Investing Through the Reset

A framework, not a timetable

In The Fourth Turning, William Strauss and Neil Howe describe four generational seasons, each lasting roughly twenty years: High, Awakening, Unraveling and Crisis. In their framework, a High is a period of institutional confidence, an Awakening challenges its assumptions, an Unraveling weakens shared arrangements, and a Crisis resolves into a new High in which institutions are rebuilt.

We use this as a lens on timing, not a forecast. History does not follow a reliable calendar, and no account of generational change can tell an investor when a market will bottom, which company will succeed or what return to expect. The useful question is narrower: when familiar arrangements stop meeting people’s needs, what are they ready to build instead?

What renewal makes possible

This decade has made that question harder to ignore. Businesses face pressure to do more with constrained teams. Customers expect faster responses. Longstanding processes often depend on fragmented software and manual coordination. These observations do not prove a historical cycle. They do suggest that there is room for a different operating model.

Periods of upheaval can create the conditions for new institutions and technologies to take root. Practices that once felt permanent become open to revision. Buyers reconsider how work should be organized, who should perform it and what a useful result should cost. Renewal is not simply the replacement of old organizations; it can also happen inside them, one workflow at a time.

For capital, the opportunity is to support that rebuilding rather than merely describe it. A new business earns its place by making something work better. The surrounding uncertainty is a reason to examine the evidence closely, not a reason to dispense with it.

The value of starting early

Capital deployed early in a renewal can have more time to compound. Customer relationships deepen, product knowledge accumulates and distribution becomes more repeatable. When a company learns from each completed workflow, improvements can reinforce one another long before the wider market agrees on the category.

But a longer runway is not a promised return. Being early can mean paying for years of development, encountering weak demand or discovering that the product is not reliable enough for its intended use. Price, capital requirements and the quality of the business still matter. A compelling historical narrative cannot rescue poor unit economics.

Our aim is not to identify a turning point on a chart. It is to recognize businesses already building useful capabilities, with enough evidence to judge their prospects and enough room for the investment to support durable growth.

AI as a rebuilding technology

We believe AI is a defining technology of this renewal because it changes what software can take responsibility for. A system can move beyond presenting information to executing a workflow: answering an inquiry, scheduling a visit, preparing an invoice and following through on payment. The value is in the completed work, not the novelty of the demonstration.

That matters especially where essential operations still run across spreadsheets, inboxes and repeated manual handoffs. A practical AI product can help a business serve customers more consistently without requiring an enterprise-scale implementation. Rebuilding, in this sense, is concrete: fewer missed calls, less administrative delay and a clearer connection between effort and outcome.

Not every workflow should be automated, and not every AI product deserves capital. Reliability, permissions, human oversight and accountability remain essential. The companies that address those requirements thoughtfully are more interesting to us than those that promise the widest transformation.

Established operators, not speculation

Our focus remains established AI and technology companies with product in market and revenue. We partner with management teams who understand their customers’ work, have tested their product against real conditions and can explain the value it creates. We do not need a speculative bet on the direction of history to recognize a useful business.

These operators are already in motion. Capital can help them improve delivery, strengthen their teams and reach more customers. Depending on the company’s needs, we consider majority or minority positions and operational or passive partnerships. The structure follows the business, not a sweeping theory of the era.

The reset lens encourages us to look beyond current consensus while keeping our investment standards grounded in evidence. We ask what is changing, which customers are ready for it and who is building something that will remain valuable when the excitement subsides. Funding the future means supporting that work with discipline, patience and a genuine partnership mindset.

Consensus is what gets priced. Conviction is what gets paid.

Frequently asked questions.