What is "infrastructure" actually? In the 19th and 20th century, that usually meant the transportation systems supporting roadways, airports, trains... but we don't even really know yet what it might potentially mean in the age of rapidly changing technology, autonomous vehicles, drones, and self-driving cars. In this episode, a16z's Matthew Colford discusses the infrastructure of the future with Anthony Foxx, former secretary of transportation under the Obama administration and former mayor of ...
Aug 25, 2017•23 min•Ep. 321
with Ben Horowitz, Scott Kupor, and Caroline Moon “The only unforgivable sin in business is to run out of cash” [so said Harold Geneen], yet startup CEOs “always act on leading indicators of good news, and lagging indicators of bad news” [according to Andy Grove]; after all, it requires a certain stubborn, headstrong optimism to start a company. So how to reconcile these views? At the very least, pay more attention to leading indicators of running out of cash, “because there’s just no going back...
Aug 25, 2017•20 min•Ep. 320
What do disease diagnostics, language learning, and image recognition have in common? All depend on the organization of collective intelligence: data ontologies. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, guests Luis von Ahn, founder of reCaptcha and Duolingo, Jay Komarneni, founder of HumanDX, a16z General Partner Vijay Pande, and a16z Partner Malinka Walaliyadde break down what data ontologies are, from the philosophical (Wittgenstein and Wikipedia!) to the practical (a doctor identifying a diagnosi...
Aug 15, 2017•27 min•Ep. 319
with Graham Allison and Matthew Colford "When a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, shit happens." It's true of people, it's true of companies, and it's even more true of countries. It's also the fundamental insight captured by ancient Greek historian Thucydides in his History of The Pelopennesian War. But where he was describing the war between Sparta and Athens, modern historian and political scientist Graham Allison describes how U.S. and China can escape this rising vs. ruling...
Aug 11, 2017•29 min•Ep. 318
What happens when companies grow exponentially in a short amount of time -- to their organization, their product planning, their behavior towards change itself? In this "hallway conversation", a16z partners Steven Sinofsky and Benedict Evans discuss the business tactics and strategies behind four of the largest tech companies -- Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon -- and how they work from an org perspective. From the outside, these giants can seem composed of disparate entities literally strewn...
Aug 07, 2017•30 min•Ep. 317
with Anne Mitchell, Lars Dalgaard, and Scott Kupor "Orthogonal thinking" but "shared core values" -- that's what makes an ideal board... especially when it comes to "independents", i.e., board members who aren't also investors. But how do you get the most out of those independent directors, who are often in the minority? How do you bring in the best board member for the company, team, product -- not just as another box to check on the road to IPO, but to ensure a fresh and/or missing perspective...
Aug 04, 2017•23 min•Ep. 316
with Jimmy Soni, Rob Goodman, and Steven Sinofsky Modern technology owes much to the introduction of the binary digit or "bit", first proposed by Claude Shannon in "A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, a paper published in 1948. The bit would go on to transform analog to digital, making Shannon the father of the information age. His contemporaries (and collaborators) included Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, and other architects of the digital era. In this podcast, moderated by a16z board partner...
Aug 03, 2017•30 min•Ep. 315
There are the things that you carefully plan when it comes to an IPO -- the who (the bankers, the desired institutional investors); the what (the pricing, the allocations); and the when (are we ready? is this a good public business?). But then there are the things that you don't plan: like the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression... as happened before the OpenTable IPO. There's even a case study about it. And so in this episode of the a16z Podcast, we delve into those lessons learne...
Jul 24, 2017•31 min•Ep. 314
Here’s what we know: There’s a pair (father and son) of Russian scientists trying to resurrect (or rather, "rewild") an Ice Age (aka Pleistocene era) biome (grassland) complete with (gene edited, lab-grown) woolly mammoths (derived from elephants). In Arctic Siberia (though, not at the one station there that Amazon Prime delivers to!). Here's what we don't know: How many genes will it take? (with science doing the "sculpting" and nature doing the "polishing")? How many doctors will it take to ma...
Jul 18, 2017•30 min•Ep. 313
In the age of virality, what does it actually mean to be popular? When does popularity -- or good product design, for that matter -- cross over from desire and engagement... to addiction? Journalist and editor Derek Thompson, author of Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction -- and NYU professor Adam Alter, author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked -- share their thoughts on these topics with Hanne Tidnam in this episode...
Jul 15, 2017•27 min•Ep. 312
This episode of the a16z Podcast takes us on a quick tour through the themes of economics/historian/journalist Marc Levinson's books -- from An Extraordinary Time, on the end of the postwar boom and the return of the ordinary economy; to The Great A&P, on retail and the struggle for small business in America; all the way through to The Box, on how the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger. In this hallway-style conversation, Levinson and we (with Sonal Choksh...
Jul 11, 2017•33 min•Ep. 311
A funny thing happened on the way to quantum computing: Unlike other major shifts in classic computing before it, it begins -- not ends -- with The Cloud. That's because quantum computers today are more like "physics experiments in a can" that most companies can't use yet -- unless you use software, not just as cloud infrastructure for accessing this computing power commercially but for also building the killer app on top of it. What will that killer app be? With quantum virtual machines and spe...
Jun 30, 2017•25 min•Ep. 310
Is a network -- whether a crowd or blockchain-based entity -- going to replace the firm anytime soon? Not yet, argue Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson in the new book Machine, Platform, Crowd. But that title is a bit misleading, because the real questions most companies and people wrestle with are more "machine vs. mind", "platform vs. product", and "crowd vs. core". They're really a set of dichotomies. Yet the most successful systems are rarely all one or all the other. So how then do compani...
Jun 29, 2017•36 min•Ep. 309
What is lobbying, really? Is it “white", "heavy-set" men "playing golf" and making arrangements in "smoke-filled back rooms”? It's not like that anymore, according to two lobbyists who join this episode of the a16z Podcast to pull back the curtain on this practice… and share what’s changed: Heather Podesta, founder of Invariant (and a lawyer by training), and Michael Beckerman, President and CEO of the Internet Association (an industry trade association that also has lobbyists on staff). Given t...
Jun 24, 2017•22 min•Ep. 308
"We're always fighting the last war" -- that's a phrase historians like to use because policymakers and others tend to be so focused on the threats they already know, and our mindsets and organizational structures are oriented to respond that way as well. And in the "situation room" of nation states (including the intelligence briefing war rooms in the White House), much of the security conversation is necessarily focused on the worst possible scenarios, broader context, and attribution as well....
Jun 18, 2017•23 min•Ep. 307
Nearly every cybersecurity discussion/presentation follows this formula: We don’t know what we’re doing; the bad guys are getting smarter; our defenses are getting worse; everything's more connected than ever; we’re heading towards a digital . But even though security itself has obviously changed in many ways and not in others, we — as an industry — have actually gotten pretty good at doing our jobs, argues a16z general partner Martin Casado in this segment excerpted from a talk he gave at our r...
Jun 16, 2017•9 min•Ep. 306
When individuals gain the abilities that only nation states once had, how do we put cyber threats in perspective for policymakers -- without unduly "inflating" the threats? As it is, security is an intense and important topic, so our job is to be scared -- and prepared -- but what's the scope of the actual threats, how do we talk about them, and what are the best analogies even? For example, we tend to think about "getting inside" as the big problem -- but in fact, the steady, "low-grade" degrad...
Jun 16, 2017•19 min•Ep. 305
"Slow down, cowboys" -- that's what Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) said when prosecutors in her office wanted to bring a case against companies that let apps download someone's entire address book, because surely that's a complete violation of privacy?! The issue was a perfect example of the perfect storm playing out right now between existing laws and new technologies that are evolving faster than laws can. So how do we move forward, bringing transparency and even more openness -- while a...
Jun 09, 2017•27 min•Ep. 304
When people think of modernizing government, they tend to think of new IT, of improved procurement, of new infrastructure ... rather than social services like foster care or food stamps. But how can we actually help improve daily lives -- less in the abstract and more concretely -- by applying tools and lessons from consumer tech to help put food on the table, or to find a safe foster home for children? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, recorded from Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. as part of...
Jun 07, 2017•20 min•Ep. 303
Rules, guidelines, regulations, and “laws” are all sometimes used interchangeably — but what’s legal and what isn’t is far more complex when it comes to policy, especially when politics (and technology) enters the picture. Take encryption for instance: The debate has gone beyond the “Crypto Wars” of yore to a war of attrition playing out today as companies (like Apple) go head-to-head against law enforcement (FBI); but who wins and who loses if the battles play out differently in litigation vs. ...
Jun 04, 2017•32 min•Ep. 302
Every industry (for-profit, non-profit, government, private-sector) has been touched by tech, with most trying to lead the charge in order to stay ahead. But museums and memorials, by definition, lag rather than lead there. How is that changing as visitors increasingly expect to be a part of a dialogue, not just a monologue limited to a single interpretation of events or objects in a room? How are tech tools -- from VR/AR, RFID and beacons, and mobile apps to data, personalization, and prototypi...
May 29, 2017•33 min•Ep. 301
There's feedback and there's guidance; there's praise and there's criticism. All of it is important to do better work, but to develop a better and more productive workplace and relationships -- especially given how much time we spend at work! -- the way we give and receive feedback really matters. "One of the great things about having a great boss," observes Kim Scott, "is that a great boss will help you grow as a person. And for a lot of people, a big part of what gives work meaning is personal...
May 26, 2017•25 min•Ep. 300
Turnabout is fair play: That's true in politics, and it's true at Andreessen Horowitz given our internal (and very opinionated!) culture of debate -- where we often agree to disagree, or more often, disagree to agree. So in this special "turnabout" episode of the a16z Podcast, co-founder Marc Andreessen (who is most often in the hot seat being interviewed), got the chance to instead grill fellow partners Frank Chen (who covers AI and much more), Vijay Pande (who covers healthcare for the bio fun...
May 23, 2017•35 min•Ep. 299
Discussions and headlines around tech policy tend to be dominated by what the President and the White House (aka the executive branch of the government) and what the Senate and House of Representatives (aka the legislative branch) are saying and doing. But it’s the judicial branch — the courts — that often gets the final say on key technology policy questions of the day… Like encryption, among many others. And now, there’s a new Supreme Court justice in town (Neil Gorsuch, who was sworn in last ...
May 22, 2017•22 min•Ep. 298
There’s an interesting paradox when it comes to the U.S. government and tech: Either they’re an inventor, early adopter, and buyer of emerging new tech … or they’re a very late adopter (as in the case of government officials using Blackberries vs. iPhones). But when it comes to the blockchain, they’re trying to get ahead of and stay on top of the game — with the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, co-chaired by Reps Jared Polis (D-Colorado) and David Schweikert (R-Arizona). What exactly is a “caucu...
May 20, 2017•21 min•Ep. 297
When it comes to spycraft — or rather, “tradecraft,” as they say in the biz — what do the movies get right, and what do they get wrong? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Michael Morell — former Deputy Director and twice-Acting Director of the CIA — talks all things tradecraft and tech with a16z partners Matt Spence and Hanne Tidnam. What it is that the CIA really does? Is it a) James Bond, b) Maxwell Smart, c) Jason Bourne, or d) none of the above? For starters, it’s not at all about predicti...
May 18, 2017•32 min•Ep. 296
In this lively conversation -- from our recent annual tech and policy summit in Washington, D.C. -- Axios' Dan Primack interviews a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen about the two major narratives dominating discussions about the tech industry right now: the industry is building stupid stuff; and tech is “evil” (or at least has an outsized impact, is destroying jobs). Part of the problem, Andreessen argues, is that we don't have enough technological innovation: With higher productivity growth, we'd ...
May 15, 2017•33 min•Ep. 295
Moore's Law -- putting more and more transistors on a chip -- accelerated the computing industry by so many orders of magnitude, it has (and continues to) achieve seemingly impossible feats. However, we're now resorting to brute-force hacks to keep pushing it beyond its limits and are getting closer to the point of diminishing returns (especially given costly manufacturing infrastructure). Yet this very dynamic is leading to "a Cambrian explosion" in computing capabilities… just look at what's h...
May 13, 2017•27 min•Ep. 294
A board veteran who has sat on both sides of the table, CEO of PagerDuty Jennifer Tejada shares what you gain from board membership (vs. being only an operator). How does being a board member change you as a CEO, and vice versa? Recorded as part of our annual Director's College held at Stanford University in April 2017, Tejada (in conversation with a16z operating partner Margit Wennmachers) in this episode of the a16z Podcast offers advice about the importance of diligence on both sides, subject...
May 11, 2017•20 min•Ep. 293
It’s the end of the beginning — not the beginning of the end — for wearables, argue the guests in this episode of the a16z Podcast. Especially as we move from the first, to the next, generation of wearable devices: not just activity trackers and watches but VR/AR gear, “hearables”, continuous glucose monitors, and more. The quantified self movement then takes these empirical tracking- and data-gathering tools to better reason about what works and doesn’t work in our bodies to help us solve probl...
May 01, 2017•32 min•Ep. 292
