A Kleiner Perkins partner explains why the firm is betting on AI for highly paid jobs like doctors and lawyers
In an episode of the "Uncapped" podcast published on Wednesday, a Kleiner Perkins partner, Mamoon Hamid, said the firm is investing in startups that make digital assistants for America's highest-paying jobs.
"If you'd look at a chart of the top 20 jobs in the US by pay, those are doctors, lawyers, and engineers," Hamid said. "So we thought, OK, so how do we invest in copilots for these job types?"
The VC added that: "There are parts of these jobs that are very nuanced and the human brain needs to process those parts of the job, but there's parts that AI is scribing or taking notes."
Hamid said that the company had invested in Ambience, a startup for doctors, Harvey, a legal-tech platform for lawyers, and Windsurf, a coding assistance platform for engineers.
He said that physical labor, which is often among the lowest-paying jobs, is harder to tackle with AI.
"It's like back-breaking work that people do and still do it, and that's probably the hardest place to attack today," he said. "We're thinking sort of much further out, which is like robots, it's like humanoids."
The Menlo Park-based firm specializes in investing in early-stage tech and life science startups. Founded in 1972, it has backed over 900 companies, including Amazon, Google, and Twitter.
As AI improves, companies outside the tech industry are promoting or even mandating its use for their employees. That's leading to a rush of contracts for big companies, like OpenAI, and startups alike.
In May, the CEO of Norway's $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund said that using AI is not "voluntary" for his employees.
"If you don't use it, you will never be promoted. You won't get a job," Nicolai Tangen said.
In a viral memo in April, Shopify's Tobias Lütke told employees that AI use is "now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify" and "teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI" before asking for more head count.
In the same month, Uber's CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, said not enough of his employees know how to use AI and that Uber is implementing training programs to change that. He added that learning to use AI agents to code is "going to be an absolute necessity at Uber within a year."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
Dell, Nvidia, and Elastic Join Forces to Supercharge AI Workloads
Aug 12 - Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) is teaming up with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) to supercharge its AI Data Platform, designed for industries from media and entertainment to finance. The goal is to make it easier for enterprises to build, deploy, and scale AI at lightning speed. Dell's Vrashank Jain calls the platform built for a world where data is gold, pointing to its ability to break down data silos, accelerate workflows, and create richer AI-enabled experiences. Under the hood, Dell PowerEdge R7725 servers paired with Nvidia's RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs deliver serious computing muscle. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with NVDA. Elastic brings its Elasticsearch tech to the table, enabling natural language and vector search. Editors can now pinpoint a scene instantly without digging through endless folders. Nvidia's Omniverse libraries and AI models take it further, streamlining searches through massive 3D asset libraries. Whether in film production or real-time financial analytics, Dell claims the platform accelerates processing, communication and storage of low-latency, high-performance AI workloads. This tripartite co-operation could be a shortcut to greater AI-based efficiency that companies crave. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Year's Biggest US IPO Is Also Biggest Flop as Earnings Fizzle
(Bloomberg) -- Venture Global Inc.'s crown as worst US public markets debutant this year is undented after the liquefied natural gas exporter reported second-quarter earnings. Sunseeking Germans Face Swiss Backlash Over Alpine Holiday Congestion New York Warns of $34 Billion Budget Hole, Biggest Since 2009 Crisis To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Five Years After Black Lives Matter, Brussels' Colonial Statues Remain For Homeless Cyclists, Bikes Bring an Escape From the Streets Shares on Tuesday eked out a 0.9% gain after the company beat on revenue and said one of a set of arbitration cases would be decided 'imminently.' The rise barely offset the stock's recent losses, Venture Global still trades at less than half of its January initial public offering price of $25 a share. 'We saw the IPO price as priced for perfection in execution,' said Adam Baker, a Morningstar Investment Service analyst who rates the stock a hold. 'They have grand visions and some of those visions won't be realized into the 2030s.' The Arlington, Virginia-based company is being hit by a triple whammy of volatile LNG pricing, ongoing arbitration, and an enormous debt pile. That's helped cement this year's biggest US IPO as the worst-performing among those raising over $50 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Venture Global reported $3.1 billion in revenue for the quarter, beating the average analyst estimate of $2.9 billion while net income of $368 million missed by 39%. Lower liquefied natural gas prices at the Louisiana Calcasieu Project offset higher sales volumes at other projects. 'They're a company in heavy growth mode and they're building very expensive facilities and they're pursuing a minimum amount of those volumes being contracted,' Baker said. 'So their stock share price is going to be volatile and track movements in Dutch LNG indexes.' This marked the firm's second earnings print since it went public, in a $1.75 billion IPO. Venture Global shares fell 4% in its first day of trading, even after the company had already scaled back its price range by more than 40%, having sought as much as $46 a share. Even expedited project approvals under the Trump administration have failed to reignite shares and the biggest bulls have price targets below the IPO price. Hedgeye Risk Management analyst Fernando Valle rates the stock a buy and sees $18 to $20 as a fair price for the shares. He expects the company to benefit over the next five to 15 years from the US cost advantage in natural gas. Meanwhile, Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures are down over 30% this year as higher inventories in Europe and the US weigh on prices and the stock. Another focus for investors has been the company's arbitration. Venture Global faces nearly $6 billion in pending arbitration claims stemming from its Calcasieu LNG plant which began producing in 2022, but didn't deliver gas to its customers until 2025. Hedgeye's Valle says a negative impact from arbitration has already been priced in, but a positive result from the first decision could set the tone for future cases and change the outlook. Valle says investors are split on Venture Global, with some concerned about a lack of clarity around pricing structures. Wall Street is also split on the company; among the 16 tracked by Bloomberg, one half gives it a buy-equivalent rating and the rest assigns it a hold-equivalent grade. 'There are people who love it and people who certainly don't,' Valle said in an interview. 'The don'ts are really more concerned about management and the communication, and the ones that love it just see the value of the assets and the long-term contract and also the speed of execution.' --With assistance from Jaren Kerr. (Updates with closing share move.) Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan Why It's Actually a Good Time to Buy a House, According to a Zillow Economist The Social Media Trend Machine Is Spitting Out Weirder and Weirder Results Dubai's Housing Boom Is Stoking Fears of Another Crash A $340 Million New York Office Makeover Is Converting Boardrooms to Bedrooms ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Wall Street Journal
33 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Inside Silicon Valley's Growing Obsession With Having Smarter Babies
BERKELEY, Calif.—Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, a mathematician, spent seven years researching how to keep an advanced form of artificial intelligence from destroying humanity before he concluded that stopping it wasn't possible—at least anytime soon. Now, he's turned his considerable brainpower to promoting cutting-edge technology to create smarter humans who will be up to the task of saving us all.
