Is the Apple Watch breaking new technological ground, or just another accessory for your iPhone? a16z’s Benedict Evans and Board Partner Steven Sinofsky describe their experience with the Apple Watch one month after strapping the elegant piece of electronics to their wrists. So how is it? It’s not the one thing you will own that will fill this void in your life like the iPhone did, Evans says. And working out what is useful and pleasurable about the Apple Watch takes time, he says. Even so, Evan...
Jun 05, 2015•22 min•Ep. 100
Distributed computing frameworks like Hadoop and Spark have enabled processing of "big data" sets -- but that's not enough for modeling surprise/rare "black swan" or complex events. Just think of scenarios in disaster planning (earthquakes, terrorist attacks, financial system collapse); biology (including disease); urban planning (cities, transportation, energy power grids); military defense ... and other complex systems where unknown behaviors and properties can emerge. They...
Jun 05, 2015•22 min•Ep. 99
with Justin Bailey (@justinbailey12d), Herman Narula (@hermannarula), Tim Schafer (@timoflegend) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) We know that the gaming industry -- in some ways like but in other ways unlike the music industry -- has been changing due to the internet and especially technologies around crowdfunding, online discovery, and direct fan interaction. But how does this affect the creative process and studio model … especially when it comes virtual reality (the ability to craft more immersive...
Jun 04, 2015•30 min•Ep. 98
Google is a vast machine learning company. If you think about it in those terms, says Benedict Evans, every product and feature Google builds is an expression of its machine learning expertise -- or a way to distribute it, and provide easier access to it. Evans joins the pod to pick apart all the latest machine learning-driven tech from Google as it hosts its annual developer party I/O. What’s become very clear this year, Evans says, is that for Google all the really cool stuff isn’t happening i...
May 30, 2015•29 min•Ep. 97
If there’s one business on planet earth that makes Silicon Valley look sober and level-headed it’s Hollywood, says Marc Andreessen. Hollywood and Silicon Valley meet in this segment of the pod which features Andreessen in conversation with Brian Grazer, the super-producer behind half the movies and television you’ve watched in the last three-plus decades including Empire, 24, Parenthood, Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights, The DaVinci Code, 8 Mile, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Real Genius...
May 25, 2015•19 min•Ep. 96
"Fit" is this squishy idea that a person, role, and company are a perfect match. But how do you tease out expectations and motivations from both sides of the hiring equation -- candidates and founding CEOs alike? In this segment of the a16z Podcast,a16z Executive Talent head Jeff Stump and resident talent expert Gia Scinto tackle ways to identify and analyze this, and methodically. And they share their secret weapon for putting the right person in the right job: "the 100-Day Plan&...
May 22, 2015•29 min•Ep. 95
LinkedIn may seem like a gift both for job seekers and hirers, but it's not enough. When (and how) should your company develop a process to attract -- and close -- the best people? In this segment of the a16z Podcast, Caroline Horn and Matt Oberhardt from a16z’s Executive Talent team break down the steps of a great hiring process: best timing; how to launch a search; when a CEO should and shouldn’t exercise their veto power; and when to turn to outside recruiting help. The goal is not only to ma...
May 21, 2015•20 min•Ep. 94
Users, entrepreneurs, and investors are harnessing bitcoin’s "workaday utility" in Argentina, a place where bitcoin is arguably more widespread among everyday people than anywhere else. What conditions led to this? Is it indicative of what may happen someplace else? Or is it just an isolated case or even a stopgap? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, NYT journalist Nathaniel Popper, author of the new book Digital Gold on the "inside story of the misfits and millionaires trying to...
May 19, 2015•22 min•Ep. 93
Andreessen Horowitz Managing Partner Scott Kupor and NetSuite CFO Ron Gill get into the weeds on SaaS valuations, and how public and private SaaS companies think differently about the recurring revenue model. Gill and Kupor break down their financial analysis of these kinds of companies -- what metrics matter -- and correct some of the misconceptions about the SaaS business model that even sophisticated investors tend to latch onto. Finally, Kupor offers his advice to private company entrepreneu...
May 16, 2015•26 min•Ep. 92
The battle of the pipes has shifted to mobile. Verizon caught plenty of people by surprise when it announced it was buying AOL for $4.4 billion in cash (the cash part deserves a short moment to sink in). The question plenty of people are asking is, why? “Mobile,” says a16z General Partner Chris Dixon on this segment of the pod. “Increasingly it’s probably also mobile video.” a16z’s Frank Chen joins Dixon to discuss the Verizon acquisition, and what might be the start of a fresh wave of buying as...
May 12, 2015•13 min•Ep. 91
Venture capital and investing in startups is the (modern) classic case of decision making under uncertainty. As new players and sources of capital enter the market, however, how do we hedge against that uncertainty? For one thing, startups have more reasons than ever to focus on "the 2 Cs": cash (flow), and control. Or so argues Bill Janeway, an early venture capitalist and partner at Warburg Pincus, visiting lecturer in economics at Cambridge, and author of one of the definitive books...
May 11, 2015•36 min•Ep. 90
The days of cramming security down employees’ throats or sending out best-practices advice emails are over. “You have to make security more useable,” says Pindrop CEO and co-founder Vijay Balasubramaniyan. Especially in a world of ubiquitous connected devices, from smartphones to smart thermostats. Security also has to be attractive, argues Okta CEO and co-founder Todd McKinnon. For example, if an employee uses a more sophisticated form of authentication from the road, then they should get acces...
May 08, 2015•31 min•Ep. 89
Enterprises large and small run their applications and infrastructure at a whole new level of agility and speed. But unfortunately, security doesn’t like speed. “The faster you go, the harder it is to understand what is happening and to protect your infrastructure,” says Andrew Rubin, CEO and co-founder of cloud security startup Illumio. So then how do we rethink the architecture of the past to acknowledge the way business happens today? If you want to start tackling the shifting landscape of bu...
May 07, 2015•26 min•Ep. 88
"Machine learning is to big data as human learning is to life experience," says Christopher Nguyen, the co-founder and CEO of big data intelligence company Adatao. Sure, but then, what IS big data? (especially as it's become a buzzword that captures so many things)... On this episode of the a16z Podcast, Nguyen puts on his former computer science professor hat to describe 'big data' in relation to 'machine learning' -- as well as what comes next with 'deep learning'. Finally, the forme...
May 01, 2015•27 min•Ep. 87
If your income can flow from any place on the globe, and you can earn your money on the Internet, the question for individuals and startup teams alike increasingly is: where do I go? In the tech industry the answer more often than not has been Silicon Valley. For many people and companies that is still true, says Sten Tamkivi, CEO and co-founder of Teleport.org, but it’s not a simple binary answer any more. “It’s more a question of when, and how often do you spend time in Silicon Valley?” he say...
Apr 30, 2015•35 min•Ep. 86
The paradox of security is we pretty much know what we are supposed to do most of the time -- but we don’t do it. If you examine all the recent high profile attacks, somebody in the organization knew something was wrong before it happened. They just didn’t have the ability to escalate the problem, or the ability to raise a flag that people took seriously. The lack of foundational security hygiene is what makes companies vulnerable to relatively mundane attacks, which are far more likely to hit y...
Apr 29, 2015•28 min•Ep. 85
Silicon Valley and the U.S. Department of Defense have had a long history of partnership -- including the government funding R&D that was commercialized by major companies and is now used by people everyday. But lately, there's been a more "commercial" evolution of technology, with both government and startups shifting focus in what they did (and didn't do) before. Where does this leave innovation around big ideas? In this segment of the a16z Podcast, we grabbed a few moments with ...
Apr 25, 2015•15 min•Ep. 84
When (now) two-year-old startup Zenefits was banned in Utah because it offered its HR management software for free, CEO and co-founder Parker Conrad felt upset, anxious, and scared. Especially because it was a B2B company with a much smaller supporter base: "If you're Uber or Lyft, then you have this built-in constituency using the service and millions of people to complain and go to the mat for you... But man, we make HR software. That's totally unsexy. No one's even going to pay attention...
Apr 24, 2015•18 min•Ep. 83
Bitcoin has not been easy for Wall Street and other traditional financial centers to wrap their collective heads around, let alone take seriously. But that has changed recently, argue authors Michael Casey and Paul Vigna in their book The Age of Cryptocurrency -- How Bitcoin and Digital Currency are Challenging the Global Economic Order. The two Wall Street Journal writers join the a16z Podcast to talk about how far bitcoin has seeped into the Wall Street worldview, and more broadly, into the fa...
Apr 23, 2015•23 min•Ep. 82
It seems like we hear about corporate (not to mention consumer) hacks in the news every week. Is this something new, or just a continuation of old patterns and we just happen to be hearing about it more now? In this segment of the a16z Podcast, longtime security investigative reporter Kim Zetter of Wired -- who also wrote Countdown to Zero Day, the definitive account of Stuxnet, the first digital virus that wrought physical destruction (on a nuclear facility) -- breaks down how hacks happen. Wha...
Apr 18, 2015•29 min•Ep. 81
It is something we all face -- the prospect of taking care of a parent (or two) when they can't quite take care of themselves. For Seth Sternberg, part of the founding team of messaging service Meebo (bought by Google) a trip in the car with his mother reinforced the inevitability of her aging. Today it was her driving, but soon how would she manage everything else? For Sternberg, the answer to that question lay in part with technology. How could technology be brought to bear so that his mother ...
Apr 10, 2015•21 min•Ep. 80
The potential to turn messaging into a platform is driving much of the excitement in mobile, says a16z’s Benedict Evans. It's a platform through which other apps flow (and where all the users get aggregated). Take for example Facebook's recent announcements, which put it right where it wants to be on the mobile phone -- in control. So what’s next in messaging? And what will Apple, Google, and other players like WeChat have to say about it? The views expressed here are those of the individual AH ...
Apr 03, 2015•26 min•Ep. 79
Cyber attacks are growing in number and impact, and the reason is simple: there's more of value (and more vectors to) steal in our increasingly virtual world. So how are we to continue to move forward along this connected path as a culture and as businesses? Marc Andreessen tackles that question in this segment of the a16z Podcast -- against the backdrop of ever-more sophisticated hackers and hacks, Edward Snowden, and the rise of trillions more devices coming online. Still, despite the real ris...
Mar 31, 2015•34 min•Ep. 78
As the CEO of a startup your board is a critical tool in helping your company grow; the board is there to make you a better CEO. (Or at least it should be.) But how do you best leverage your board’s expertise -- both during meetings and outside scheduled time -- and what kind of people should fill the precious few slots you have? “Don’t end up with one of those boards with six VCs on it,” says a16z General Partner Scott Weiss. Seems like strange advice coming from a VC, but the point, Weiss says...
Mar 26, 2015•48 min•Ep. 77
Getting a board seat isn't just about adding value, but also about what value you take from it for your career. But why do it? When? How? And should you focus on a public or private company? To answer these questions and share their perspectives, this segment of the a16z Podcast features three current board directors and veteran executives: Amy Bohutinsky, CMO of the Zillow Group and a board director at Hotel Tonight and Avvo; Dawn Lepore, former Chair and CEO of Drugstore.com and a board direct...
Mar 25, 2015•29 min•Ep. 76
Diane Greene -- who is on the boards of Google and Intuit -- has some golden rules when it comes to serving on boards. No 1: “You don’t want to tell them how to do strategy, whether it’s a big company or a small company,” she says. “That’s not your job. Your job as a director is to ask questions.” Lots of questions. In this segment of the a16z Podcast, a16z's Marc Andreessen and VMware co-founder and former CEO Diane Greene have a candid conversation about their experiences on boards from the pe...
Mar 20, 2015•50 min•Ep. 75
Of the 371 board seats that opened up last year (within Fortune 500 companies that is), 39% ended up going to first-time board members. So how did they pull it off? What are some strategies for landing your first board seat -- especially if you don’t fit the typical 'profile' of the other board members? And why do it? In this segment of the a16z Podcast, three veteran executives and board members share their experiences and offer advice about building better public company boards: Shellye Archam...
Mar 16, 2015•32 min•Ep. 74
As technology outgrows the tech industry, it moves from selling utilitarian products to selling things that fulfill other desires or pleasures. The Apple Watch is a perfect example of this market shift, says a16z's Benedict Evans. "It's another step in abstraction, and another step in the importance of delight rather than speeds and feeds." Technology meets desire in this segment of the a16z Podcast. image credit: David Adam Kess / Wikimedia Commons
Mar 11, 2015•15 min•Ep. 73
Companies founded by a group of engineers often have a deep-seated mistrust of sales -- or more precisely, salespeople. That was the case at GitHub, says CEO and co-founder Chris Wanstrath: It wasn't until their customers started asking for a sales organization to help guide them that Wanstrath and the GitHub team realized sales wasn't necessarily filled with the fast-talking stereotypes they were used to seeing on TV. Wanstrath joins a16z General Partner Peter Levine to discuss how GitHub final...
Mar 05, 2015•23 min•Ep. 72
It may seem like good apps or services sell themselves. That's what the whole viral thing is all about, right? Wrong, says Daniel Shapero, who helped build LinkedIn's enterprise sales team from a small core group to more than 1,200 people all over the globe. Shapero joins a16z General Partner Peter Levine (an engineer who jumped into sales before taking on his first CEO gig, and who now also teaches a class on the topic at Stanford) to discuss the right way to build a sales organization -- from ...
Mar 04, 2015•29 min•Ep. 71
