The VC playbook needs to be rebuilt, not refreshed.

Q1 2026: nearly $300B in venture capital was deployed globally. AI took most of it, with the top 5 deals accounting for ~70%.

But the frameworks underwriting that capital - traction benchmarks, defensibility checklists, moat construction - are quietly breaking.

Most investors are still pattern-matching based on assumptions from a different cycle.

The investors generating the best early returns aren't refreshing the playbook. They're rebuilding it.

Here are the six questions I'm asking now:

1.     Where does the startup sit in the stack, and what happens when the capability beneath it moves into the foundation model?
2.     Is the workflow closed-loop or open-loop?
3.     Is the data moat compounding with use or just imagined?
4.     Where does trust compound; in relationships, in domain expertise, or in consistently delivered quality?
5.     What happens in the quarter after the incumbent ships this as a feature?
6.     Does the team have the sector depth to spot nuances that foundation models cannot?

The same logic applies to us.

A fund still operating like it's 2022 - outdated team structures and size, generalist theses, and the same old questions -is exactly the kind of company it would now pass on. If founders are expected to do more with less, the firms that fund them will be held to the same standard.

Return dispersion between top- and bottom-quartile managers will widen. Not because capital is scarcer - but because the gap between investors running the old playbook and those building a new one has never been more consequential.

Over the next few weeks, I'll go deeper into:

→ Moats in the AI era
→ Why incumbents are winning more than expected
→ How speed is reshaping competitive advantage

What's the question you've started asking this year that you weren't asking last year?

A sneak peak into the conversations that will be happening in San Francisco at VC Unlocked: AI Edition 2026 (June 1-4). 

VC Unlocked: AI Edition is a four-day immersive venture capital program designed to equip experienced fund managers, VCs, and angel investors with the tools, insight, and conviction needed to lead in the next wave of AI investing.