Aaron Jacobson is one of the most insightful thinkers at the intersection of AI, robotics, and cybersecurity—and in this conversation, he separates signal from noise. We explore the future of humanoids, the shifting threat landscape in cybersecurity, and why the next wave of industry-defining companies will be built on infrastructure, not just foundation models. Aaron Jacobson is a Partner at NEA, where he invests in AI, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure. He’s backed companies like Databricks, Horizon3.ai and Veza, and previously worked in tech M&A at Qatalyst Partners. In this episode, we dive into what’s real vs. hype in AI, the future of humanoids, and where the biggest opportunities in infrastructure are emerging.

Highlights:

• Why Elon’s humanoid prediction is “off by multiple orders of magnitude”
• What’s missing for humanoids to move from hype to real-world deployment
• The 3 biggest challenges in robotics—and why they’re so hard to solve
• How open models vs. closed models will shape the future of AI value capture
• Why NEA is doubling down on cybersecurity
• What cyber threats will look like in 5 years (spoiler: it's terrifying)
• Why pen testing and “exposure management” are the future of security
• How AI agents could close the gap between defenders and attackers
• What Aaron learned working with Frank Quattrone at Qatalyst
• How NEA thinks about multi-stage investing and the future of venture

-- Guest Bio: Aaron Jacobson is one of the most insightful thinkers at the intersection of AI, robotics, and cybersecurity—and in this conversation, he separates signal from noise. We explore the future of humanoids, the shifting threat landscape in cybersecurity, and why the next wave of industry-defining companies will be built on infrastructure, not just foundation models.

Aaron Jacobson is a Partner at NEA, where he invests in AI, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure. He’s backed companies like Databricks, Horizon3.ai and Veza, and previously worked in tech M&A at Qatalyst Partners. In this episode, we dive into what’s real vs. hype in AI, the future of humanoids, and where the biggest opportunities in infrastructure are emerging.

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Links: NEA: https://www.nea.com/

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(0:00) Episode preview (4:18) Safety and industrial applications of humanoids (9:01) Breakthroughs and acceleration in humanoid development (9:38) Value capture in LLM ecosystems and Facebook's LAMA strategy (14:04) Cybersecurity trends: ransomware and penetration testing (17:23) AI's impact on cybersecurity and role of insurance (20:30) Preventative cybersecurity measures and multifactor authentication (25:48) Closing remarks