Lauren Murrow

Chicago

Head of Special Projects, Editorial at Future.com

Head of Special Projects, Editorial Partner @a16z, previously @WIRED, @nymag, @sanfranmag

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Articles

Hi, AI: Our Thesis on AI Voice Agents

May 29, 2024 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

View this report on Gamma. Now is the time to reinvent the phone call. Thanks to gen AI, no human will ever again have to make a call. Humans will spend time on the phone only when a call has value to them. For businesses, this may mean: (1) time and labor cost savings from human callers; (2) potential to re-allocate resources towards increased revenue generation; and (3) reduced risk with more compliant and consistent customer experiences.
AI’s Second Order Effects

May 13, 2024 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

Here’s a math puzzle:A good salesperson can sell 50 widgets a year, earns $100,000 a year, and will not take a pay cut. A company has an amazing new widget that needs to be sold (people will not find it on their own/aren’t looking for it). Prospective customers of this company’s new widget will happily pay $500/year, but not a dollar more. How will this company do? To quote Mean Girls: “The limit does not exist!” Or, more accurately, the company cannot exist.
AI for the Physical World

May 6, 2024 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

In the year and a half since ChatGPT launched a new AI wave, a crucial shortfall has dominated headlines: the insatiable demand for GPU computing resources. But when we talk to cloud leaders and data center operators to understand why there’s a compute crunch, it’s clear that access to power is often a bigger bottleneck than access to NVIDIA’s coveted GPUs themselves.
Banking on AI

Apr 30, 2024 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

For too long, technology and financial services have operated in parallel universes, leaving little room for collaboration. At a16z Fintech, we aim to be a bridge between these two worlds. As former founders, we know how hard it can be to navigate large institutions and drive commercial outcomes. Likewise, as former senior executives, we recognize that it’s not always easy to maintain a pulse on disruptive technologies coming out of the early stage ecosystem.
Rebuilding the California Dream with Jan Sramek | Andreessen Horowitz

Mar 5, 2024 | a16z.com | Katherine Boyle |David Ulevitch |Ryan McEntush |Lauren Murrow

California has long been ground zero for the new: new technologies, new frontiers, new arts and culture. In this session from the a16z American Dynamism Summit, moderated by a16z General Partner Katherine Boyle, California Forever CEO Jan Sramek discusses building an ambitious new city between San Francisco and Sacramento, why he firmly believes California’s best days are still ahead, and what he and his team are doing to realize that vision.
Big Ideas in Tech for 2024

Dec 6, 2023 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

Generations ago, our ancestors took to the seas to explore. Yet today we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about our own planet’s seabed. A new age of maritime exploration is changing that, and founders are leading the way. Maritime faces similar reliability and engineering challenges as aerospace, and many of the technologies pioneered by the latest space age can be readily applied; meanwhile, the size and importance of the commercial and defense markets provide substantial reward.
Software Transcends Borders-Why Not Money?

Sep 21, 2023 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

Leia esse artigo em Português. / Lee este artículo en Español. Software is inherently global and easily transcends borders—localizing it can be as easy as translating the language. Who is the Google of Brazil? Google. The globalization of money, however, is considerably more challenging.
Foreign Exchange 101: What Happens When You Send Money Abroad?

Sep 21, 2023 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

$8 trillion moves between different currencies every single day. It’s the biggest market in the world. It’s about 30 times daily global GDP. If you’re new to foreign exchange, but you’ve experienced the pain of it taking a long time and you’re in agony wondering if the money that you sent is ever going to reach the recipient, and how much money they’re going to get, and who’s taking fees and what those fees are…that’s what I’m here to explain. Why is it expensive? Why is it complicated?
The UK Is a Fintech Regulatory Superpower

Sep 21, 2023 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

The UK is home to some of the largest payments companies and most successful neobanks in the world, Wise, Starling, and Monzo among them. That success has been bolstered by the fact that the UK is among the world’s most innovative financial services regulatory environments. Regulation is generally a blocker to innovation. But the UK has used it to foster domestic competition and successfully grow its global presence.
Why India Leads in Digital Payments

Sep 21, 2023 | financialchickens.com | Lauren Murrow

Over the past decade, India’s central bank—the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)—has become one of the most proactive regulators in the world, advancing the digitization of payments and financial services at a rapid pace. Aadhaar, the country’s pioneering digital ID system, and UPI, its real-time digital payments system, are largely regarded as models for delivering financial services and social benefits more widely and efficiently.