In this final of a 3-part series (which originally aired as YouTube videos) on working with venture investors, a16z Managing Partner Scott Kupor shares best practices for working with your board as it grows from just you, your co-founders and first investor all the way through the time when you are recruiting independent board members in preparation for going public. Want to learn more? Read Scott's book "Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It" (https://a16z.com/book/secret...
Jul 19, 2019•21 min•Ep. 471
So you've decided raising venture capital is the best fundraising strategy for your startup. Now what? In this second of a 3-part series, a16z Managing Partner Scott Kupor shares actionable fundraising advice based on his experience of seeing thousands of startup pitches and working on all of a16z's investments. Want to learn more? Read Scott's book "Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It" (https://a16z.com/book/secrets-of-sand-hill-road/). The views expressed here are thos...
Jul 18, 2019•33 min•Ep. 470
Incentives matter. So understanding the incentives of venture capitalists will help you decide if raising money from a venture investor makes sense for your business. In this first of a 3-part series, which originally aired as YouTube videos, a16z Managing Partner Scott Kupor talks with Frank Chen about how venture capital works: how the money flows, what Limited Partners (the organizations that invest in venture capitalists) are looking for, what differentiates the top investors, and what all o...
Jul 17, 2019•27 min•Ep. 469
with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen) Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka "a16z"), we’re resurfacing some of our previous episodes featuring Andreessen Horowitz founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This episode was actually recorded in 2018 at our annual innovation Summit, and features economist Tyler Cowen interviewing Ben and Marc about everything from their partnership and how it work...
Jul 04, 2019•39 min•Ep. 468
with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Steven Johnson (@stevenbjohnson) Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka "a16z"), we’re resurfacing some of our previous episodes featuring Andreessen Horowitz founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This episode was actually recorded in 2017 at our annual innovation Summit, and features technology writer Steven Johnson interviewing Ben and Marc about everything from their relations...
Jul 04, 2019•42 min•Ep. 467
with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), Scott Kupor (@skupor), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka "a16z"), we’re resurfacing some of our previous episodes featuring Andreessen Horowitz founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This episode was actually recorded in 2016 -- on the 5-year anniversary of Marc’s Wall Street Journal op-ed on “Why software is eating the world” -- and features Sonal Chok...
Jul 04, 2019•42 min•Ep. 466
with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Michael Copeland Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka "a16z"), we’re resurfacing some of our previous episodes featuring Andreessen Horowitz founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This episode was actually recorded in 2014, on the 5-year anniversary of the firm, and features Michael Copeland interviewing Ben and Marc about disruption theory, as well as key traits of entrepreneur...
Jul 04, 2019•17 min•Ep. 465
with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Stewart Butterfield (@stewart) A lot in technology -- and venture -- happens in decades. New cycles of technology come and go, including some secular shifts; a new generation of founders matures; and so much more changes. So when Andreessen Horowitz (dubbed with the numeronym "a16z") was founded a decade ago as of this month, the tech landscape looked very different between then and now: Not only had the global economy just seen a re...
Jun 28, 2019•45 min•Ep. 464
Two recent scientific journal papers show what's possible when CRISPR moves from cutting DNA tool to a full-fledged platform -- expanding its toolkit for medicine across R&D, therapeutics, and diagnostics: "Transposon-encoded CRISPR-Cas systems direct RNA-guided DNA integration" in Nature -- by Sanne Klompe, Phuc Vo, Tyler Halpin-Healy, and Samuel Sternberg (of Columbia University) "RNA-guided DNA insertion with CRISPR-associated transposases" in Science -- by Jonathan Strecker, Alim Ladha, ...
Jun 26, 2019•15 min•Ep. 463
Synthetic fraud—yes, it's a thing: a new evolution of consumer fraud that’s been emerging in financial services, to the tune of $1-$2B a year. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Naftali Harris, co-founder and CEO of Sentilink, which builds technology to detect and stop synthetic fraud, talks with a16z's Hanne Tidnam and operating partner for information security Joel de la Garza all about what this new kind of fraud is. Where did this new form of fraud come from, and why is it on the rise? Who...
Jun 25, 2019•35 min•Ep. 462
How have we gotten to where were are with machine learning? Where are we going? a16z Operating Partner Frank Chen and Carnegie Mellon professor Tom Mitchell first stroll down memory lane, visiting the major landmarks: the symbolic approach of the 1970s, the "principled probabalistic methods" of the 1980s, and today's deep learning phase. Then they go on to explore the frontiers of research. Along the way, they cover: How planning systems from the 1970s and early 1980s were stymied by the "banana...
Jun 19, 2019•41 min•Ep. 461
with Tony Blair (@InstituteGC), Scott Kupor (@skupor), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) If the current pace of tech change is the 21st-century equivalent of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution — with its tremendous economic growth and lifestyle change — it means that even though it’s fundamentally empowering and enabling, there’s also lots of fears and misconceptions as well. That’s why, argues former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair (who now has an eponymous Institute for Global Change), we need to ...
Jun 15, 2019•31 min•Ep. 460
with Eric Topol (@EricTopol) and Vijay Pande (@vijaypande) Artificial intelligence is coming to the doctor’s office. In this episode, Dr. Eric Topol, cardiologist and chair of innovative medicine at Scripps Research, and a16z’s general partner on the Bio Fund Vijay Pande, have a conversation around Topol’s new book, Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. What is the impact AI will have on how your doctor engages with you? On the nature of the doctor's visit a...
Jun 13, 2019•45 min•Ep. 459
Want actionable advice from a founder who has built multiple tech companies and has invested the time to be open, introspective, and transparent about lessons learned? In this episode (which originally aired as a YouTube video), a16z General Partner Andrew Chen (@@andrewchen) talks with Justin Kan (@justinkan). Justin is a repeat entrepreneur who co-founded Kiko Software (a Web 2.0 calendar that pre-dated Google Calendar by 4 years); Justin.tv (a lifecasting platform); Twitch.tv (a live streamin...
Jun 10, 2019•49 min•Ep. 458
with Vijay Pande (@vijaypande) and Bharath Ramsundar Deep learning has arrived in the life sciences: every week, it seems, a new published study comes out... with code on top. In this episode, a16z General Partner Vijay Pande and Bharath Ramsundar talk about how AI/ML is unlocking the field in a new way, in a conversation around their book, Deep Learning for the Life Sciences: Applying Deep Learning to Genomics, Microscopy, Drug Discovery, and More (also co-authored with Peter Eastman and Patric...
Jun 06, 2019•32 min•Ep. 457
with Van Jones (@VanJones68), Shaka Senghor (@ShakaSeghnor), and Chris Lyons (@clyons) True redemption can be hard to come by in our justice system today. And yet, we need it more than ever before. In this episode (based on an event hosted by Andreessen Horowitz's Cultural Leadership Fund), CNN news commentator and author Van Jones and Shaka Senghor, author of the New York Times bestseller Writing my Wrongs and director's fellow of the MIT Media Lab, discuss the U.S. prison system; the human pot...
Jun 03, 2019•36 min•Ep. 456
with Andrew Lo (@AndrewWLo) and Jorge Conde (@JorgeCondeBio) The advent of new gene and cell therapies are beginning to approach that holy grail of medicine—that of a possible cure. But they are also more expensive than any medicines ever sold before. In this episode, MIT economist Andrew Lo and a16z General Partner on the Bio Fund Jorge Conde discuss how exactly we place an economic value on a cure; the questions we still need to figure out, like who should pay for what and how; and how we need...
May 30, 2019•33 min•Ep. 455
with Laurene Powell Jobs (@LaurenePowell) and Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) Laurene Powell Jobs is, among many other things, founder and President of the Emerson Collective -- the social impact firm she founded to drive change and reform through philanthropy, investing, and policy solutions. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Ben Horowitz interviews Powell Jobs on everything from what made her who she was, growing up in the working class rural hills of New Jersey, to how the Emerson Collective doe...
May 27, 2019•39 min•Ep. 454
with David Ulevitch (@davidu) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Since the startup (and founder) journey doesn't go neatly linear from technical to product to sales, tightening one knob (whether engineering or marketing or pricing & packaging) creates slack in one of the other knobs, which demands turning to yet another knob. So how do you know what knob to focus on and when? How do you build the right team for the right play and at the right time? It all depends on "What time is it": where are you ...
May 20, 2019•46 min•Ep. 453
Do you sometimes wish you had been born in a different decade so you could have worked on the fundamental building blocks of modern computing? How fun, challenging, and fulfilling would it have been to work on semiconductors in the 1950s or Unix in the 1960s (both at Bell Labs) or personal computers at the Homebrew Computer Club in the 1970s or on the Internet browser at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (and later Mountain View, CA) in the 1990s? Good news: it’s not too late. There...
May 13, 2019•53 min•Ep. 452
with Emily Oster (@ProfEmilyOster) and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Are chia seeds actually that good for you? Will Vitamin E keep you healthy? Will breastfeeding babies make them smarter? There’s maybe no other arena where understanding what the evidence truly tells us is harder than in health… and parenting. And yet we make decisions based on what we hear about in studies like the ones listed above every day. In this episode, Brown University economics professor Emily Oster, author of Expect...
May 11, 2019•41 min•Ep. 451
with @annieduke, @pmarca, and @smc90 Every organization, whether small or big, early or late stage -- and every individual, whether for themselves or others -- makes countless decisions every day, under conditions of uncertainty. The question is, are we allowing that uncertainty to bubble to the surface, and if so, how much and when? Where does consensus, transparency, forecasting, backcasting, pre-mortems, and heck, even regret, usefully come in?Going beyond the typical discussion of focusing o...
May 08, 2019•46 min•Ep. 450
In a followup to one of our most popular podcast episodes which originally aired in April 2017 (https://a16z.com/2017/04/03/cryptocurrencies-protocols-appcoins/), a16z Crypto Fund General Partner Chris Dixon returns to talk with Olaf Carlson-Wee of Polychain Capital in a free-wheeling conversation about the seven major trends they see happening in blockchain computing now as we shift from basic protocol design to pragmatic product launches: Improving developer productivity Scaling out versus sca...
May 07, 2019•51 min•Ep. 449
As companies digitize, they change the way they make decisions: decisions are made lower in the organization, based on data, and increasingly automated. This creates opportunities for startups creating new ways to collect and analyze data to support this new style of decision making. In this episode (which originally aired as a YouTube video), Jad Naous (@jadtnaous) and Frank Chen (@withfries2) discuss this change and the startup opportunities these changes create. The views expressed here are ...
Apr 29, 2019•30 min•Ep. 448
with Jorge Conde (@JorgeCondeBio), Julie Yoo (@julesyoo), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Building a software company in healthcare is hard -- and comes along with unique challenges no other entrepreneurs face. In this conversation, a16z bio general partner -- and previous founder of genomics company Knome -- Jorge Conde; and a16z bio partner and former founder Julie Yoo (of patient provider matching system, Kyruus) share their mistakes and hard earned lessons learned with a16z partner Hanne ...
Apr 25, 2019•37 min•Ep. 447
Join longtime Apple software engineer Ken Kocienda in conversation with a16z Deal and Research operating partner Frank Chen for an insider’s account of how Apple designed software in the golden age of Steve Jobs, spanning products like the first release of Safari on MacOS to the first few releases of the iPhone and iOS (very first codename: "Purple"). Ken vividly shares about the creative process, how teams were organized, what it was like demo'ing to Steve Jobs, and many other fun stories. This...
Apr 19, 2019•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 446
In this episode of the a16z Podcast -- which originally aired as a video on YouTube -- general partner Alex Rampell (and former fintech entrepreneur as the CEO and co-founder of TrialPay) talks with operating partner Frank Chen about the quickly changing fintech landscape and, even more importantly, why the landscape is changing now. Should the incumbents be nervous? About what, exactly? And most importantly, what should big companies do about all of this change? But the conversation from both s...
Apr 04, 2019•50 min•Ep. 445
with Nick Quah (@nwquah), Connie Chan (@conniechan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) It's a podcast about podcasting! About the state of the industry, that is. Because a lot has changed since we recorded "a podcast about podcasts" about four years ago: podcasts, and interest in podcasting -- listening, making, building -- is growing. But by how much, exactly? (since various stats are constantly floating around and often out of context); and what do we even know (given that no one really knows what a ...
Apr 03, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 444
with Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) and Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) What does Apple's recent event — in which a range of new services was announced, from Apple News Plus to Apple TV Plus to the Apple card — mean for the company's overall strategy and tactics? In this another of a16z's 'hallway conversations', Benedict Evens and Steven Sinofsky discuss the build up, announcements, and postmortem of the recent Apple event, and consider what it all means in terms of a big company's evolution into s...
Mar 30, 2019•29 min•Ep. 443
with Safi Bahcall (@safibahcall), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) A "moonshot" is a destination (like going to the moon, quite literally) -- but nurturing "loonshots" (which often involves a number of stumbles along the way) is how we get there. This goes beyond the trite mantra of failing fast! It is about not having "false fails" or not killing the seemingly small ideas that could lead to outsized yet unexpected outcomes, observes Safi Bahcall (physicist, ex-startup found...
Mar 25, 2019•48 min•Ep. 442
