Travel Tech Essentialist #184: Signal
“The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth.” — Nate Silver (statistician and founder of FiveThirtyEight)
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0. Most clicked in the previous newsletter
The top link was Travelier CEO Noam Toister calling out how Skift’s State of Travel report skips the $198B ground and sea sector (unless it’s sponsored).
1. Bubble talk ≠ Signal
This chart tracks Google search interest for “market bubble” and “AI bubble.” These spikes reflect public anxiety, often fueled by media narratives. And historically, every time the media obsesses over a bubble, investors who listen miss historic gains in the tech sector.
Since 2005, when “market bubble” searches spiked, the Nasdaq is up more than 10x. Since 2021, it’s up over 70%.
Media noise is not a signal. As Ben Horowitz put it:
There’s nothing you can say to the press that will make them love you more than saying investors and entrepreneurs chasing AI are idiots. The press are generally haters, and that’s red meat for the haters — Ben Horowitz, Lenny’s Podcast
The founders who keep building something real beneath the hype are the ones who end up ahead.
2. The math works
On a recent episode of Lenny’s Podcast, Ben Horowitz gave a clear take on AI hysteria. His view is that this might feel like a bubble, but it’s not the dot-com era all over again.
The dot-com crash wiped out a generation of startups, but the core bet on the internet was right. What made it a bubble was that many businesses didn’t work; they burned cash with no real product, no revenue, and no clear path to scale.
That’s not what we’re seeing with AI. Many products today are already working at scale. They’re showing real usage, strong unit economics, and in some cases, record-breaking growth. Horowitz also pointed out that while the foundation model layer will likely consolidate, the application layer is still wide open.
All in all, the hype may be loud, but the math actually works.
3. The lazy anti-pitches
Andrew Chen has a great piece on what he calls the Anti-Pitch. You share your idea, and someone shuts it down with a one-liner: “Isn’t OpenAI just going to add this?”… “Network effects are too strong, you’ll never beat Instagram.”…”Another subscription? Everyone cancels anyway.”
Andrew’s point is that most Anti-Pitches are lazy. 99% of startups do fail, so the criticism is statistically “right” in a superficial way. But the 1% that succeed do so because the founder ignored the easy cynicism and persevered.
The move is to recognize the Anti-Pitch for what it is: noise. Sometimes there’s a real signal underneath, and you should listen for it. But don’t let these lazy one-liners knock you off course. The best way around the Anti-Pitch is a sharper pitch that addresses the usual concerns but forces people to engage with what’s actually new.
If you’ve ever had your idea dismissed with a one-liner, you’ll relate with Andrew’s post. He catalogs the Anti-Pitch in all its forms, but also shows how to work around it. Worth a read. Read + Andrew Chen
4. What “hire better” actually means
We’ve all heard the line “hire people better than yourself.” It sounds good, but it’s repeated without much rationale. Ben Horowitz explained why it matters.
As a VP of engineering, for instance, you can coach and develop your team because you know your domain and have credibility. As a CEO, that no longer works. You don’t have the expertise in marketing, finance, sales, HR, or operations to take someone from average to world-class, and the company can’t afford for you to spend your time trying.
What you need instead is leverage. If you’re the one pushing your executives to act, you don’t have it. Real leverage is when they’re the ones pushing you, bringing new ideas, spotting blind spots, and moving the company faster than you could alone.
You don’t make people great. You find people that make you great, that make the company great, that you learn from, not the other way around. — Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz cofounder
Horowitz also warned that a founder’s desire to be liked is dangerous. Leaders should aim to be liked and respected in the long run, not the short run. Sometimes that means saying things people do not want to hear. They may dislike you in the moment, but it could save the company.
If everyone agrees with your decision, you added no value. They would have done it without you. The only time you add value is when you make a decision most people do not like. That is what leadership really is. — Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz cofounder
I put together a cleaned transcript of his conversation on Lenny’s Podcast, which dives deeper into these points.
5. One big share beats 1000 small ones
Tom Orbach summarized a valuable lesson from Derek Thompson’s "Hit Makers” that’s worth keeping in mind. We tend to think of viral growth as a chain reaction: 1 → 10 → 100 → 1,000 → 100,000….In reality, this is how most things go viral: 1 → one huge share → 100,000. Distribution is determined more by who shares it, than by how many do.
We should spend less energy hoping our product or content “goes viral” through organic spread, and more energy figuring out who the key credible broadcasters are in our space and how to earn their amplification.
6. Trust vs Complexity Agentic AI Framework
Thomas Reiner just published a sharp breakdown of where agentic AI is likely to get real traction and where it won’t.
The key idea is that agentic AI will be driven by how much people trust an AI to act for them, and how hard the task is to pull off. Travel is messy, emotional, and high-stakes, which makes it the perfect proving ground.
Simple and low-stakes tasks like trip inspiration or price alerts are easy wins. High-stakes, high-friction jobs, such as end-to-end booking, multi-family itineraries, or border clearance, sit in the “frontier bets” quadrant. Adoption will roll out unevenly; the quick wins will hit first, but the real moats get built in the messy, complex jobs travelers care about most. Read + Thomas Reiner
7. Waymo as a tourist attraction
In San Francisco, Waymo’s driverless rides have become a novelty experience for visitors, with some tourists booking third-party “Waymo tours” that cost up to $149 and include stops at city landmarks, all while highlighting the empty driver’s seat for social media. (Read + SF Chronicle article).
Waymo’s tourism impact report confirms growing out-of-town demand, with tourist ride bookings rising more than 10% week over week, contributing an estimated $39 million in additional visitor spending, $5.5 million in robotaxi revenue, and $247,000 in annual local tax receipts. And this is with Waymo still not authorized to pick up passengers at the SF Airport.
A century ago, parades of “horseless carriages” drew crowds on city streets. Today, tourists in San Francisco line up to take photos of driverless cars and pay extra for the ride.
8. AI Mode is reshaping travel booking habits
Propellic just published one of the first behavioral studies on how travelers actually use Google’s new AI Mode. The data shows some clear shifts: travelers spend more time in AI chat for planning but move fast when it comes time to book, trust ratings for AI answers are high (4.3/5), and bookings flow overwhelmingly direct to operators (80%) rather than OTAs (13%). Inline links in the AI answers are getting the majority of clicks, while the right-hand results barely register.
It’s an early but revealing look at how AI interfaces change consumer behavior. Take a look at the full report here.
9. ROI from agentic AI is already showing up
Google Cloud published its second annual ROI of AI report, based on a survey of 3,400+ senior leaders. A few highlights:
88% of early adopters of agentic AI say they’re already seeing positive ROI on at least one use case.
Top reported gains include 70% productivity improvements, 63% better customer experience, 56% revenue growth, and 55% impact in marketing.
Early adopters are allocating half of their future AI budgets to agents and already deploying 10+ agents across operations.
The report is full of benchmarks on how enterprises are using AI agents and where they’re finding the fastest returns. Read the full report here
10. Personal air travel is slowly becoming real
They promised us flying cars. For decades, it sounded like a punchline, but the pieces are starting to come together.
Jetson just delivered its first single-seat eVTOL, with Oculus founder Palmer Luckey taking flight after less than 1 hour of ground training. The Jetson One is available for purchase, but new orders aren't shipping for a bit. The vehicle costs $128,000 and doesn't require a pilot's license to fly. The company has sold out of 2025 and 2026 vehicles, with the earliest shipping year being 2027.
It’s easy to dismiss as a millionaire’s toy, but that’s how plenty of future markets start. Battery density, lightweight materials, stability systems and consumer interest are all catching up. What’s still missing is the infrastructure stack to support it. If personal air mobility becomes even a niche reality, it’ll need new layers: airspace mapping, routing logic, micro-airport networks, insurance models, weather overlays, maintenance coordination, safety, and compliance.
The backend for the sky is still up for grabs.
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Mauricio Prieto
Of course Andreesen would say that. :)
And yes, dismissing things is 200% easier than taking a risk with an idea. Saying something will not change is safer and more reassuring and les embarrassing if it does change. Because that's the group think.