with @mg_486662 and @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z. I’m Robert Hackett and today we’re talking about what is potentially the biggest heist of all time — a hack of the Dubai-based crypto exchange ByBit which took place last month for a total of $1.5 billion and which the Federal Bureau of Investigation has attributed to a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group. In this episode, we cover details of how the attack went down, the state of crypto security across different types of wallets a...
Mar 08, 2025•44 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast with @haydenzadams @kidsuper @smc90 This episode involves a special mix of guests: Hayden Adams, founder and CEO of Uniswap Labs , and inventor of the Uniswap Protocol a leader in decentralized finance (DeFi); they recently announced Unichain; and Colm Dillane, the multimedia artist behind fashion brand KidSuper , CFDA award winner who has his own Warhol Factory-like creative studio and space; Dillane started out selling t-shirts in his highschool cafeteria, and then went on to present his colle...
Mar 03, 2025•35 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to web3 with a16z, today we’re running a special episode about the intersection of AI and crypto. Our guests are a16z crypto Founder and Managing Partner Chris Dixon & a16z Growth General Partner David George. They discuss the broken economics of the internet, new models for creative people, how to think through the first-, second- and third-order effects of big platform shifts, and more. Today’s episode is a crossover from a16z’s AI Revolution conversation series — and it’s especially t...
Feb 22, 2025•41 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast with @1HowardWu @SuccinctJT @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z. Today’s show is all about privacy, why it matters, and how to achieve it technically onchain. It's fair to say that many blockchains today are quite… revealing. But that openness and transparency doesn’t work for everything — who would want anyone to have full-on X-Ray vision into your finances? That’s one reason why there’s been a growing appreciation for — and trend toward — more blockchain privacy. Our guest today argues that t...
Feb 01, 2025•41 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast with @benleventhal @AriannaSimpson Welcome to web3 with a16z. How many of you are regulars at a favorite cafe, bar, or dinner spot? Probably a lot of you — but if you’re not, well, our guest today aims to make you one. This episode features Ben Leventhal — the founder and CEO of BlackBird, and formerly the founder of Resy and Eater. In it, he shares his journey as a serial entrepreneur in conversation with a16z crypto General Partner Arianna Simpson. Ben shares hard-won lessons learned in compan...
Jan 24, 2025•1 hr•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast with @0xgaut @ishverduzco @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z. Today we’re talking about how to make social media work for you, rather than overwhelming you. Whether you’re a startup founder, creator, avid doomscroller, or longtime lurker, this show has tips and tactics you can use to attract attention, build a following, and level up your online presence. In this episode, we cover what to do and what not to do, how much of your authentic self to bring to the table vs. merely playing to the alg...
Jan 13, 2025•41 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to web3 with a16z . Today's episode is all about design, creativity, and taste-making. Our special guest is Jason Mayden, the chief design officer of Jordan Brand at Nike — that's Jordan as in former NBA superstar Michael Jordan. In his role, Mayden is responsible for the look and feel of iconic products, like Air Jordan sneakers and related apparel. In this episode, Mayden speaks with Chris Lyons, a16z crypto's president of web3 media, about the interdisciplinary nature of industrial de...
Dec 30, 2024•37 min•Ep 59•Transcript available on Metacast with @carrawu @eddylazzarin @0xkarmacoma and @smc90 @rhhackett Welcome to our special end-of-year episodes -- which also look ahead to 2025 -- covering our annual Big Ideas lists , where various a16z crypto team members share what they are personally excited about. (You can see the firmwide list, also including all the trends of the crypto team, here .) This episode is part 2 of 2 -- but you don't have to listen to them in any particular order -- covering the intersection of crypto & AI: agents ...
Dec 21, 2024•40 min•Ep 58•Transcript available on Metacast with @sambroner @meigga @darenmatsuoka @jneu_net @chrislyons and @rhhackett @smc90 Welcome to our special end-of-year episodes -- which also look ahead to 2025 -- covering our annual Big Ideas lists , where various a16z crypto team members share what they are personally excited about. (You can see the firmwide list, also including all the trends of the crypto team, here .) This episode is part 1 of 2 -- but you don't have to listen to them in any particular order -- covering the trends and theme...
Dec 20, 2024•34 min•Ep 57•Transcript available on Metacast with @atabarrok @skominers @smc90 We've heard a lot about the premise and the promise of prediction markets for a long time, but they finally hit the main stage with the most recent election. So what worked (and didn't) this time? Are they better than pollsters, journalists, domain experts, superforecasters? So in this conversation, we tease apart the hype from the reality of prediction markets, from the recent election to market foundations... going more deeply into the how, why, and where thes...
Nov 22, 2024•2 hr 48 min•Ep 56•Transcript available on Metacast with @baileyflan @ahall_research @rhhackett Today we’re dusting off an ancient practice that has become trendy once again: the old-but-new idea of “sortition,” or selecting representatives by lottery. Sortition was used in ancient Athenian democracy to elect public officials. It’s also been lately revived by tech companies like Meta and AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic to tackle some of their thorniest policymaking challenges. Our guests today are experts on sortition, including Bailey Flan...
Nov 02, 2024•57 min•Ep 55•Transcript available on Metacast with @pmarca @bhorowitz Today we’re running a special episode featuring a16z cofounders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz talking about AI bots and crypto. They discuss what happens when you mix postmodern theories and internet memes in an LLM. They also get into the sudden rise of a strange memecoin, the state of crypto regulation in the U.S., and more. This episode is a crossover from the Ben & Marc Show , which you can follow on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. See the original episo...
Oct 26, 2024•38 min•Ep 54•Transcript available on Metacast with @DarenMatsuoka @eddylazzarin @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z . Today we're taking you behind the scenes of our newly released, annual State of Crypto Report — a16z crypto's analysis of the latest data and trends that have defined the industry in 2024. This year's report features some brand new insights, from estimating the number of real crypto users globally, to understanding how much interest in crypto swing states may have ahead of the U.S. election. We also dig into infrastructure ...
Oct 18, 2024•53 min•Ep 53•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to web3 with a16z. Today we explore the messy secrets of blockchain bridges. These cross-chain connectors are the go-betweens in today's multichain world, but their short history has been a checkered one, with prominent projects succumbing to major hacks and other hijinks. So we've brought on one of the builders who knows this world best to help disentangle the messiness. That’s Bryan Pellegrino, cofounder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, maker of a popular blockchain interoperability protocol...
Sep 28, 2024•42 min•Ep 52•Transcript available on Metacast with @HilmarVeigar @eddylazzarin Our featured guest today is Hilmar Pétursson, the CEO of CCP Games, maker of EVE Online , a massive multiplayer online role playing game. In this episode, Pétursson shares his unique world view and game-making philosophy, as well as a deep dive into the technology and economic design of his sci-fi simulation. He also touches on how niche cults can break into mainstream culture, how slow databases can make for fun gameplay, and what to expect from EVE Frontier , a...
Sep 13, 2024•36 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast with Dan Boneh @tim_roughgarden @smc90 In this special 50th episode of the web3 with a16z podcast, we discuss how work in the blockchains/ crypto space has led to advances in several important technologies — which can be (and are being) used by many other industries beyond crypto. Tim Roughgarden (a16z crypto Head of Research and professor at Columbia University) and Dan Boneh (a16z crypto Senior Research Advisor and professor at Stanford University) discuss these advances in conversation with S...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep 50•Transcript available on Metacast with @ahall_research @eddylazzarin @0xShuel @smc90 In this episode, we cover both recent events + evergreen governance questions in political systems: Specifically, we breakdown the recent Compound “governance attack”... as well as the broader topic of DAO governance and voting in general. We also discuss how to avoid, prevent, and respond to such governance attacks -- highlighting key differences between on-chain/ token-based/ digital voting systems vs. physical-world political systems around t...
Aug 15, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast with @eddylazzarin @milesjennings @rhhackett Today’s episode covers all things tokens — that includes what tokens have to do with decentralized protocols, understanding the different types of tokens, and, of course, the Do's and Don'ts of designing and launching a token. Our guests are a16z crypto chief technology officer Eddy Lazzarin, as well as a16z crypto general counsel and head of decentralization Miles Jennings, the two of whom have advised many scores of projects on protocol design and t...
Aug 08, 2024•57 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast with @matthewclifford @smc90 This special episode is all about regional innovation — at both a systems and people level. We cover what does and doesn’t work in making certain places become hubs of innovation and economic growth (aka “innovation ecosystems”). But we also discuss — going back and forth between the structural and individual — when to intervene for entrepreneurial talent ; the nature of ambition, yearning, and finding one’s path; and more broadly, mindsets for navigating risk/reward...
Jul 31, 2024•45 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast with @rhhackett @smc90 @stephbzinn @tim_org In this fun hallway-style conversation, a16z crypto's Sonal Chokshi, Robert Hackett, Tim Sullivan, and Stephanie Zinn discusses picks from our latest annual summer reading list , as well as evergreen/ Lindy picks that show up on our what-we're-reading lists again and again. We also share our top picks of all time. Throughout, we also discuss HOW we read — whether audiobooks count as reading or listening, graphic novels, read-alouds; on multiple modes o...
Jul 21, 2024•2 hr 30 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast with @jasonrosenthal @benrbn Welcome to web3 with a16z , a show about building the next generation of the internet. Our featured guest today is serial entrepreneur Ben Rubin, who previously built the viral livestreaming app Meerkat, and then the group video chat app Houseparty — acquired by Epic Games in 2019 — and who is now CEO and cofounder of Here Not There Labs, which is building a decentralized messaging protocol. Rubin spoke with Jason Rosenthal, head of a16z crypto's CSX startup accelera...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast with @NoahRFeldman , @ahall_research , @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z . I'm Robert Hackett and today we have a special episode about governance in many forms — from nation states to corporate boards to internet services and beyond. Our special guests are Noah Feldman, constitutional law scholar at Harvard who also architected the Meta oversight board (among many other things); he is also the author of several books. And our other special guest is Andy Hall, professor of political science a...
Jun 18, 2024•2 hr 36 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast with @jasonrosenthal @skominers @meigga @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z , I’m Robert Hackett and today, we discuss pricing strategy for startups — from traditional businesses to web2 to web3. Topics we cover include: unit economics understanding consumer psychology using onchain data to inform pricing decisions Common mistakes and how to avoid them How to navigate a pricing pivot And lessons from real world pricing case studies, including Tesla, Nvidia, and others Our experts include a16z c...
Jun 01, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast with @jinglejamOP @eddylazzarin @rhhackett Hello and welcome to web3 with a16z , a show about building the next era of the internet by the team at a16z crypto , that includes me, host Robert Hackett. Today’s episode features Jing Wang, CEO and executive director of the Optimism Foundation, along with a16z crypto CTO Eddy Lazzarin. We discuss the peculiarities of open source software — including the incentives that bind contributors together, tradeoffs between the freedom to customize versus stic...
May 23, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast with @jessepollak @NoahCitron @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z , a show about building the next era of the internet by the team at a16z crypto , that includes me, host Robert Hackett. Today’s episode covers the bustling area of “layer 2” rollups , a technology for scaling “layer 1” blockchains such as Ethereum. Joining us is Jesse Pollak, who previously led engineering for Coinbase’s retail side and who now is the company’s head of protocols where he founded and leads the popular layer 2 rol...
May 11, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast with @SuccinctJT @samrags_ @moodlezoup @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z , a show about building the next era of the internet by the team at a16z crypto. That includes me, host Robert Hackett. Today's all new episode covers a very important and now fast developing area of technology that can help scale blockchains , but that also has many uses beyond blockchains as well. That category of technology is verifiable computing, and specifically, SNARKs . So today we dig into zkVMs, or "zero knowle...
May 01, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast with @creeefs @blauyourmind @rhhackett Welcome to web3 with a16z , a show about building the next generation of the internet from the team at a16z crypto — that includes me, Robert Hackett, your cohost and an editor here. Today's episode explores the merging of the physical and digital worlds, as well as what that means for the future of our interactions and identities. Our guests today are Chris Lee, cofounder of IYK , a startup that's bringing the physical closer together to the digital throug...
Apr 13, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast with @dennnnnnnnny @smc90 We know that technology has changed art, and that artists have evolved with every new technology — it’s a tale as old as humanity, moving from cave paintings to computers. Underlying these movements are endless debates around inventing versus remixing; between commercialism and art; between mainstream canon and fringe art; whether we’re living in an artistic monoculture now (the answer may surprise you); and much much more. So in this new episode featuring Berlin-based ...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep 38•Transcript available on Metacast with @brian_armstrong @cdixon Welcome to web3 with a16z, a show about building the next generation of the internet from the team at a16z crypto. This episode features Brian Armstrong, CEO and cofounder of Coinbase, in conversation with a16z crypto founder and managing partner Chris Dixon. The conversation was originally recorded at our Founders Summit in November. It covers the aftermath of FTX and the rise of crypto in politics — but it also goes into company building at scale, lessons for dire...
Mar 28, 2024•37 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast with @tobi @bhorowitz Welcome to the web3 with a16z podcast. Today's episode features a conversation between Tobias Lütke, CEO and cofounder of the ecommerce platform Shopify, and Ben Horowitz, cofounder of a16z, which took place at our second annual Founders Summit in November. They discuss what it takes to build a breakout startup in a crowded category; the changing face of retail; how to effect change in the workplace; and how to handle individual emotions and corporate culture — including de...
Mar 28, 2024•44 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast 
