The a16z Show - podcast cover

The a16z Show

Andreessen Horowitza16z.simplecast.com
The a16z Show discusses tech and culture trends, news, and the future – especially as ‘software eats the world’. It features industry experts, business leaders, and other interesting thinkers and voices from around the world. This show is produced by Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. Multiple episodes are released every week; visit a16z.com for more details and to sign up for our newsletters and other content as well!
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Episodes

WSJ x a16z: The Next 25 Years of Defense Innovation

In this episode from WSJ Invest Live, Andy Serwer speaks with Katherine Boyle, general partner at a16z, about the American Dynamism practice she helped launch four years ago. They discuss why saying "America" out loud stunned Silicon Valley in 2022, how Russia's invasion of Ukraine changed everything, and what it means to invest in companies that support the national interest. Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify List...

Feb 17, 202631 minEp. 1039

Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan on Transforming a 250-Year-Old Company

a16z general partner Jorge Conde talks with Vasant Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis International, about transforming a 250-year-old conglomerate into a pure play medicines company and unlocking $180 billion of value in the process. They cover Novartis's platform technologies: cell and gene therapies, RNA medicines, and radioligand therapies. They also discuss AI in drug discovery, the rise of China as a biotech competitor, and what Vasant looks for when evaluating startup partnerships, including his...

Feb 16, 202658 minEp. 1038

Balaji and Dan Wang: The Engineering State vs Lawyerly State

Balaji Srinivasan speaks with Dan Wang, author of Breakneck, about China's industrial rise, America's competing strengths in software and finance, and what happens when an engineering state and a lawyerly state collide. The conversation covers manufacturing dominance, the future of the dollar, why both superpowers keep making costly mistakes, and where builders fit into what comes next. Resources: Follow Dan Wang on X: https://twitter.com/danwwang Follow Balaji on X: https://twitter.com/balajis ...

Feb 13, 20261 hr 4 minEp. 1037

Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI?

In this episode from 20VC, Harry Stebbings talks with Anish Acharya, general partner at a16z, about the future of SaaS in an AI world. Anish argues that software is completely oversold and that the general story about vibe coding everything is flat wrong. They discuss why SaaS switching costs are actually going down thanks to coding agents, where startups versus incumbents will win, and whether the apps layer or foundation models will capture more value. They also cover agent overhype, the chang...

Feb 12, 20261 hr 22 minEp. 1036

How Magic Johnson Built a Billion-Dollar Portfolio in 30 Years

a16z’s Chris Lyons speaks with Earvin "Magic" Johnson about his 30-year journey from athlete to billionaire businessman. They cover the art of deal-making, lessons from mentors Michael Ovitz and Dr. Jerry Buss, why boring businesses often make the best investments, and Magic's sports ownership portfolio, from the Dodgers to the Commanders to the Sparks. They also discuss what the next generation of athletes and entertainers should know about equity, building teams, and taking risks. Resources: F...

Feb 11, 20261 hr 6 minEp. 1035

Marc Andreessen: Who Runs the World’s AI?

Cisco president and CPO Jeetu Patel speaks with a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen about why AI may finally break a 50-year productivity slump—and what's at stake if America doesn't win the race. They discuss where value will accrue in the AI stack, why open source complicates the US-China competition, and what's blowing Andreessen's mind right now. Resources: Follow Marc Andreessen on X: https://twitter.com/pmarca Follow Jeetu Patel on X: https://twitter.com/jpatel41 Stay Updated: If you enjoyed th...

Feb 10, 202626 minEp. 1034

The State of Markets

a16z Head of Investor Relations Jen Kha speaks with general partner David George about the state of AI and private technology markets. David shares data on why AI companies are growing 2.5x faster than traditional software while spending significantly less on sales and marketing, driven by massive market pull and record-breaking ARR per employee. They discuss the rise of Model Busters, which are companies that grow faster and longer than anyone would have modeled, like the iPhone. They also high...

Feb 09, 202648 minEp. 1033

Balaji & Benedict Evans: When Tech Breaks Industries

This episode originally appeared on the Network State Podcast. Balaji Srinivasan and Benedict Evans sit down in Singapore for a wide-ranging conversation on the mechanics of disruption. Evans, a former Andreessen Horowitz partner who now writes one of tech's most-read newsletters, argues that the conversation about any technology peaks during the transition—not at 0% or 100% adoption. They cover AI's real capabilities and limits, the politics of technological disruption, why crypto's killer metr...

Feb 06, 20262 hr 6 minEp. 1032

Why This Isn't the Dot-Com Bubble | Martin Casado on WSJ's BOLD NAMES

Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins of the Wall Street Journal sit down with a16z General Partner Martin Casado on WSJ’s Bold Names to ask whether the AI spending boom is a bubble waiting to burst. Martin explains why the fundamentals differ dramatically from the dot-com era—when WorldCom had $40 billion in debt versus today's tech giants with hundreds of billions on their balance sheets—and why a speculative valuation correction shouldn't be confused with systemic collapse. They also discuss where...

Feb 05, 202629 minEp. 1031

Why America’s Health Crisis Is an Incentive Problem

a16z general partner Erik Torenberg speaks with Justin Mares, founder and CEO of Truemed. They discuss why American health outcomes are so poor compared to the rest of the developed world, how crop subsidies created a food system that "systematically outputs unhealthy people," and what it would take to treat the chronic disease crisis as a national security issue. Mares explains how TrueMed allows people to spend tax-free HSA and FSA dollars on lifestyle interventions like gym memberships, sleep...

Feb 04, 202642 minEp. 1030

Palmer Luckey on Hardware, Building, and the Next Frontiers of Innovation

Recorded live at our Founders Summit, a16z general partner Chris Dixon speaks with Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril and Oculus VR. They talk about what it takes to build hardware at scale, where the biggest technological bottlenecks are today, and why optimism is still warranted despite geopolitical turmoil and regulatory constraints. They also cover crypto, stablecoins, modern warfare, the U.S.–China technology race, AI and manufacturing, and frontiers like fusion and quantum computing—plus le...

Feb 03, 20261 hr 2 minEp. 1029

David Solomon & Ben Horowitz on Building Organizational Resilience & Navigating Macro Uncertainty

a16z general partner David Haber spoke with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and a16z cofounder Ben Horowitz on the current macro environment, enterprise AI adoption, and crypto and AI policy. Solomon describes what he calls the "sweetest spot" he's seen in 40 years and explains Goldman's "One GS 3.0" initiative to reimagine core processes with AI. Horowitz discusses why "leads aren't what they once were" in AI and how a16z grew from a startup VC to capturing 18% of all US venture capital. Resour...

Feb 02, 202637 minEp. 1028

“Anyone Can Code Now” - Netlify CEO Talks AI Agents

Netlify's CEO, Matt Biilmann, reveals a seismic shift nobody saw coming: 16,000 daily signups—five times last year's rate—and 96% aren't coming from AI coding tools. They're everyday people accidentally building React apps through ChatGPT, then discovering they need somewhere to deploy them. The addressable market for developer tools just exploded from 17 million JavaScript developers to 3 billion spreadsheet users, but only if your product speaks fluent AI—which is why Netlify's founder now sub...

Jan 30, 202658 minEp. 1019

Marc Andreessen on Why This Is the Most Important Moment in Tech History

Marc Andreessen argues that AI is crucial for addressing global challenges like depopulation and low productivity growth, predicting an economic boom with collapsing prices and increased wealth. He explores AI's profound effects on career roles, advocating for "super-empowered individuals" with diverse skills fostered by AI. Andreessen also shares insights on education, investment strategies, and the rapidly evolving nature of technology, urging adaptability.

Jan 29, 20261 hr 41 minEp. 1027

Ben Horowitz and Balaji Srinivasan on Netscape and Network States

Can a country be built from the internet up? Not as a metaphor or an online community, but as a system that replaces institutions we usually think of as fixed, money, law, and governance. In this conversation taken from The Network State Podcast, a16z cofounder Ben Horowitz joins Balaji Srinivasan to explore how internet native institutions are beginning to mirror and challenge traditional state structures. Drawing parallels to China’s early special economic zones, they discuss how constrained e...

Jan 28, 202643 minEp. 1026

Healthcare 2026: AI Doctors, GLP-1s, and Insurance Defection

Out-of-Pocket is a healthcare education company founded by Nikhil Krishnan that helps people understand how healthcare works and how to navigate it in practice. In this episode, a16z investing partner Jay Rughani and Nikhil discuss why health insurance is losing its role as the default way people access care. They explain how rising costs are pushing more consumers to pay out of pocket for diagnostics, preventive care, and navigation. The conversation also looks at what this shift means for star...

Jan 27, 20261 hr 34 minEp. 1024

The Hidden Economics Powering AI

In this episode, Jen Kha, Head of Investor Relations, and David George, General Partner, discuss how late-stage private markets are evolving as AI reshapes scale, capital intensity, and growth timelines. They explain why AI-driven companies are staying private longer, how infrastructure spending is changing return profiles, and what this moment means for durability, value creation, and long-term outcomes in private markets. Timecodes: 0:00 — Introduction 04:21 — The Market Opportunity for AI 26:...

Jan 26, 20261 hr 4 minEp. 1023

How Mintlify Is Rebuilding Documentation for Coding Agents

Mintlify is a documentation platform built by cofounders Han Wang and Hahnbee Lee to help teams create and maintain developer docs. In this episode, Andreessen Horowitz general partners Jennifer Li and Yoko Li speak with Han and Hahnbee about how coding agents are changing what “good docs” mean, shifting documentation from a human-only resource into infrastructure that powers AI tools, support agents, and internal knowledge workflows. They share Mintlify’s early journey, including eight pivots, ...

Jan 23, 202645 minEp. 1022

Inferact: Building the Infrastructure That Runs Modern AI

Inferact is a new AI infrastructure company founded by the creators and core maintainers of vLLM. Its mission is to build a universal, open-source inference layer that makes large AI models faster, cheaper, and more reliable to run across any hardware, model architecture, or deployment environment. Together, they broke down how modern AI models are actually run in production, why “inference” has quietly become one of the hardest problems in AI infrastructure, and how the open-source project vLLM...

Jan 22, 202644 minEp. 1021

Martin Casado on the Demand Forces Behind AI

In this feed drop from The Six Five Pod, a16z General Partner Martin Casado discusses how AI is changing infrastructure, software, and enterprise purchasing. He explains why current constraints are driven less by technical limits and more by regulation, particularly around power, data centers, and compute expansion. The episode also covers how AI is affecting software development, lowering the barrier to coding without eliminating the need for experienced engineers, and how agent-driven tools ma...

Jan 21, 202628 minEp. 1020

From Code Search to AI Agents: Inside Sourcegraph's Transformation with CTO Beyang Liu

Sourcegraph's CTO just revealed why 90% of his code now comes from agents—and why the Chinese models powering America's AI future should terrify Washington. While Silicon Valley obsesses over AGI apocalypse scenarios, Beyang Liu's team discovered something darker: every competitive open-source coding model they tested traces back to Chinese labs, and US companies have gone silent after releasing Llama 3. The regulatory fear that killed American open-source development isn't hypothetical anymore—...

Jan 20, 202647 minEp. 1018

The AI Opportunity That Goes Beyond Models

The a16z AI Apps team outlines how they are thinking about the AI application cycle and why they believe it represents the largest and fastest product shift in software to date. The conversation places AI in the context of prior platform waves, from PCs to cloud to mobile, and examines where adoption is already translating into real enterprise usage and revenue. They walk through three core investment themes: existing software categories becoming AI-native, new categories where software directly...

Jan 19, 20261 hr 10 minEp. 1013

How Foundation Models Evolved: A PhD Journey Through AI's Breakthrough Era

The Stanford PhD who built DSPy thought he was just creating better prompts—until he realized he'd accidentally invented a new paradigm that makes LLMs actually programmable. While everyone obsesses over whether LLMs will get us to AGI, Omar Khattab is solving a more urgent problem: the gap between what you want AI to do and your ability to tell it, the absence of a real programming language for intent. He argues the entire field has been approaching this backwards, treating natural language pro...

Jan 16, 202657 minEp. 1016

Ben & Marc: Why Everything Is About to Get 10x Bigger

a16z cofounders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz join a16z general partner Erik Torenberg and Not Boring founder Packy McCormick for a conversation on how the media and information ecosystem has changed over the past decade. The discussion breaks down the shift toward a more open and decentralized speech environment, the rise of writer- and creator-led platforms like Substack, and the erosion of centralized media gatekeepers. Marc and Ben also tie these dynamics to their investing worldview, out...

Jan 15, 202658 minEp. 1015

Alex Rampell on TBPN: Revenge, Redemption, and Founder Drive

a16z General Partner Alex Rampell joined the Technology Brothers Podcast Network following the announcement of Andreessen Horowitz’s new fund to discuss what drives founders to build enduring companies. Drawing on his journey from early software entrepreneur to leading a16z’s apps fund, Alex shared how high agency, deep historical understanding, and the ability to attract talent, capital, and customers separate great founders from the rest. He reflected on motivation beyond money, explaining why...

Jan 14, 202618 minEp. 1014

Ben Horowitz on Investing in AI: AI Bubbles, Economic Impact, and VC Acceleration

AI is changing how companies are built and how venture firms operate, forcing faster decisions, clearer judgment, and new ways of working. In this exclusive conversation, Ben Horowitz shares how Andreessen Horowitz adapts to that shift. He explains why managing GPs is different from running a company, how investors are evaluated at the moment of decision rather than years later, and why verticalized teams help the firm scale without internal politics. Ben also breaks down the current AI cycle, f...

Jan 13, 202634 minEp. 1009

Alex Rampell on Venture at Scale and Founder Incentives

This episode is a special feed drop from The Twenty Minute VC, featuring a conversation between Harry Stebbings and a16z General Partner Alex Rampell. Alex shares how he thinks about investing at scale, including why ownership and incentives matter, how venture changes as funds get larger, and what it really takes to win the best deals. He walks through his core founder framework of backing people who can materialize talent, capital, and customers, and explains why the strongest companies often ...

Jan 12, 20261 hr 11 minEp. 1012

Ben Horowitz on TBPN: Three Decades with Marc and Building for the Long Game

Following the announcement of a16z’s new fund, Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and general partner Ben Horowitz joined TBPN to discuss how Andreessen Horowitz has evolved its firm structure as technology becomes embedded across every sector of the economy. Ben reflects on which lessons from The Hard Thing About Hard Things still apply to founders, why entrepreneurship remains difficult at any scale, and how long-term partnerships shape decision-making inside the firm. He explains the move toward s...

Jan 11, 202624 minEp. 1011

Ben Horowitz on Raising a New Fund and How Venture Firms Scale

In this feed drop from Uncapped , Jack Altman sits down with a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz to unpack the founding bet behind Andreessen Horowitz. VC should be a better product for entrepreneurs, built on real operating experience, real networks, and real support. Ben shares how he and Marc Andreessen have worked together for 30 years, how they make decisions, and what it takes to scale a venture firm without losing the edge that actually helps founders. They also dig into why boards matter, how p...

Jan 09, 202659 minEp. 1010

Keycard: 2026 is the Year of Agents

In 2025, we saw the first glimpses of true AI agents. In 2026, every company will be rushing to get them into production, and they’ll need companies like Keycard to manage fleets of agents. In this conversation, a16z Partner Joel de la Garza sits down with Keycard Cofounder and CEO Ian Livingstone to discuss the continuum from copilots to agents, the security realities of tool-calling, why enterprises will adopt before consumers, and how to control your agents. Follow Joel on LinkedIn: https://w...

Jan 08, 202633 minEp. 1008
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