with Stephanie Cohen and Martin Casado (@martin_casado) As chief strategy officer of Goldman Sachs (and former global head of financial sponsors M&A), Stephanie Cohen has seen it all when it comes to the ins and outs of M&A. And what it means to innovate from within, especially at a large company. Given Cohen's unique vantage point and nearly 20-year tenure at Goldman Sachs, Casado -- himself a veteran of both an acquisition (Nicira) and big company innovation (VMware) -- interviews Cohe...
Nov 17, 2018•42 min•Ep 414•Transcript available on Metacast with Prasad Akella, Paul Daughtery (@pauldaugh) and Frank Chen (@withfries2) What is different on that factory floor from Henry Ford to today? In this conversation, Prasad Akella, Founder and CEO of Drishti; Paul Daugherty, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of Accenture, and author of the recently published Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI; and a16z operating partner Frank Chen, talk about how the introduction of automation from Henry Ford to now co-bots and AI all change...
Nov 05, 2018•29 min•Ep 413•Transcript available on Metacast with Jeff Jordan (@Jeff_Jordan), Yogi Roth (@YogiRoth), Zack Weiner and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) For decades, the increasing value of sports teams, rights, licenses and more have been fueled by sports media. But dollars follow eyeballs, and eyeballs -- at least on the traditional broadcast -- are going elsewhere. "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else,” Yogi Berra once said. So where exactly are those eyeballs going, and what does that mean for the sports...
Oct 19, 2018•26 min•Ep 412•Transcript available on Metacast The period from 2000-2016 was one of the best of times and worst of times for tech and the Valley (dotcom, financial crisis, Google IPO, Facebook founded, unprecedented growth, and so on), and John Hennessy -- current chairman of Alphabet, also on the boards of Cisco and other organizations -- was the president of Stanford University during that entire time. Given this vantage point, what are his views on Silicon Valley (will there ever be another one, and if so where?); the "Stanford model...
Oct 08, 2018•55 min•Ep 411•Transcript available on Metacast with Shannon (Stubo) Brayton (@sstubo), Margit Wennmachers (@wennmachers), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) One of the company building topics that’s surprisingly mystifying is PR -- and only surprising since so much of the strategy and tactics behind public relations are actually hidden from public view. We've tried demystifying the topic in an ongoing series, covering everything from "the why, how, and when" of PR" and leaders building a personal brand to crisis communications. But th...
Sep 27, 2018•39 min•Ep 410•Transcript available on Metacast with Michael Ovitz (@michaelovitz), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) When Michael Ovitz co-founded the Hollywood talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), he turned a number of the entertainment industry's well-entrenched traditions on their head. The origin story of a16z (not coincidentally!) is not that dissimilar. So in this episode of the a16z Podcast, Ovitz and a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz talk with Hanne Tidnam about Ovitz' just-released book, Who is Michael...
Sep 25, 2018•33 min•Ep 409•Transcript available on Metacast with Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) and Chris Dixon (@cdixon) There's all sorts of interesting tech trends happening right now, including AI, VR/AR, self-driving cars and drones (as well as interesting stuff happening in verticals like healthcare and finance) -- and there's a lot also happening in seemingly more "mature" tech revolutions, such as mobile and cloud. But where are we now, really, with these shifts... and how does that inform how we think about the next couple decades? And does...
Sep 24, 2018•54 min•Ep 408•Transcript available on Metacast with Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) and Steven Sinofsky (@SteveSi) In another of our hallway conversation episodes, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky talk all about Tesla — and more broadly, the nature of disruption overall. How disruptive is Tesla really, and what exactly are they disrupting — from the dashboard to car makers to vendors to energy source to autonomy overall? The tech industry is littered with leading innovators... who nonetheless failed to be the dominant leader in the end. So...
Sep 17, 2018•44 min•Ep 407•Transcript available on Metacast with Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) and Steven Sinofksy (@StevenSi) In this hallway-style conversation episode of the a16z Podcast, Benedict Evans and a16z board partner Steven Sinofsky discuss Apple’s September 2018 keynote event and share their thoughts on the new innovations -- and lessons -- that really matter. With something that’s gone from toy to phone to fashion item -- and just pivoted to a health monitor that can literally save lives -- where are we now? How closely aligned is health ...
Sep 14, 2018•28 min•Ep 406•Transcript available on Metacast with Steven Johnson (@stevenbjohnson), Chris Dixon (@cdixon), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) There's a lot of research and writing out there on "thinking fast" -- the short-term, gut, instinctual decisions we make, biases we have, and heuristics we use -- but what about for "thinking slow" -- the long-term decisions we make that both take longer to deliberate and have longer spans of impact on our lives... and the world? Because we're not only talking about decisions like who to ...
Sep 08, 2018•46 min•Ep 405•Transcript available on Metacast with Jeff Jordan (@Jeff_Jordan), Cal Turner Jr., and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) The "death of retail" in the face of e-commerce and tech disruption is a very real phenomenon, but what about the flip side of that story -- that is, retail thriving despite all odds? Enter Dollar General, a multi-billion-dollar success story of the U.S. chain with 14,000 brick-and-mortar dollar stores. So in this episode of the a16z Podcast, general partner Jeff Jordan -- who was formerly an SVP for Th...
Sep 04, 2018•22 min•Ep 404•Transcript available on Metacast with Martin Casado (@martin_casado), Andrew Chen (@andrewchen), Russ Heddleston (@rheddleston), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) What happens when the bottoms up, organic growth usually associated with consumer companies starts to go.... enterprise? Part of our continuing podcast series (you can listen to part one on user acquisition and part two on engagement/retention) on growth, this episode explores the increasing trend of enterprise growth shifting to be more "bottoms up" -- wit...
Aug 25, 2018•29 min•Ep 403•Transcript available on Metacast with Devon Zuegel (@devonzuegel), Denis Nazarov (@iiterature), and Jesse Walden (@jessewldn) The open source movement enabled so much in computing, including the collaborative building of libraries -- that is, building blocks of code that developers could combine together to build applications. But as these applications grew to massive scale, those libraries ended up being somewhat asymmetrical for "nights-and-weekend" developers (compared to say, the disproportionate resources of a la...
Aug 20, 2018•37 min•Ep 402•Transcript available on Metacast with Andrew Chen (@andrewchen), Jeff Jordan (@jeff_jordan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Once you have users, how do you keep them engaged, retain them, and even "resurrect" or re-engage them? That's the focus of this episode of the a16z Podcast, which continues our series on the basics of growth from user acquisition to engagement and retention -- covering, as always, key metrics and how to think about them. Especially as many products and platforms evolve over time, so do the users, so...
Aug 09, 2018•33 min•Ep 401•Transcript available on Metacast with Andrew Chen (@andrewchen), Jeff Jordan (@jeff_jordan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Growth is one of the most top of mind questions for entrepreneurs building startups of all kinds (and especially consumer ones) -- but how does one go beyond a mindset of "growth hacking" to thinking about growth more systemically and holistically? What are the key metrics to know; why; and how? This episode of the a16z Podcast -- one of two in a series -- focuses on the user acquisition aspect of gr...
Aug 09, 2018•21 min•Ep 400•Transcript available on Metacast with Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) and Sharon Chang (@sychang) What does it really take to start a startup (or work at one)? In this episode of the a16z Podcast -- based on a Q&A with Ben Horowitz as part of an event hosted by a16z's Technical Talent and People Practices team for a16z portfolio company summer interns 2018 -- Ben shares quick thoughts and advice geared towards those early in their tech careers. The conversation covers everything from how to know what kind of company to join early...
Aug 03, 2018•16 min•Ep 399•Transcript available on Metacast with Denis Nazarov (@iiterature), Jesse Walden (@jessewldn), Ali Yahya (@ali01), and Devon Zuegel (@devonzuegel) Cryptonetworks are often compared to firms, people, or even coral reefs -- but, observes a16z crypto partner Ali Yahya, they might be much more similar to cities. Where does that analogy fit, and where does it break down? And what can we learn from how cities both emerge from the bottom up and are motivated by a top down vision/design and apply to open source networks such as those in...
Aug 01, 2018•38 min•Ep 398•Transcript available on Metacast with Chris Dixon (@cdixon), Ali Yahya (@ali01), and Devon Zuegel (@devonzuegel) “Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcomes.” At the end of the day, observes a16z crypto general partner Chris Dixon, Satoshi's whitepaper [the original bitcoin paper outlining a peer-to-peer decentralized network and blockchain sans centralized third parties] is nine pages of incentives. It's the kind of incentive design that you can use to build many other things on the internet (which itself is driven b...
Aug 01, 2018•46 min•Ep 397•Transcript available on Metacast with Elad Gil (@eladgil) and Chris Dixon (@cdixon) There's a lot of knowledge out there -- and networks of talent (especially in Silicon Valley) -- on what to do in the early stages of a company, going from 0 to 1, and even in going from 1 to 100... but what about beyond that? It's not as simply linear as merely doubling or tripling resources and org structures; it's actually much more complex on many levels, communication to coordination. Because with great scale comes great complexity... and m...
Jul 20, 2018•34 min•Ep 396•Transcript available on Metacast with Katie Haun (@katie_haun), Robin Weisnman (@robinweisman), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) What’s going on, regulation-wise, in crypto? How should people who want to join a company or build something new in the space think about the regulatory environment? What to make of all the headlines, or the "alphabet soup" of agencies potentially involved in regulating crypto? This episode of the a16z Podcast shares principles -- as well as key players/acronyms to know -- for sorting the signal f...
Jul 17, 2018•33 min•Ep 395•Transcript available on Metacast with Tina Bhatnagar (@tinab), Preethi Kasireddy (@iam_preethi), Lily Liu (@calilyliu), and Kim Milosevich (@kimbatronic) Whether it’s sharing the decision-making behind joining a crypto company to the perspectives of a passionate early adopter (or relative latecomer), this episode of the a16z Podcast -- based on a panel from the “Intro to Crypto” event that Andreessen Horowitz and #Angels put on in April 2018 -- covers what it takes to build companies in crypto, from people to code. You can find...
Jul 17, 2018•28 min•Ep 394•Transcript available on Metacast with Chris Dixon (@cdixon), Elizabeth Stark (@starkness), and Jessica Verrilli (@jess) Why does decentralization matter? This episode of the a16z Podcast -- based on a discussion that first took as part of an “Intro to Crypto” event that Andreessen Horowitz and #Angels put on in April 2018 -- explores the whys and the hows, from the history of the internet to the culture of crypto communities today. Chris Dixon (now of a16z crypto) and Elizabeth Stark (CEO and co-founder of Lightning Labs) share...
Jul 16, 2018•42 min•Ep 393•Transcript available on Metacast with Jorge Conde (@jorgecondebio), David Reich, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Trying to reconstruct the deep past of ancient humans out of present-day people has until now been like trying to reconstruct a bomb explosion in a room from bits of shrapnel, says David Reich, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and author of the new book, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. But technological advances and new tools available only in the l...
Jul 13, 2018•32 min•Ep 392•Transcript available on Metacast with Ken Coleman, Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Michel Feaster (@michelfeaster) Everyone talks about the importance of mentorship in our professional development, whether it's networking to broaden career opportunities or learning from someone more experienced. But how does one break into an industry without established contacts or prior exposure? Are things different if mentors/mentees come from different backgrounds? If you're already more established in your career, how can you help up-and-c...
Jul 12, 2018•33 min•Ep 391•Transcript available on Metacast with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Steven Johnson (@stevenbjohnson) The rise of zero-sum thinking -- which has come snapping back recently -- slows and even halts progress, observes Marc Andreessen. Because you're then dividing up a smaller piece, adds Ben Horowitz, instead of growing the pie altogether. This is true not just in economics, politics, and tech, but also in business relationships (and life), too. And speaking of such relationships, how does the partnersh...
Jul 06, 2018•42 min•Ep 390•Transcript available on Metacast Compensation is a topic near and dear to everyone’s heart… but what does “compensation” fully mean — and what does it include, what doesn’t it include? How do entrepreneurs compete for talent in an intensely competitive environment, while balancing their startup’s affordability considerations? This wide-ranging episode of the a16z Podcast (based on an event held for entrepreneurs at Andreessen Horowitz earlier this year) covers all things compensation — from philosophical questions such as how t...
Jun 21, 2018•39 min•Ep 389•Transcript available on Metacast with Martin Fischer (@fischermartin), Saurabh Ladha (@ladhasaurabh), Chris Rippingham, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Continuing our series on how tech is changing construction -- one of the industries most resistant to change (and facing declining productivity) -- this episode of the a16z Podcast looks at what happens when you go from planning to actually putting boots on the ground. How can tech translate rich data sets into the just-right types, amounts, and levels of information for each...
Jun 14, 2018•37 min•Ep 388•Transcript available on Metacast with Greg Lynn (@greglynnform), Gina Neff (@ginasue), Tracy Young (@Tracy_Young), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Construction has been one of the industries most resistant to innovation and change over the last decades -- productivity has actually decreased there while it has risen in other industries around it. So how are new technologies (finally!) beginning to transform the most brick-and-mortar of all the (literally!) brick-and-mortar industries? This episode of the a16z Podcast -- with ...
Jun 13, 2018•33 min•Ep 387•Transcript available on Metacast There are over 20 million programmers out there -- and double that, if you count everyone else coding in other ways -- but where are the next 100 million developers? How do we get to a billion developers? The answer, observes a16z general partner Peter Levine in conversation with GitHub co-founder and former CEO Chris Wanstrath (based on a Q&A recorded at our last a16z Summit event) lies in changing the very definition of a "programmer" and "programming". It might even me...
Jun 08, 2018•19 min•Ep 386•Transcript available on Metacast Here's the hard thing about security: the more authentication factors you have, the more secure things are... but in practice, people won't use too many factors, because they want ease of use. There's clearly a tension between security and usability, not to mention between security and privacy (good security doesn't always come with great privacy -- what if you're a journalist or dissenter under a repressive regime??). And finally, there's a tension between the convenience and inconvenience of h...
Jun 06, 2018•34 min•Ep 385•Transcript available on Metacast 
