The rising dominance of uber-tech giants from Google to Amazon.com in next-generation technologies has raised concerns that they could foreclose any chance for startups in areas such as artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.

Indeed, the possibility even worried investors such as Marc Andreessen (above) of the top-flight venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as recently as a couple of years ago.

“Two years ago I would have been very depressed about this,” Andreessen said today at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. “Big companies hoovered up all the talent.” They also had a big advantage over startups in data gathering from their vast array of services and users.

Not anymore, or at least not as much. “Today I think we’ve seen an almost 180 degree reversal,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of AI startups.”

For one thing, the people who have been working at these large companies realize they can form their own companies — especially with access to deep pockets like Andreessen’s. Moreover, there’s more AI technology readily available through rampant open-sourcing of algorithms by the like of Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Not least, those startups are managing to get access to enough data, and in some cases figuring out ways to make do with less data. Some self-driving car technology startups are using simulations using video games such as Grand Theft Auto to do the training of their AI systems, he noted.

As a result, Andreessen said he’s seeing a lot of new AI startups even in fields that seem ripe for domination by big companies, such as health care, financial tech and transportation. Indeed, Andreessen Horowitz funded one entrepreneur, George Hotz, a young entrepreneur who’s founder and chief executive of Comma.ai, which is building a kit to make cars self-driving.

Greylock Partners’ Reid Hoffman

Self-driving cars continue to interest other investors too. “It’s clear that the self-driving future is here,” Greylock Partners’ Reid Hoffman said on another conference panel. Another Greylock Partners, Josh Elman, said he’s “looking at a lot of companies in this space. We want to invest ahead of it.”

In fact, that’s an example of the AI opportunities Greylock sees that are emerging on top of the stack of basic AI and mobile services provided by Google, Amazon and others, such as the Greylock company Ozlo, which makes finding information on a phone easier. Hoffman and Elman think specific AI services turned for particular applications will continue to emerge, just as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others were built upon a relatively light technology base initially but built themselves into platforms that allowed them to create massive platforms independent of giants such as Google.

“I think the same will happen now [even though] Google and Apple have these platforms,” Elman said. “It’s about getting that product and experience just right. [Then] it can cascade and compound into bigger things.”

One prime example is the raging success of Pokemon Go, created by Niantic Inc., which is kicking off broad interest in augmented reality. Indeed, in yet another interview at the conference, Niantic founder and Chief Executive John Hanke said he anticipates more such games and social experiences, “Our technology is a platform that can make possible these experiences,” he said.

Greylock Partners’ Josh Elman

There are even plenty of opportunities left in social media and other networks, Hoffman and Elman said. “Now you have to have a new edge,” Hoffman said. “You have to do it within the context of a set of networks that already exist.” But he says that’s happening with services such as the neighborhood social network Nextdoor Inc. and Discord’s voice and text chat for gamers. “There’s still so many tribes that we want to be a part of that need to be built,” Elman said.

Still, the days when many pre-revenue and especially pre-product companies can get acquired for their sheer talent are coming to an end — despite the pace of mergers and acquisitions picking up lately, including by non-tech companies such as General Electric Co. and Unilever N.V. “The acqui-hire market has mostly fallen away,” Elman said.

Photos by Robert Hof