Rampell: Unlike the cloud transition, software incumbents immediately embraced AI
Alex Rampell · The AI Opportunity that goes beyond Models · Jan 19, 2026 · at 43:32
Alex Rampell, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), compares the market dynamics of the current AI transition to previous platform waves like cloud and mobile.
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“My view on, on everything that's happening in AI right now is it's one of these weird situations where it's very different than cloud, where Most on-prem software providers were like, cloud is stupid. Most potential customers were like, cloud is stupid. It's not safe. I don't trust it. I want to host things. Like you'd have your entire IT staff is like, I don't trust that stuff. So the existing incumbents did not build cloud providers.”
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