Big Ideas in Tech I am excited about

Builder-worthy themes

December 23, 2022

a16z recently published an omnibus listing ‘Big Ideas in Tech for 2023’. The list includes areas ranging from bio+health to crypto to American Dynamism.

Of the 40+ ‘builder-worthy’ items, following are the areas that excited me the most:

Theme: Breakthroughs in Buying | Area: Consumer Tech

Key ideas that resonated with me: Social commerce, discovery commerce. Reduced gap from inspiration to purchase (integrate influencers with sales). Do not necessarily agree with video commerce

Theme: Labor Marketplaces become Specialized | Area: Consumer Tech

Key ideas that resonated with me: LinkedIn for legacy tech companies sectors like construction, manufacturing, hospitality, retail, healthcare, and education. Go beyond classifieds

Theme: Tech Reveals New Sources of Inventory | Area: Consumer Tech

Key ideas that resonated with me: Companies that enable sellers to tap into alternative sources of inventory. Integrated tech with ‘Social commerce’

Theme: Precision Delivery of Medicines | Area: Bio + Health

Key ideas that resonated with me: New technologies that deliver medicine to the cells in the human body where they will work their magic

Theme: Value-Based Care Stack | Area: Bio + Health

Key ideas that resonated with me: Data aggregation and activation; actuarial modeling, contracting, and adjudication; panel management; continuous care workflow support; and provider ecosystem integration around referrals, co-management, and network design

Theme: Compliance as a Competitive Advantage | Area: FinTech

Key ideas that resonated with me: Tools for sponsor banks to manage third parties; for fintech companies and companies embedding financial services to manage all aspects of risk and compliance

Theme: Infrastructure stack for business banking | Area: FinTech

Key ideas that resonated with me: Fintech infrastructure companies: KYC/AML, data APIs, bank accounts as a service, issuer/processors, etc. but for B2B

Theme: Industrial Robotics Scale Vertically | Area: Industrial

Key ideas that resonated with me: Verticals with jobs that are dangerous or constrained by high turnover — waste management, for example, or industrial food preparation

Theme: The Industrial Economy Goes Digital | Area: Enterprise

Key ideas that resonated with me: Labor marketplaces that ease worker shortfalls, procurement software that streamlines the sourcing of critical raw materials, or financial solutions that simplify transactions and invoices for Construction, agriculture, transportation, and logistics

Theme: Decentralized Energy | Area: Crypto

Key ideas that resonated with me: Build microgrids and storage and transmissions networks, by solving issues such as high capital expenditures and disparate incentives solved through tokens. Markets for renewable energy certificates (REC), and carbon credits on-chain

Which of these ideas excite you the most? Are you building something already?