Harvey exemplifies the lighthouse playbook by winning critical law firm accounts first in the high-risk legal AI market, where social proof from marquee clients travels to reduce buyer hesitation.
Joe explains how Harvey succeeded in legal AI by winning key law firms first, creating social proof that reassured other risk-averse buyers that the AI solution was safe to adopt. ✦ AI generated
Joe Schmidt · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-13 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 15:42
Another example on the lighthouse side would be we had Harvey in our article, and they just did a fantastic job of winning the right law firms for this very new, very theoretically high-risk initiative where you're augmenting your human workforce with AI capabilities and really automating what junior lawyers would be doing on a day-to-day basis. And so when they won the first few critical lighthouse accounts inside of their market, that proof traveled like big time. And then the buyers that had this tremendous amount of exposure realized, hey, it's actually safe for me to buy this solution.
verbatim transcript · starts at 15:42
15:23math and be like, "Would you like to, you know, have this solution, yes or no?" Um, so that's a really good example of a of a of a land grab market. Um, and those entrepreneurs are just like unbelievable sellers. They hit the pavement better than anyone, um, just as good as anyone as anyone I've ever seen. Um, and uh and and they're doing a great job. You know, another example on the on
15:42the lighthouse side would be, you know, we had we had like Harvey in in our article, um, and they just did a fantastic job of winning the right law firms for this very new, very, you know, theoretically high-risk initiative where you're augmenting your human workforce with, you know, AI capabilities and really automating what, you know, um, you know, junior lawyers would be doing, um, on a day-to-day basis. And so when
16:04they won the first kind of, you know, few critical lighthouse accounts, um, inside of their market, like that proof traveled like big time. Um, and uh and then, you know, the buyers that had like this tremendous amount of exposure realized, "Hey, it's actually safe for me to buy this this solution." >> So those are the two kind of counter example or, you know, two examples in this market. I don't know if there's
16:23anything you you'd highlight from other companies you're working with or >> yeah. Things you've seen. >> Yeah, I mean, those are two great examples. Um, yeah, I'm doing uh a decent amount of work with a company we invested in called Pylon. Uh, they're basically the AI native um customer support and they're a great example of of uh of land grab. They're doing a fantastic job right now of just going
16:42out and saying, "Hey, we've got a better way of doing this." Uh, and, you know, they have uh you know, they they've been climbing up the ACV ladder, but you know, they started at pretty modest ACVs uh and have been working their way up just by going out and replacing. And they have a fantastic go-to-market team that's just out executing. >> This this ACV question is actually kind