change often happens outside the mainstream.

That lesson came into focus during his senior year at Dartmouth, where he served as student body president. Inspired by a summer taking women’s studies classes at UC Berkeley, he called for Dartmouth’s Greek system to become co-ed. “I wanted people to have fun together not in a segregated way,” he says. The proposal was controversial, met with resistance, and ultimately led to only modest change. But Beebe took something more lasting from the experience: Progress isn’t always about winning; it’s about showing up and pushing forward.

After graduating, Beebe started his career in politics, working for a consulting firm and interning in the Clinton White House. But it was the emerging internet boom that captured his attention. With little more than curiosity and initiative, he built one of the first political campaign websites—at a time when few others could see the internet’s potential for social change.

The experience emboldened him. He moved to San Francisco and co-founded Bigstep.com, an e-commerce platform aimed at small businesses. It was, as Beebe puts it, “literally Shopify before Shopify.” The idea was bold, risky, and exciting. But not everyone saw it. Venture investors were skeptical that anyone would ever shop online or put their credit card on the open internet. Eventually, he secured funding, built the company to 140 employees, and launched a major initiative with AOL. But after three years, he made a move that defined his leadership style: He stepped down as CEO, recognizing the company needed a different skill set to scale further. “I tell founders all the time,” he says, “sometimes the bravest thing you can do is release yourself.”

Around the same time, the dot-com bust delivered a sharp reminder of the cyclical nature of progress. When he was riding high at Bigstep, he spoke to Harvard Business School as a sterling example of success. But after the company floundered with the rest of e-commerce in the late 90s, he was back at Harvard as a cautionary tale. The dual experience became a cornerstone of his career philosophy: History may not repeat, but it often rhymes.

In the early 2000s, Beebe sensed the next seismic shift: clean energy. Long before solar and wind were mainstream, he joined Bill Gross at Idealab to launch a solar company. His instincts were sharp. With Gross securing a high-profile TED Talk launch and major backers like Jeff Bezos and Larry Page, Beebe helped lead the company through the clean tech boom. Later, he founded Energy Innovation Solutions, known as EI Solutions, which installed large-scale solar projects, including one of Google’s earliest solar arrays, before selling the business to Suntech.

Beebe was newly married at the time. He and his wife Jessica had weathered a long-distance relationship and were now expecting their first child, a son. As time went on, they had twin girls. The relentless pace of global sales at Suntech, however, brought him to a personal crossroads. He traveled a lot in those days, leaving behind his young family. Observing his peers in airport lounges—the young ones energized, but many of the others burned out and bitter—he decided to step away from the frenetic lifestyle to focus on his family.

But progress, for Beebe, is never linear. In stepping back, he stepped toward his next chapter. Reconnecting with old friends James Joaquin and Ev Williams, he helped in 2014 to launch Obvious Ventures, a new approach to venture capital focused on “world-positive investing.” The opportunity felt inevitable: Work with brilliant, values-aligned founders on transformative ideas.

Now a decade into venture, Beebe’s firm-wide leadership on planetary health investments reflects his belief in incremental change with lasting impact. He seeks out founders who share his vision: “Passionate, driven people with extraordinary integrity who want to change the world.”

As he looks ahead, Beebe remains guided by the principle that has defined his journey: Progress is built in steps—some bold, some small, but all necessary. His vision for the future is clear: a world where solutions to climate change, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy emerge from persistence, partnership, and the courage to keep moving forward.

The post How I Got to Now: Andrew Beebe appeared first on Obvious.

That’s why we’ve invested in Oumi, which is creating a genuinely open source platform and community for developing and tuning foundation models. We are excited to be investors in Oumi’s $10M Seed round. 

The exceptional technical leadership of CEO Manos Koukoumidis first drew us to Oumi. As the former leader who bootstrapped and led the Google Cloud’s PaLM efforts and then Gemini’s alignment/safety, Manos brings deep expertise in coordinating large-scale AI teams and infrastructure development. And he has assembled an impressive team of engineers from Google, Apple, Snap, Meta, and other companies to pursue this mission with him. 

We are also impressed with the community of advisors and angel investors that Manos and his team are building around them, which includes researchers such as Ruslan Salakhutdinov from Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Gkioxari from Caltech, and Sergey Levine from UC Berkeley among many others. 

Oumi aims to create an open source platform that enables end-to-end foundation model research collaboration and development across data curation, synthesis, pre-training, post-training, evaluation, and deployment. The platform allows enterprise customers to customize foundation models for specialized tasks and data using a fully flexible and efficient enterprise-grade platform that they can trust.

The market opportunity is substantial. Enterprise AI spending is growing rapidly, with nearly half of enterprises expressing interest in moving to open source solutions to reduce costs and vendor lock-in. Oumi is well-positioned to capture this demand by offering enterprises greater flexibility, data privacy, and cost efficiency compared to closed AI platforms.

Oumi is structured as a Public Benefit Corporation and puts AI safety at the core of its mission. By fostering collaboration between academia and industry, Oumi aims to ensure this transformative technology develops in service of society.

At Obvious, we look for companies that combine technical excellence with world positive impact. Oumi is a perfect example of this, working to democratize AI development while prioritizing safety and transparency. We’re proud to partner with Manos and the team as they build an open and transparent future.

The post Why We Invested in Oumi appeared first on Obvious.

Over the next 10-15 years, more than 70% of America’s 33 million small businesses will change hands as their Baby Boomer and Gen X owners retire. Yet the traditional way of selling these businesses—through local brokers charging hefty fees of 8-20%— isn’t built to handle this “silver tsunami” of transition.

Enter Chat Joglekar and Dylan Gans, two entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity to revolutionize this market. Their company, Baton, is reimagining how small businesses are sold through an online marketplace that connects sellers and buyers nationwide. 

We’re proud to lead Baton’s $10 million Series A round. At Obvious, we look for companies that combine massive market opportunity with world positive impact. Baton does both. They’re not just building a better marketplace; they’re helping preserve the small businesses that are the backbone of communities across America.

When we first met the Baton team, what struck us wasn’t just their impressive credentials—which included scaling a giant business unit at Zillow, the real estate marketplace— it was their deep understanding of both the human and technical elements of the challenge. They recognized that selling a small business isn’t just a transaction; it’s the culmination of years of hard work and dedication.

In just two years, Baton has built a thriving marketplace powered by AI that allows Baton’s transaction advisors to handle ten times the capacity of traditional brokers. Through intelligent automation of valuations, diligence, and deal flow management, they’re bringing unprecedented efficiency to a historically manual process.

Perhaps most telling are the stories from their customers. With a 4.7 rating on Trustpilot, Baton is earning the trust of business owners at a crucial moment in their entrepreneurial journey. As one recent customer reported: “We ended up with three offers, Baton supported on the negotiations, and then even hand-held the buyer to qualify for financing. Now I’m on to my next chapter in life!” 

By bringing buyers and sellers together on one platform, Baton ensures that sellers get a market price while buyers maximize their choice of opportunities. As millions of small business owners approach retirement in the coming years, Baton is ensuring they can capture the full value of their life’s work while helping a new generation of entrepreneurs take the reins. It’s a mission we’re excited to support, and a story that is just beginning.

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Every dollar that’s spent on healthcare administration is a dollar that’s not available to make people healthy or prevent them from getting sick. Every inefficiency in the system is a speed bump to better care for patients, more resources for physicians, and lower costs across the board.

The growth in healthcare administration is staggering. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1970 and 2015, the number of clinicians grew 150%, while healthcare administrator jobs grew over 3,000%. This especially hurts independent and small-office providers, where inflated administrator-to-physician ratios cause financial stress, budget cuts, and compromises in care delivery. 

It’s a trillion-dollar problem. And we’re finally at the moment to solve it with a powerful system of AI-powered assistants known as agentic workflow automation.

Next generation AI automation

AI agents are changing the old paradigm of enterprise automation. Unlike legacy robotic process automation, which can be used only in highly defined, rigid, high-volume use cases, AI agents are intelligent, flexible, and autonomous problem solvers that are becoming increasingly robust. The key advance is in AI agents’ ability to solve small goals in service of a larger overarching goal. 

Imagine a patient with a skin issue trying to book their first appointment with a dermatology specialist. An AI agent will split up the overarching goal—booking the appointment—into smaller goals: (1) check the patient’s referral, (2) flag missing information, (3) confirm suitable times, (4) send a reminder before the day of the appointment. AI agents can determine when a subgoal has been achieved and move to the next step. And they can work across modalities, like reading and writing text as well as performing phone calls in a human voice.

This technology will smooth every stage of healthcare delivery. It will supercharge a clinic’s front office capabilities and facilitate better communication with patients. It will scrutinize patients’ charts to avoid costly errors. And it will verify medical codes and coverage policies to quickly reconcile payments between patients, providers, and insurers.

Money saved through AI-driven administrative efficiency will be widely distributed. Doctors and clinicians will find reductions in overhead, making them more revenue to a point. The extra savings will mean more resources for prevention and care, allowing them to allocate more time and resources to patient care and innovative treatments. This could lead to a shift where medical professionals focus more on quality care than administrative tasks.

Crucial guardrails and industry stability

Security is a central piece of this transformation. Giving machines too much agency is a legitimate concern and risk. Healthcare data is not only sensitive—it’s protected by federal and state laws. But compared to current healthcare systems that often rely on aging computer systems vulnerable to data breaches, generative AI offers increased capacity to detect and identify bad actors and to incorporate extra layers of security. AI systems can employ advanced encryption, real-time monitoring, and anomaly detection to protect patient data more effectively than before.

People will be a central part of building and maintaining these systems. Clinicians will still need administrators to make sure systems work smoothly and optimally. Human oversight will be crucial to managing complex situations and escalations and ensuring the technology functions correctly. Ongoing training and support for healthcare professionals will be essential to integrating AI seamlessly into the healthcare workflow.

Just as medical breakthroughs like vaccines, new therapies, and surgical techniques have pushed healthcare to evolve, so too will this advance in administration. Eventually, clinicians will have their own AI agents that can confer with patient agents. This is the key to a more efficient, responsive, and patient-centered healthcare system, where the focus is squarely on delivering high-quality care rather than navigating administrative hurdles.

The journey toward integrating AI into healthcare administration is not just about cutting costs or speeding up processes—it’s about fundamentally transforming how we deliver and receive healthcare. By embracing these technological advancements, we can create a system that is more equitable, efficient, and effective for everyone.

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I recently sat down with Vinod for a candid fireside chat at our annual Obvious CEO Summit. Vinod offered insights only he could, from his perspective on why open-sourcing AI parallels the Manhattan Project to the story behind the largest check he’s written in 40 years—$50 million to OpenAI. Of course, we couldn’t skip his signature black sneakers with white soles, which he’s been wearing since long before they became the unofficial footwear of AI. He’s been having them made custom for years. “I sort of have this habit,” he says. “If I want something, I try to make it happen.”

Here are some highlights below of the conversation:

James Joaquin: In 2019, you wrote a $50 million check to OpenAI. That’s twice as much as any initial investment you had ever made, and at the time, OpenAI was a nonprofit. What was your rationale?

Vinod Khosla: I was convinced there would be an inflection point in AI capability. I had no idea when. But I figured if these technologies made a profit, then somehow we’d make a return. That was the only time I ever wrote an apologetic letter to my LPs saying, “We are making this investment, it’s high risk, it’s large, makes no sense, but we’re going to make it anyway.” We didn’t ask for permission. 

It looks very prescient now.

You know, doing things you believe in actually yields more results if you’re persistent. But it wasn’t a mystery to realize that if this technology works, then it would be big. 

Looking forward a little, In June of this year, a former OpenAI employee named Leopold Aschenbrenner published a 150-page technical paper called Situational Awareness that made a pretty compelling bull case for the path to superintelligence, in which he described the orders-of-magnitude advancements in AI. He also called on the U.S. government and leading AI companies to treat this technology as a military-level secret, warning of its potential role in a new arms race among nation-states. What’s your position on that?

I’m a huge China hawk, and the importance of AI as a critical resource in outpacing China cannot be overstated. Long before recent discussions, I was lobbying to ban open-sourcing state-of-the-art AI models—a stance that’s unusual for me, given my deep support for open source. But when it comes to state-of-the-art AI, the stakes are entirely different. AI is so powerful that it is akin to open-sourcing the Manhattan Project. Nobody thinks about doing that.

What’s your forecast for five years from now? What will the regulatory landscape look like?

Predicting the future, even just five years out, is difficult, but I’ve spent the past two years speaking with Republicans and Democrats, and they’re hugely receptive to my arguments. I’ve talked to a national security advisor, I’ve talked to the CIA, I’ve talked to a lot of senators very involved in the issue long before the publication of this. In most cases, the response has been measured and sensible. We’ll take a step-by-step approach to policy as things evolve. I was especially encouraged by how when OpenAI released its latest model, they delayed the release by a month or two to allow the national security apparatus to vet the technology first. More companies seem to be adopting this approach, although not Meta. This might offer a way for open-source AI to coexist with national security concerns. But I strongly believe we shouldn’t open-source cutting-edge technology to China. The Chinese have good research. I’d prefer they did it on their own. I’d prefer it if they published their research and we didn’t.

What’s going to happen to labor displacement from A.I.? And do you see this as a typical technological revolution cycle? 

Humanity has experienced many waves of technological progress where old jobs disappear, new ones emerge, and overall growth and prosperity follow. But this time, I think it’s different. In the past, technology served as tools that humans could use—not as replacements for the human mind. Back in 2014, I wrote a blog in Forbes called The Next Technology Revolution Will Drive Abundance and Income Disparity..Even then, I was deeply concerned about the employment implications of technological advancements and started thinking seriously about ideas like universal basic income (UBI).

Disruption sounds great from an entrepreneurial perspective, but it’s devastating if you’re the one being disrupted. Take Klarna, for instance—they replaced 70–80% of their customer support team in just three months, getting rid of 500 to 600 people. That kind of upheaval is alarming, if we don’t address these challenges, there will be resistance, as we’ve already seen. The Screen Actors Guild and writers’ strike pushed back against the use of AI, but ironically, companies that refuse to embrace these tools may struggle to survive in the long term. So I like to say I’m a techno-optimist, but balancing the opportunity with the security risk. 

Both our firms have long invested at the intersection of computer science and biology. We recently published a thesis, Generative Science, exploring how modern AI trained on chemistry, physics, and biology could replace human hypotheses in the scientific method to develop new molecules, vaccines, and battery chemistries. Have you thought about this?

Yeah, I believe AI scientists will be the most significant outcome of this, and we’ll see them emerge within 2 to 3 years. These tools could boost productivity and effectively create tens of millions of new scientists five years from now, accelerating the pace of discovery in fields like biology and material science. I’m very optimistic about this and love investing in the area.

You can watch their entire conversation here:

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We believe the biggest advances will come in several key areas. Small-to-medium-size business (SMB) tools will boost how businesses operate and interact with consumers. Labor marketplaces will redefine valuable job skills and more closely align employers with workers. And industries like insurance, which have long struggled with boom-and-bust cycles and customer dissatisfaction, will find smoother paths to operational efficiency and customer retention. In each case, fraud will remain a potent risk, and AI tools will also improve at detecting and eliminating bad actors.

Here’s a snapshot of the future we predict:

Record numbers of businesses will change hands.

Two factors will accelerate business transfers. The “silver tsunami” of retiring baby boomers will drive the turnover of nearly 8 million privately owned businesses. And reduced venture funding between 2020 and 2022 will prompt more founders to sell. The economy will need better mechanisms for connecting sellers with values-aligned buyers and new tools to scale the transaction process. 

Individuals and SMBs will get easier access to credit.

Nearly a third of individuals and half of SMBs can’t access the credit they need. Better data and technology can change this. Specifically, we’re optimistic about new underwriting models that incorporate alternative data (such as personal and business cash flow) and augment traditional methods of determining creditworthiness. We believe the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recently finalized Rulemaking for Dodd-Frank Section 1033 will make lenders even more comfortable using this data. We’re also excited about the promise of AI-enabled loan origination systems that can help commercial loan officers at community and regional banks more efficiently parse data and underwrite smaller loans that are the lifeblood of many small businesses.  

AI fraud will require AI anti-fraud.

Bad actors will utilize generative AI, which mimics natural human behavior, to successfully execute financial fraud with greater frequency and cost to the system. In response, a new wave of cyber tech startups utilizing custom AI models will shield businesses and consumers from attacks.

Labor marketplaces will shift to high-value full-time positions.

In the past decade, we saw the creation of massive labor networks like Uber delivering flexible staffing of commodity low-value human labor. As AI takes over many dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs, we will see the human labor marketplaces of the future focused on specialized high-value full-time positions. AI-driven credentialing and matching will also turbocharge labor marketplaces and professional recruiting to align companies’ specific needs with candidates’ specific skills.

Property and casualty insurers will seek a cure for skyrocketing premiums.

Homeowners insurance premiums have increased an average of 29% across US states between 2018 and 2023. While this growth is driven by increased development and climate risk—forces that are hard to reverse—the dirty little secret is that 35-40% of premiums are administrative costs. Insurers will increasingly invest in AI applications across their tech stacks—such as agents to assist with underwriting, claims processing, and common back office workflows—to increase efficiency, bridge legacy systems, and, most importantly, lower costs. 

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The numbers tell the story. The International Energy Agency projected that investments in cleantech and infrastructure hit $2 trillion in 2024, roughly double the investment in fossil fuels. The U.S. slice of this global sum is small—just 15 percent—but growing sharply thanks to major incentives in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

We are especially enthused about geothermal energy. Despite renewables like wind and solar reaching relatively large scale and low cost, neither has proven capable of providing the comparable baseload capacity of coal, oil, and gas. New leaps in geothermal energy are unlocking vast new energy deposits in the earth’s crust, and generative AI technologies are making them more accessible than ever before.

Here’s a glimpse of the future we envision.

Clean energy will finally leap past fossil fuels.

The era of fossil fuels dominating the energy sector is drawing to a close. Solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower are poised to overtake fossil fuels in baseload capacity, global efficiency, and declining costs. New technologies are unlocking vast new deposits of clean energy and powering leaps in traditionally slow research quests like nuclear fusion.

Advances in battery chemistries will rewire industries.

Breakthroughs in battery technology are transforming the landscape of energy storage and consumption. New chemistries like solid-state lithium and synthetic silicon batteries promise greater energy density, faster charging times, and longer lifespans. These advancements are crucial for the scalability of distributed renewable energy, enabling industries to significantly reduce their dependence on the grid.

Carbon removal will hit overdrive.

Technologies for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) are rapidly advancing. Innovations in bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) are scaling up, making it possible to remove and store carbon dioxide far more efficiently, and for the world to meet broad climate targets.

Agriculture will transform from top to bottom.

Farming is undergoing a clean energy revolution. Renewable energy-powered machinery and precision data-driven farming techniques are breathing sustainability into a historically carbon-heavy industry. Innovations in vertical farming and lab-grown foods are also emerging, reducing the carbon footprint of food production and increasing food security.

AI will take the guesswork out of risk analysis.

Advanced algorithms and machine learning models can predict equipment failures, optimize maintenance schedules, and improve energy efficiency. By leveraging AI, businesses will be able to make more informed decisions, enhancing the reliability and resilience of renewable energy systems and reducing operational uncertainties.

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