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- Daily Grind July 23, 2025: AI is Eating Venture Capital
Daily Grind July 23, 2025: AI is Eating Venture Capital
Welcome to Tech's morning newsletter, where you get one headline, one page of a great book, and one question to start your day.
Ben Putano
July 23, 2025
Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Grind for Wednesday, July 23.
My schedule is all messed up, but for all good reasons. Yesterday, Damn Gravity launched its 8th book and we threw a huge party in downtown Chicago. It was a blast, but I was a little slow-moving this morning.
We’ll get back on schedule in the morning. But we still have some good stories for you today—including a preview of our newest book!
Enjoy :D
📰 One Headline: AI startups raise two-thirds of all US venture funding in 2025 so far
AI startups received 53% of global VC funding (Axios) and 2/3 of US VC funding (Pitchbook via CNBC) in the first half of 2025.
That amounts to over $104 billion raised in the US this year.
AI is now the most dominant sector in the history of venture capital, far outpacing the Internet boom. In 1999, at the peak of the Dot Com era, Internet startups consumed 39% of all VC fundraising—about $20 billion for the entire year.
A lot has changed in the technology world since the turn of the century. Internet startups walked so AI startups could run. But we all know what happened when the Dot Com bubble popped … does that mean we are heading towards an AI recession?
According to CNBC, one concerning factor is the relatively small number of VC-backed exits in 2025 — around 281 for a total of $36 billion—an average of $128 million per exit (this is all exits, not just AI).
Sky-high valuations for AI startups are also raising eyebrows. Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines recently raised a $2 billion seed round, which valued the pre-product, pre-revenue startup at $12 billion. The LLM giants—OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Amazon—are engaged in an all-out talent war that is netting top engineers $100 million deals.
These are tell-tale signs of a bubble, but could this time be different?
🔗 A Few Good Links
The Hollywood Reporter: Universal Music Group Increasing Efforts on Music AI Patents
Quanta Magazine: AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work.
OpenAI: OpenAI’s new economic analysis
John Rector: Comparative Analysis of Venture Capital Booms: AI vs. Dot-Com (and Biotech)
📚 One Page: Sweaty Equity: A Ball Boy, A Billionaire, and the Bonkers Startup Tale You’ve Never Heard
Yesterday, Damn Gravity launched it’s 8th book, and it’s totally different from anything else we’ve done.
Sweaty Equity is a hilarious, thrilling, honest, and entertaining story about life inside a startup.
But Mike Shannon wasn’t just a startup CEO… while building his business, he was also a ball boy for the Chicago Bulls, rubbing shoulders with Derrick Rose, Kirk Hinrich, Joakim Noah, and Coach Thibs while building his company.
If that’s not enough drama for you, Mike and his co-founder also went on Shark Tank and secured an investment from Mark Cuban.
I read the Sweaty Equity manuscript in two days. It was a joy to read and I was thrilled to sign Mike as our next author. I want to share the first two pages with you today. It’s quite colorful the intro!
January 19, 2013. Chicago, Illinois.
It was an odd start to what should have been considered a strange week.
On Tuesday, I’d interact with a stark-naked Kobe Bryant, north of midnight, part of a search team on a quest to find him a post-game cocktail. That was after Kobe spent an hour and a half sitting silently in the tiny broom closet at the back corner of the visitor’s locker room with a Gatorade towel draped over his head. My Bulls had whooped his Lakers.
On Thursday, I’d engage a locker-side self-introduction to an NBA player who would, before year’s end and unbeknownst to my bosses, wire an investment to me. I suppose that hushed elevator pitch was a harbinger on how my two worlds were destined to collide.
Entrepreneur by day.
NBA Ball Boy by night.
At this point, neither my friend Kasey nor I had ever seen an angel check. I probably should’ve been spending the weekend applying for a real job. Kasey probably should’ve been doing his homework before getting back to class on Monday.
But instead, we hopped the elevator of the lakeside luxury high rise to the forty-eighth floor, and stepped foot inside the home of a mysterious stranger.
“You motherfucker!” hollered one commodities trader to the other, before punching him square in the face.
The story at hand was a defining piece of our sixty-year-old host’s nostalgic recollection of his beloved 1970s era Chicago Board of Trade. His pitch-black ponytail had silver roots. The aroma of church-like incense filled his living room. A little white paper structure rolled up into a stick rested on his ear as he leaned forward in his wooden rocking chair.
“Just fuckin’ punched him in the face,” recalled Alan Matthew, “right in the fuckin’ face!”
It was the latest conversational detour down a rabbit hole that originated, I think, with an ordinary small talk question about how his career began. Which is to say, where he got his bag of money that we were now vying for.
“I thought, fuuuck, this is for me,” concluded Alan, his face cracking into a wry smile, “Hehehe.”
He didn’t laugh much throughout our meeting, but when he did, it had a peculiar sort of dryness to it. Not as dry, of course, as the industry we were plotting to crack into with the help of his dough.
If you enjoyed these first two pages, you’ll love the book. Mike is also donating his author proceeds to Future Founders, a wonderful organization building a community of young entrepreneurs.
Sweaty Equity is out now!
❓ One Question: Who do you want to be under pressure?
For me, book launches are fun and exciting, but also pressure-packed events where everything is on the line. Authors work so hard on their books—their launch events are full of friends, families, colleagues, and mentors. Everything has to go right.
So here is your question for the day: Who do you want to be under pressure?
Learning to perform under pressure is a muscle—you get better by working it out. But you can also learn by emulating leaders who stay calm, focused, and kind in the heat of the moment.
For me, I watch my ultimate frisbee teammates—some of the very best in the game—stay calm when the game is on the line. They take deep breaths, cool their nerves, and focus on the next play. They don’t berate or blame. They lead by example.
That is who I strive to be under pressure. How about you?
🗳️ Wrap Up and Feedback:
That’s it for today. See you in the MORNING tomorrow for another edition.
As always, I would love to hear what you think of today’s newsletter. Please fill out the poll below and send me a reply with more details.