This episode of the a16z Podcast covers the the rise of online platforms that enable people to make a living off their unique interests and skills. It's a trend that's become increasingly relevant as the demand for virtual work grows. The discussion -- with Patreon cofounder and CTO Sam Yam and a16z consumer tech partner Li Jin in conversation with Lauren Murrow -- covers the new forms of work made possible by these online platforms, why creators today are effectively making more money off fewer...
Apr 18, 2020•26 min•Ep 542•Transcript available on Metacast with @JorgeCondeBio, @julesyoo, and @omnivorousread In some ways, the coronavirus feels like it came out of nowhere—a kind of Black Swan event. But at the same time, it's been exposing a lot of the fundamental flaws in our healthcare system that now feel like a perfect storm coming together... and have hurt our ability to address the problem that we should really have seen coming. In this episode, a16z General Partners Jorge Conde and Julie Yoo talk with Hanne Tidnam about some of those big forc...
Apr 16, 2020•24 min•Ep 541•Transcript available on Metacast From agile project management to asynchronous collaboration, development teams have pioneered many of the tools and best practices for remote work. However, new shelter-in-place orders have more organizations moving to remote development -- and remote work -- often quickly and without a lot of time to plan. Will remote work be our new reality, even after the current pandemic? And if so, what are the current technologIes and practices that support organizational communication and alignment for di...
Apr 15, 2020•22 min•Ep 540•Transcript available on Metacast with @vintweeta @pbcancerdoc @sumitshahmd @omnivorousread Coronavirus is now disrupting the entire health care system, not just because of the burden of dealing with the actual disease itself, but because of everything else that's had to grind to a halt. One of the areas where we really worry about things coming to a total stop like that is, of course, cancer treatment, which can often feel like a race against the clock even under the best conditions. In this episode, Dr. Bobby Green, MD (Commun...
Apr 10, 2020•36 min•Ep 539•Transcript available on Metacast Descriptions of the mental illness we today call schizophrenia are as old as humankind itself. And more than likely, we are are all familiar with this disease in some way, as it touches 1% of us—millions of lives—and of course, their families. In this episode, we dive into the remarkable story of one such American family, the Galvins: Mimi, Don, and their 12 children, 6 of whom were afflicted with schizophrenia. In his new book, Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family , Robert ...
Apr 07, 2020•38 min•Ep 538•Transcript available on Metacast For any business, there are three core financial statements – the income or P&L statement, the balance sheet, and the cash flow statement. While these statements can show investors and the board how the business is doing, they can do more than just keep score on your business – they are one of the best tools you have to run it. In this podcast, a16z General Partner and managing partner Jeff Jordan, who previously ran several businesses and took a company public right after the 2008 financial cri...
Apr 04, 2020•27 min•Ep 537•Transcript available on Metacast Since social distancing measures were first put in place, time spent gaming has gone up—way up. According to a recent report by Verizon, video game usage in the U.S. has risen 75 percent during peak hours. The "stay at home" movement has given way to an upswell of new and returning gamers—as well as new challenges, as online platforms struggle to keep up with the surge. In this episode, a16z partner Jon Lai joins host Lauren Murrow to talk about how game developers are grappling with skyrocketin...
Apr 02, 2020•19 min•Ep 536•Transcript available on Metacast This is the next cycle (Q1 2020) of Hustlin' Tech , a podcast series (from the a16z Podcast) about technology platforms that create opportunities for people. Recorded right before the coronavirus pandemic, these next 3 episodes touch on many things that are top of mind right now: from the profession of nursing and taking care of the elderly and the professionalization of caregivers; to fighting bureaucracy to get money back (and to now get help delaying utility bills and rent payments that are e...
Apr 01, 2020•29 min•Ep 535•Transcript available on Metacast This is the next cycle (Q1 2020) of Hustlin' Tech , a podcast series (from the a16z Podcast) about technology platforms that create opportunities for people. Recorded right before the coronavirus pandemic, these next 3 episodes touch on many things that are top of mind right now: from the profession of nursing ; to taking care of the elderly; to fighting bureaucracy to get money and time back (and to get help delaying utility bills and rent payments that are eligible for an extension or waiver o...
Apr 01, 2020•36 min•Ep 534•Transcript available on Metacast This is the next cycle (Q1 2020) of Hustlin' Tech , a podcast series (from the a16z Podcast) about technology platforms that create opportunities for people. Recorded right before the coronavirus pandemic, these next 3 episodes touch on many things that are top of mind right now: from the profession of nursing; to taking care of the elderly ; to fighting bureaucracy to get money and time back (and to get help delaying utility bills and rent payments that are eligible for an extension or waiver o...
Mar 30, 2020•38 min•Ep 533•Transcript available on Metacast This is the next cycle of Hustlin' Tech -- a podcast series co-hosted by bestselling authors, a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz; and Shaka Senghor, a leading voice in criminal justice reform. Each episode is a "Hustler's Guide" to a new technology platform that creates opportunity for people. We previously released 3 episodes in this series last quarter, and this quarter are releasing 3 new episodes that follow in this feed, over the next few days. These episodes were all recorded right before the co...
Mar 30, 2020•1 min•Ep 532•Transcript available on Metacast We are in the midst of a rapid and unprecedented shift to remote work. What does it mean for security when the airgap between work and life is gone? How prepared are organizations? And what should security professionals as well as individual workers be doing to protect themselves and their companies? In this podcast, a16z security expert Joel de la Garza breaks down the current risks and how to defend against them. But beyond just immediate security needs, he explains what bigger transformations...
Mar 27, 2020•22 min•Ep 531•Transcript available on Metacast The spike in online ordering and food delivery—a trend that's particularly relevant now—is evidence of how tech is fundamentally changing how and what we eat. Is this the end of the traditional restaurant experience as we know it? In this conversation between Virtual Kitchen Co. CEO Ken Chong, Snackpass CEO Kevin Tan, a16z general parter Andrew Chen, and host Lauren Murrow, we discuss what's driving this transformation, the infusion of data into the restaurant industry, how take-out and delivery...
Mar 25, 2020•19 min•Ep 530•Transcript available on Metacast Mar 23, 2020•20 min•Ep 529•Transcript available on Metacast We’re at a moment where we are now seeing medicine go virtual faster, and at a scale that it has never done before. In this conversation, a16z bio general partners Vijay Pande and Julie Yoo, who come from the worlds of bio, technology and care delivery, talk with Hanne Tidnam all about what exactly virtual care and “telemedicine” is... and what it isn’t; what it works well for, what doesn’t (yet), and where there’s potential; and finally, the current pain points (including regulation), and what ...
Mar 19, 2020•28 min•Ep 528•Transcript available on Metacast A lot's going on in the world of healthcare right now, and one topic that's especially relevant is how diagnostic labs work. In this episode with Dave King, Executive Chairman of Lab Corp (one of the largest clinical lab networks in the world) and a16z's General Partner Jorge Conde and Hanne Tidnam, we cover the evolution of the modern lab over the past 50 years, especially as new technologies and new tests are added; how tests go from specialized to mainstream and widely available; and who pays...
Mar 17, 2020•35 min•Ep 527•Transcript available on Metacast On February 21, Andreessen Horowitz kicked off its very first Crypto Startup School, with 45 students from around the U.S. and three countries gathering to learn how to build crypto projects. But just two weeks into the seven-week course, community spread of the novel coronavirus meant the school had to go remote — not just for the health and safety of everyone involved, but for others too, given the recommendations around social distancing and the importance of “flattening the curve”. Marketing...
Mar 14, 2020•13 min•Ep 526•Transcript available on Metacast The last financial crisis prompted many consumers to reassess their banking expectations—none more so than millennials and Gen-Z-ers. While revealing one's financial information was once considered taboo, now consumers are more apt than ever to openly discuss money and debt on online platforms. It's a trend that's evident on both ends of the spectrum, whether that’s people divulging their crushing levels of debt on Twitter and Instagram (#debtfreejourney), bragging about their credit scores, or ...
Mar 12, 2020•24 min•Ep 525•Transcript available on Metacast One of the recurring themes we talk about a lot on the a16z Podcast is how software changes organizations, and vice versa... More broadly: it’s really about how companies of all kinds innovate with the org structures and tools that they have. But we've come a long way from the question of " does IT matter " to answering the question of what org structures, processes, architectures, and roles DO matter when it comes to companies -- of all sizes -- innovating through software and more. So in this ...
Mar 06, 2020•45 min•Ep 524•Transcript available on Metacast In 2014, in " Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat ," Peter Levine argued that Red Hat’s open source business model of commercializing support and services was highly difficult to replicate. Instead, he predicted the future of open source companies would be open source-as-a-service. And today SaaS has emerged as the dominant business model. In this podcast, recorded as a hallway-style conversation as part of the a16z Innovation Summit last year, Peter chats with Red Hat CIO, Mike Kelly, about...
Feb 28, 2020•20 min•Ep 523•Transcript available on Metacast This episode covers the following -- since our previous deep-dive on the novel coronavirus outbreak -- including: practical implications for the U.S. healthcare system given how it works today, and where we might go in the future — with a16z general partner Julie Yoo , given our vantage point in tech; and how the rt-PCR test works — with a16z bio partner Judy Savitskaya; …in conversation with Sonal Chokshi. Sources for updates at top: CDC's latest briefing February 26, 2020, transcript WHO situa...
Feb 27, 2020•22 min•Ep 522•Transcript available on Metacast It's "Marketplaces Week" for us at a16z, thanks to our consumer team releasing a new index of the next industry-defining marketplaces, the Marketplace 100 . But what happens as such marketplaces and other platforms evolve over time, as do their users? This episode is a rerun of a popular conversation from a couple years ago -- featuring general partners Andrew Chen and Jeff Jordan (in conversation with Sonal Chokshi) -- on what comes after user acquisition: retention. It's all about engagement. ...
Feb 20, 2020•33 min•Ep 521•Transcript available on Metacast Susan shares how she learned to leverage the characteristics of her personality early in her career as assistant secretary of state [2:05] One of the important conversations Susan had with a mentor that changed the trajectory of her career [4:50] Her parent’s commitment to education, their personal backgrounds, and the legacies they created [8:10] The result of instilling self-belief into children and mastering “psychological jiu jitsu” [10:22] What the early lessons of family diplomacy taught h...
Feb 14, 2020•51 min•Ep 520•Transcript available on Metacast with @OzAzamTmunity1, @JorgeCondeBio, and @omnivorousread CAR T therapy, the groundbreaking new medicines that uses engineered T-cells to attack cancer, has been so effective in childhood leukemias that we believe it may actually be a potential cure. But this isn't just one new medicine, it's an entirely new therapeutic tool—and a total paradigm shift from most traditional medicines we've seen before. Tmunity CEO Usman "Oz" Azam was previously the head of Cell and Gene Therapies at Novartis, in ...
Feb 07, 2020•29 min•Ep 519•Transcript available on Metacast When we think about rebellious behavior in the context of organizations and companies, we tend to think of rebels as trouble-makers, rabble-rousers; in other words, people who make decisions and processes more difficult because they may not follow the established rules or norms. But rebel behavior can also be incredibly positive and constructive—in keeping us from stagnation, encouraging growth and learning, increasing curiosity and creativity. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Harvard Busine...
Feb 04, 2020•33 min•Ep 518•Transcript available on Metacast This episode of 16 Minutes on the news from a16z is all about the recent coronavirus outbreak -- or rather, a new type of coronavirus called 2019-nCoV for 2019 novel coronavirus. Since it's an ongoing and fast-developing news cycle, we take a quick snapshot for where we are, what we know, and what we don't know, and discuss the vantage point of where tech comes in. Topics covered include: definition of a virus, categories of coronaviruses origins and spread how this stacks up so far against SARS...
Jan 30, 2020•20 min•Ep 517•Transcript available on Metacast The idea of " 1000 true fans " -- first proposed by Kevin Kelly in 2008 and later updated for Tools of Titans -- argued that to be a successful creator, you don’t need millions of customers or clients, but need only thousands of true fans. Such a true, diehard fan "will buy anything you produce", and as such, creators can make a living from them as long as they: (1) create enough each year to earn profit from each fan, plus it's easier and better to give existing fans more; (2) have a direct rel...
Jan 27, 2020•16 min•Ep 516•Transcript available on Metacast We've been financing good writing with bad advertising -- and "attention monsters" (to quote Craig Mod) for way too long. So what happens when the technology for creators finally falls into place? We're finally starting to see shift in power away from publications as the sole gatekeepers of talent, towards individual writers. Especially when the best possible predictor of the value of a piece of writing is, well, the writer . The publication's brand is no longer the guarantee of quality, or the ...
Jan 27, 2020•40 min•Ep 515•Transcript available on Metacast How can we evolve the web for a better future? Has the web become a mature platform — or are we still in the early days of knowing what it can do and what role it might have in our lives? Just as “social/local/mobile” once did, what are the new trends — like crypto and blockchain networks and commerce everywhere — that might converge into new products and experiences? Chris Dixon (general partner at a16z and co-lead of the a16z crypto fund) discusses all things internet with Jonah Peretti (found...
Jan 19, 2020•41 min•Ep 514•Transcript available on Metacast AI can do a lot of specific tasks as well as, or even better than, humans can — for example, it can more accurately classify images, more efficiently process mail, and more logically manipulate a Go board. While we have made a lot of advances in task-specific AI, how far are we from artificial general intelligence (AGI), that is AI that matches general human intelligence and capabilities? In this podcast, a16z operating partner Frank Chen interviews Stuart Russell, the Founder of the Center for ...
Jan 16, 2020•26 min•Ep 513•Transcript available on Metacast 
