Analysis argues the AI market is shifting from hyperscaler dominance toward an open ecosystem for the first time in three years

@mignano @brexton we have been investing in this thesis for the last year - helping intelligence proliferate at scale

cc: @itsalltruffles @actualinc @sfcompute

@mignano totally agreed, have a huge post on this coming!

investment opportunities are actually much better now than few years ago.

The rebel alliance needs market infrastructure.

Distributed compute only works if buyers can source it privately, at fair prices, without hyperscalers seeing their hand.

That is what Obscura is. A dark pool for AI compute. ZK-matched, USDC-settled, open source. Built on Solana.

The table has been flipped. We built the market for what comes next.

$OBSCURA

For the first time in ~3 years, it feels like the AI table has been flipped over. Yes, the labs and hyperscalers will have the highest chance of resetting it before everyone else, given their vast capital, frontier model, and compute advantages.

But there is now a window for a new ecosystem to emerge. A "rebel alliance," which is what we're calling it at @USV.

We are excited by open weight models, distributed compute, human-aligned agents, routing, open source harnesses, the orchestration layer, and a lot more.

Basically, anything that gives people and enterprises powerful intelligence while maintaining tight incentive alignment, we're into it.

@mignano Yes! Fable showed the downside of having single point of failure in frontier intelligence.

@mignano let's gooo!

@mignano Rebel alliance 🤝

@mignano The rebel alliance needs a storage layer, too.

Verifiable, decentralized storage where the data actually belongs to the user, not the platform.

That's the piece that completes the stack you're describing.

@mignano Take a look at the rebel harness aka Cabinet Just don’t forget to bring you own AI 😇

@mignano We need open networks to win to maximize Individual agency.

@mignano @ClementDelangue So funny how VCs pivot. I've been building the "rebel alliance" for 10 years. I guess this is our inflection point. Buckle up @gnusai

@mignano A Rebel Alliance for World War Z @_zprotocol

@mignano What's your response to the view that the 2 giant labs alone are at the brink of recursive self-improvement after which the gap may widen substantially?

@ClementDelangue let's do it

@mignano You really should talk to @jjacky & @alexatallah

@mignano Just backed a team doing exactly this. Can I intro?

@mrstephendeng i think there are limiters + bottlenecks beyond raw intelligence

but i could be wrong

lets see

@mignano We see immense value in a motley crew of models: custom domain experts trained all over the world, imperfect on their own, each with blind spots and individual strengths, but capable of cancelling out each other’s weaknesses and collectively matching the frontier

@mignano open source harnesses gang @aeonframework

@mignano Definitely see it.