NEA’s Tiffany Luck on AI IPOs, personal agents, and the ROI reckoning

# NEA's Tiffany Luck on AI IPOs, personal agents, and the ROI reckoning Source: [https://techcrunch.com/podcast/neas-tiffany-luck-on-ai-ipos-personal-agents-and-the-roi-reckoning/](https://techcrunch.com/podcast/neas-tiffany-luck-on-ai-ipos-personal-agents-and-the-roi-reckoning/) [Tokenmaxxing](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/17/tokenmaxxing-is-making-developers-less-productive-than-they-think/)was the hottest trend in Silicon Valley earlier this year, with CEOs encouraging employees to push AI usage as far as it would go\.[Then the bill came due](https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/05/the-token-bill-comes-due-inside-the-industry-scramble-to-manage-ais-runaway-costs/)\. Uber reportedly blew through its annual AI budget in a few months, some companies cut Claude licenses for parts of their org, and Meta killed its internal leaderboard\. This tension between hype and ROI is exactly where[NEA partner Tiffany Luck](https://www.nea.com/team/tiffany-luck)lives these days\. She got her start convincing companies that e\-commerce was the future, and now she’s all in on AI, especially when it comes to the possibilities for “magic moments” in the consumer business\. On this episode of TechCrunch’s[Equity](https://techcrunch.com/podcasts/equity/)podcast, Luck joins Rebecca Bellan to talk about the future of personal agents, her thoughts on this year’s AI IPOs, and how startups are stepping in to help enterprises track return on AI spend\. Listen to the full episode to hear: - What the tokenmaxxing\-to\-ROI shift means for how companies measure AI spend\. - Why forward deployed engineers are becoming a “Trojan horse” for AI adoption\. - How enterprises are mixing and matching models instead of committing to one provider\. - Why Tiffany thinks value is being created at every layer of the AI stack, not just at the model layer\. Subscribe to Equity on[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TechCrunch),[Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1215439780),[Overcast](https://overcast.fm/itunes1215439780/equity),[Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/5IEYLip3eDppcOmy5DmphC?si=rZDFHv2sQUul_g94iCRgpQ)and all the casts\. You also can follow Equity on[X](https://twitter.com/EquityPod)and[Threads](https://www.threads.net/@equitypod), at @EquityPod\. Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence\. Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications\. You can contact or verify outreach from Rebecca by emailing[rebecca\.bellan@techcrunch\.com](mailto:[email protected])or via encrypted message at rebeccabellan\.491 on Signal\. [View Bio](https://techcrunch.com/author/rebecca-bellan/) Theresa Loconsolo is an audio producer at TechCrunch focusing on Equity, the network’s flagship podcast\. Before joining TechCrunch in 2022, she was one of 2 producers at a four\-station conglomerate where she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered live performances and interviews from guests like lovelytheband\. Theresa is based in New Jersey and holds a bachelors degree in Communication from Monmouth University\. You can contact or verify outreach from Theresa by emailing[theresa\.loconsolo@techcrunch\.com](mailto:[email protected])\. [View Bio](https://techcrunch.com/author/theresa-loconsolo/) ## Most Popular