Follow the Money
Where capital flows, the future follows
Quentin Matsys, The Money Changer and His Wife, 1514
Greetings, adventurer.
Today we're heading to the Bank, where fortunes are built and the future is quietly decided.
The phrase “follow the money” dates back to All the President’s Men, the classic political thriller about reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovering the Watergate scandal.
It’s a simple, if somewhat jaded, formula: follow the money; find corruption.
But we don’t have to be muckraking journalists or hard-nosed cost-cutters to pay attention to how money’s spent—and it’s not always nefarious actors or greedy charlatans at the end of the yellow brick road.
Two quick points here:
(1) Capital signals conviction about what will happen next.
Years ago, it was computer chips, pharmaceuticals, and plastics. Before that it was steel, railroads, and oil. The biggest bets being placed today—on AI, sustainable real estate, renewable energy, etc.—will define the technological and cultural shifts of tomorrow. And these bets aren’t exactly a secret; they’re hidden in plain sight if you know where to look.
(2) Progress lags investment.
Consider the tech boom of the early 2000s: by the time we saw mass consumer adoption of social platforms, venture firms like Sequoia had already funded the key infrastructure and early-stage startups years prior. The rise of Tesla follows the same pattern: it took billions in up-front investment before electric vehicles began reshaping public attitudes (and city streets).
So this week’s quest is simple: to understand what’s coming, track where the money is flowing. Right now, no sector is attracting more capital than artificial intelligence, so we’ll make it our case study for cutting through the hype and understanding where and how money’s being allocated.
All the major firms—VCs, hedge funds, tech giants—are pouring billions into AI. It’s the defining investment theme of our time. But the approach we’re outlining here could apply to any booming sector: real estate, climate tech, healthcare, defense tech, whatever.
For now, I’ll break down who’s betting big on AI, where the momentum is going, and what it tells us about the future. Then, I’ll cover the best tools and resources to track investment trends yourself—consider it your map to spotting the next big thing.
Hopefully unnecessary disclaimer: this isn’t financial advice—just a deep dive into where the biggest investors are placing their bets in 2025… and how you can follow the money yourself.
Let’s get into it.
The AI Boom
It’s hard to overstate the sheer amount of money being poured into artificial intelligence. AI deals represented more than 60% percent of all fundraising in Q4 2024; globally, AI startups attracted more than $130 billion dollars for the full year.
As interest has exploded, the opportunists have arrived right on schedule. Companies with only the faintest connection to AI are rebranding themselves to catch the wave—many offering “wrapper” solutions" that merely add a thin layer of AI functionality (or marketing) on top of existing software.
So yes, there’s plenty of froth reminiscent of the late-1990s internet bubble—call it hype, herd mentality, FOMO, groupthink. It’s the same old speculative dance. A lot of people will lose a lot of money, as they do in every spending frenzy.
But make no mistake: the tech is very real and improving literally every day. If it hasn’t already, AI will soon change your life.
The megacaps know it, with major tech companies planning to spend over $300 billion in 2025 to maintain their competitive edge in AI. Last month, the Trump administration announced a four-year, $500 billion joint venture called Stargate (great show, btw) between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to build massive AI data centers across the U.S. And even traditional industries are making unprecedented investments in AI-powered automation (manufacturing), AI drug discovery (healthcare), and AI-driven risk assessment and lending (finance).
Billions, billions, billions. If you’re like me, your eyes glaze over at the scale of these big numbers. What’s actually happening here?
Beyond the Headlines: How to Follow the Money Yourself
Okay, so that’s the headline version. But what if you want to really get into the nitty-gritty of AI spending and better understand where all these dollars are going?
Here are three ways to dig deeper:
(1) Pay attention to venture capital websites
Though much derided, venture capitalists, who fuel startups with cash in hopes of outsized returns, largely determine how AI will reshape everyday life.
And the big VC players aren’t exactly secretive about where they’re placing bets. Once investments are made, it’s to their benefit to publicize and hype their portfolio companies. Their portfolio pages are public (though there’s always some lag), and many put out genuinely insightful content through blogs, newsletters, and social media.
Take a16z for example, one of the biggest names in VC. Their backings include AirBnB, Facebook, and Stripe. Getting funding from Andreessen is a startup’s dream—they see the best deals, have a stacked team of experts, and do serious due diligence before making a move.
So, what happens when we check out their site? What AI investments stand out?
A quick skim of their portfolio page shows a few clear trends:
Generative AI Developer Tools – Platforms that help engineers integrate and deploy AI models more easily. This is the classic “picks and shovels” play.
Enterprise AI Infrastructure – The behind-the-scenes players building the software and hardware that make AI faster, cheaper, and more efficient at scale. The a16z Enterprise page has a great overview of their plays in this space.
AI-Powered Consumer Apps – Startups leveraging language and vision models to reshape productivity, content creation, and virtual collaboration. Luma AI is a great example. Their models allow users to generate interactive 3D assets from simple text prompts.
One recurring theme is verticalization. VCs aren’t merely looking for broad AI plays; they’re focused on startups solving industry-specific problems in healthcare, finance, and other sectors.
And here’s the thing: you don’t need insider connections to spot these patterns. Just browse portfolio pages, skim a few blog posts, and start connecting the dots. It can be a pretty fascinating rabbit hole, and, compared to just reading the news, it’ll give you a better sense of what’s coming down the pipeline.
Here are more great VC sites to skim:
(2) Review shareholder reports and investor calls
Similarly, the execs at public companies are more forthright than you might expect about their investments in R&D. They have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, and they love to brag about their successes.
They’re also increasingly consolidated and integrated—vertically, horizontally—across nearly every sector: tech, retail, healthcare, logistics, enterprise software. The biggest companies don’t just play in one space anymore. They touch everything.
So if you follow what they’re saying, you’ll get a clearer picture of where the economy is heading. Amazon telegraphed its AWS dominance years before cloud became its primary profit engine. Meta’s earnings calls in 2021-22 foreshadowed its pivot to AI after the metaverse push fizzled out—though I wouldn’t count out the metaverse just yet. Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI wasn’t a one-off but a signal that AI was about to become the next arms race.
It doesn’t take a finance degree to track this stuff. Pick one company—Nvidia, Google, Tesla, whatever. Read their latest annual report. Skim an earnings call transcript. Take ten minutes, and pull out the key themes.
(3) Follow the Right Sources
Finally, half the battle is simply knowing whom to listen to and whom to safely ignore. There’s so much noise, and if you aren’t carefully curating your media diet, you’ll get lost in the woods. Here are some of my favorite people and publications for following the money and understanding the specifics of AI and beyond:
NY Times Dealbook with Andrew Ross Sorkin: covers major M&A activity, venture capital moves, private equity trends, and public markets
Barron’s: from the WSJ; focuses on investing trends and big institutional moves
Bloomberg: great for real-time market updates
Crunchbase: a free database of funding rounds, acquisitions, and major startup moves.
Howard Marks: his investor memos are great and widely read
Matt Levine: A writer at Bloomberg and former investment banker at Goldman Sachs
Not Boring (Packy McCormick): VC-driven, great longform analysis on new tech
Exponential View (Azeem Azhar): tracks AI, energy, and economic shifts.
Following the money is about pattern recognition. The biggest winners—whether in VC, hedge funds, or startups—aren’t psychic. They’re just paying closer attention.
As I touched on a few weeks ago, I’m keeping a close eye on robotics. Tesla’s Optimus project, Meta’s recently announced plans to develop AI-powered humanoid robots, Apple’s recently announced plans to do exactly the same thing. There’s an arms race developing here. On the private side, there are some pretty ambitious startups pushing the envelope, one robotic arm at a time, including Clone Robotics and Figure. Check out these videos if you want to feel like you’re living in a Black Mirror episode: (1) and (2).
“Musculoskeletal robotics” from Clone Robotics
What trends are you noticing? It doesn’t have to be finance/investing related; you can follow the money anywhere, anytime.
Here’s Quest 14:
Follow the Money—and Define a Trend
Pick a space you know or even kind of know: dive deeper and follow the money. Get a better understanding of its future based on present-day investment.
Then, define the trends. Lean on your expertise. If you know a lot about sports, dig into athlete-backed ventures and pay attention to what sports ownership groups are planning. If you're deep into gaming, analyze where studios and streamers are placing bets.
Drop your insights in the Substack comments, and log your Quest to qualify for future rewards. Let’s learn from each other.
Thanks for reading!