The Repricing
The market just told us agents are here. It forgot to ask who settles the bill. $285 billion in market value evaporated from SaaS stocks in one week. Everyone is asking what agents replace. Almost nobody is asking what agents require.
The Missing Layer
a16z identified five problems autonomous systems will face. They missed the sixth — and it's the one that makes the other five work.
Friction Is a Feature
The infrastructure problem nobody's building for autonomous systems. Systems that appear frictionless are systems where the friction has been institutionalized and made invisible.
The Boring Problem That Breaks Autonomous Systems
Why disagreement, not intelligence, is the real bottleneck—and why we're starting there.
The Through Line
How building a backpack led to a new receipts primitive for autonomous systems.
When Machines Pay Machines
Machine-to-machine payments don't exist today because transaction costs kill them. That's about to change.
AI in Financial Services: The Compliance Gap
As AI automates finance, intent isn't enough. Regulators will demand proof of execution.
Healthcare AI Needs Settlement Infrastructure
Healthcare AI is making life-or-death decisions. Everyone has logs. No one has proof.
Transparency Won't Save AI
Why openness alone isn't enough — and what autonomous systems actually need to earn trust.
What Finance Learned That AI Hasn't (Yet)
Lessons from decades of financial infrastructure that autonomous systems will need to adopt.
Agentic AI Will Need New Cryptographic Physics
Why autonomous systems will require a new trust layer — and what that means for the future of AI verification.