Online marketplaces are growing much faster than e-commerce overall. Why is that? And what new kinds of marketplaces powered by the internet and mobile are we now seeing? a16z's Jeff Jordan and Anu Hariharan share their observations here and also explain what makes marketplace powered by software and reputation work -- as well as how to manage tensions, trust, and marketplace community reactions around change.
You've heard the story: Slack began as a game. But almost exactly 1 year ago today, the internal tool the team built for its own use became a team communication app that anyone (and especially enterprises) can use -- and is now one of the fastest growing ones at that. It seems like collaboration is "something software should be helping us with” Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield observes, yet it typically isn't. So what can an app like Slack tell us about how we work today, and how the na...
Consumers seem content with the mobile duopoly we currently have. So what can be gained from a third mobile operating system? If it's an open computing platform, argues Cyanogen CEO and co-founder Kirt McMaster (in discussion with a16z's Zal Bilimoria), one big win for developers and device makers is access to the guts of an operating system -- and the opportunity to exist as core services rather than simple apps riding on top of an OS. For consumers this means potentially new and unique softwar...
A crisis can be an opportunity to change your culture. But you have to get through the crisis first, and that starts with getting to the truth of what happened. a16z's Margit Wennmachers, who co-founded The Outcast Agency, and Judy Smith, the founder of a crisis management firm but also "the real life Olivia Pope" (the inspiration behind the ABC show Scandal) draw on their long experience managing all types of crises to walk us through what steps to take when things go bad.
Apple absolutely crushed its most recent quarter, and unquestionably owns the high-end of the smartphone market, says a16z’s Benedict Evans. So where does Android fit in the ecosystem going forward? Where is the leverage for Google? Not to mention for Facebook, Amazon, and handset-makers like Samsung? Get used to this market complexion for the foreseeable future, Evans argues, with Apple owning the high-end; forked Android-powered devices flourishing at the low-end; and a battle to sell Google-a...
Virtual reality (VR) -- and augmented reality (AR) -- seem to be everywhere these days, showing up in demos and offerings from the world's biggest gadget makers to the Hollywood, gaming, and media crowds. But what's the difference between VR and AR? Is one better suited for work vs. play? What happens when you are building experiences -- and an entirely new visual grammar -- from scratch ... will we actually need standards next? a16z's Chris Dixon and Wired Entertainment's Peter Rubin discuss al...
Tracy Chou from Pinterest, and Chris Granger and Jamie Brandon from Eve, discuss whether coding is a literacy (or as Granger puts it, a "superpower" ). But as software infuses every industry and much of our lives, do we all really need to start writing code? Or is a less hands-on approach -- educating ourselves about what software can (and can't) do, and the basic architecture behind its creation -- the most useful way to gain software literacy for most people? The views expressed here...
Does your burglar alarm need to speak to your thermostat? What about your lighting system? And if all those things need to interoperate, how does that happen -- and what does that look like on the shelf at Home Depot? These are just some of the questions facing the Internet of Things. It was one of the highest-profile collections of gadgets and ideas at this year’s International CES, but is also a tech trend that has lots of consumers scratching their heads. a16z's Benedict (just back from the V...
Storage as a set of technologies in the datacenter has a conservative reputation when it comes to innovation. Reliability, capacity, speed, and cost -- those have long been the only levers to pull in storage technology. Until Paula Long had the idea to add intelligence to enterprise-grade storage. Long, the CEO and founder of DataGravity joins a16z's Peter Levine for a discussion about storage. Why (and how) intelligence is a fit for storage technology, and how this smarter approach to handling ...
What does an operating system for today's datacenter look like? Why do we even need one, and how does it function? Mesosphere's Benjamin Hindman, the co-creator of Apache Mesos, joins Steven Sinofsky for an all-OS discussion. The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies...
It's been a long and (at times) interesting battle pitching iOS vs. Android. It's time to let it go, says a16z's Benedict Evans. It's time to move on to a new set of questions -- and ideas -- in mobile. The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a1...
The Internet of Things puts intelligence into all kinds of things -- especially in the home, from appliances to light bulbs and door locks. But we still have a ways to go. “We need to be very patient in this category,” says Quirky CEO Ben Kaufman in a conversation with a16z General Partner Scott Weiss. The technology is available, Kaufman adds, we just need our things -- and habits -- to be ready too. So when does this technology go mainstream? What gadget do they think will push it over the edg...
After years of being shut off to the world -- Myanmar is opening itself up. Not just across physical borders, but also the digital. What happens when the vast majority of a population suddenly has access to a cell phone, not to mention Facebook? How is technology manifesting itself in the media, in the economy and in the education of a population eager to use the tools it suddenly has access to? What can Myanmar teach the rest of the world about the opportunities that arise, and potential pitfal...
Technology can be an equalizer, especially as new tools democratize the expertise that was previously held only by a limited few. But is coding really the new literacy -- the fourth “r” -- after reading, writing and arithmetic? Should it be? Why does this even matter, and how can coding enable more people?
VCs wouldn't fund Salesforce ("that obviously won't work") when Marc Benioff began. With the cloud a growing part of practically every company, government, organization, and people's lives, a lot's changed since 1999. But what's next? Do enterprise CEOs get (mobile) religion? [Answer: not yet. Benioff thinks there's a ton of opportunity ahead there.] What's happening with international growth, when countries want their own clouds and 90% of enterprise software is bought in just 7 count...
The security landscape is changing. Can companies fight back against an increasingly well-armed and sophisticated set of bad players? “I think it is the beginning of a wakeup call,” former deputy secretary of defense Ashton Carter says. “That said, I think there are a lot of people at the top that don’t know what to do.” Carter (who is is expected to be formally nominated as the next Secretary of Defense) joins a16z board partner John Jack and Yahoo security chief Alex Stamos for a wide-ranging ...
It might seem that culture at a startup is something that is just intuitive. And in the first days, with the first handful of people, that might be true. But the co-founders of Genius.com, Tom Lehman and Ilan Zechory (pictured), found that even at 25 people taking the time to describe their company's culture in detail -- their basic principles of life and work -- was critical. What follows is their version of a culture guide, the "Genius ISMs," from the practical -- "take the roas...
How can ecommerce companies deal with the conflicting expectations of consumers and logistics realities of an on-demand economy? How can they compete with ecommerce giant Amazon, which just gets bigger every year? And given all this, how is physical retail faring? The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sour...
The ease with which we can order anything online masks the tremendous complexity of getting that item to your door in a day or two (or less). Andreessen Horowitz's Jeff Jordan leads a discussion with four experts in ecommerce logistics and operations -- the tough business of getting things from one place to another. The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information cont...
In this wide-ranging discussion about the latest and next consumer and industrial applications for 3D printing, we examine (with Shapeway's Carine Carmy and a16z's Tom Rikert): how the software-driven ideal of product-market-fit may be achieved in physical products, too -- with rapid prototyping through 3D printing; how the ability to manufacture on-demand changes traditional notions of seasonality and inventory management in product cycles and development; and how the long tail of 3-D printing ...
What happens when the importance of access to things trumps the value of owning those same things? The end of ownership. From computer hardware, to houses, trucks, cars, and more, the notion of ownership is changing as software enables the matching of people and organizations that have things and those that need them. Joining a16z’s Balaji Srinivasan to pick apart this trend are Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder and chief product officer; John Stanfield co-founder and CEO of Local Motion; and Ben Ur...
The modern, average 12-year-old Madden NFL videogame player has actually visualized more plays than any past real-life NFL Hall-of-Famer. And now, for the first time, we're seeing those videogame tactics show up on the field too. There's a "technological and analytical arms race" going on in sports, and it's producing the world's best athletes in history. How are they working smarter, using science and technology to enhance the way they train and perform, when it's not enough to put i...
With 15 million fantasy football players angling for the win in thousands of fantasy leagues, ESPN joined Tilt.com for a discussion about how crowdfunding provides a platform for an obsessed community. The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16...
Don Faul, head of operations at Pinterest and a former U.S. Marine Corps Platoon Commander, grills Marc Andreessen in front of a crowd of veterans at an event we hosted for bringing more veterans into startups. The discussion ranges from what makes great founders great; the shift to venture capital; and how Silicon Valley is all about “applied creativity.” All that, plus the three books every entrepreneur should read...
It’s always hard to predict how a generational shift in technology will impact the wider world, especially when you are in the trenches building that new technology. It happened with the mainframe computer, mini-computer, and the PC. These were all technologies that fundamentally changed how industries functioned and culture evolved (especially the PC plus internet), and in ways that were hard to predict. With mobile and the smartphone, a16z’s Benedict Evans argues, the impact will be even great...
It’s well understood that bitcoin can be used to buy and sell things/services, and the ecosystem of people accepting the cryptocurrency as payment is expanding. But what else can we use the underlying protocol for? How can we expand the same system that enables bitcoin-the-currency to flow and transactions to be recorded? This discussion (from the a16z Academic Roundtable 2014) examines that question, and answers why the currency is just the beginning of the story when it comes to this technolog...
What is Silicon Valley’s greatest reigning monopoly? How did PayPal manage to emerge from the dotcom implosion? Can you build a great tech company and keep it private forever? And how did Elon Musk manage to wreck an uninsured, million-dollar car with Peter Thiel in the passenger seat speeding on the way to a VC meeting? Marc Andreessen and Thiel discuss all of it in a wide-ranging conversation that toggles off the topics in Thiel’s new book “Zero to One.”
It's a myth that startups happen in isolation. Those legendary two people in a garage are often building on the deep and basic research -- long funded by government and conducted in universities -- that has come before it. But with the advent of the internet, what's the future of peer-to-peer collaborations and startups-as-"science experiments"? Can venture capital disrupt academia… and vice versa? And finally, what's the secret to universities like Stanford making money off the entrep...
Jonah Peretti is building BuzzFeed to “inform, inspire and entertain” in a world where news and entertainment is increasingly passed around on social networks and consumed on smartphones. Chris Dixon, who is on the board of BuzzFeed as part of Andreessen Horowitz’s recent investment in the startup, sat down with Peretti to talk about building a media company from scratch. If editorial success is driven by digital word-of-mouth, and mountains of data about what people like to read and watch, what...
Software, and the billions of transistors that power it, has brought about massive change to all kinds of industries, but none more so than the news business. Today, distribution doesn’t come from the back of trucks, but from Facebook, Twitter and all across the social web. Relationships with readers and viewers have become a two-way conversation. It’s not news that the traditional business model of news has come under extreme pressure, but there is growing evidence that the reach of media outle...
