Upstream Ag Professional - June 28th 2026

Index

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This week’s audio edition can be found here and covers the following:

A few weeks back I published The Evolution of Spray Technology and the Spray Tech Stack, sharing a framework for how various technologies can be integrated to deliver better agronomic, economic and environmental outcomes.

The point was that no single layer solves everything, but each portion contributes towards the goal of better agronomics, economics and environmental outcomes.

Gabe Sibley, CEO and co-founder of Verdant Robotics, read it and wrote me with a response that pushed the framework somewhere I hadn't taken it.

The link in the heading contains full commentary as a guest post.

His comments are that as each layer of the stack improves, the system gets more capable and more fragmented at the same time. A camera sees, a separate system decides, a nozzle applies, often across three vendors and three handoffs. Every handoff is a place where latency and optimization gaps accumulate. Verdant's view is to collapse perception, decision, and execution into one native, plant-level system.

What I find compelling is that he doesn't frame this as different from the stack, but as an astute evolution of where the stack should head:

That question is a thoughtful one. Whether you build sprayers, sell them, manufacturer or recommend products applied through them, Gabe's piece is worth thinking through.

This week Patrick Walther and I walked through what a Personal OS is: an AI system built around you, your beliefs, your goals, and how you actually work, that organizes your day-to-day and starts automating the parts you shouldn't be doing manually.

If you missed it, but want to join the 150+ participants/recording viewers, watch the recording here.

If you want to build the system yourself, Patrick's full system and every step is free here.

Many people who try to implement a new system never finish it, or if you are like me, you are non-technical and require support to overcome some of the finer details to effectively implement. The course exists to make sure you have what you need to be successful. Over four days in July, we build it with you, tailored to agribusiness professionals.

You'll leave the course with a working system that has:

You can register for the course being offered over four days in July here.

It’s no mystery that venture scale returns have been a challenge to achieve in agriculture.

The reasons are well documented by many and frequently cited as things like:

I think there is truth to some of these, or have some truth built in.

At a macro level, it is interesting to look at the sectors that have been most successful taking on venture capital and what makes them different.

If we look where venture capital has produced its biggest, most consistent returns, it is in software and pharma/biotech.

The rationale might get chalked up to "those are the largest markets," which is true, but not the whole story.

I think the other aspect continually comes down to a VC’s ability to underwrite and manage risk.

I don’t mean that in the sense that “venture doesn’t work for agriculture” — I believe it can, but as many have pointed out, it is an imperfect mechanism.

I think looking at those sectors and how risk is underwritten or thought about helps us understand what makes VC investing in agriculture a challenge for VC’s is navigating that risk.