a16z Podcast

a16z Podcast

Of Container Ships, Supply Chains, and Retail

Dec 3 • 33 min

The world’s largest shopping days (Black Friday, Singles Day in China, Prime Day online, and so on) means shipping lots and lots of boxes, via big-box retailers and container ships — but that’s not the only reason we’re re-running this episode of the a16z…

Nursing Today, From the Bedside and Beyond

Nov 28 • 32 min

with @imanabuzeid @julesyoo @jeff_jordan @omnivorousread For most of us, nurses are essentially the face of the healthcare system. In this episode, we take a look at the role of that unsung hero of healthcare, the nurse, from an industry level.

How We Podcast

Nov 27 • 47 min

with @smc90 @conniechan Many believe that podcasts — authentic, intimate — are organic conversations without editing. But most of the work often happens before and after the conversation itself, in everything from the programming to the editing. In this…

Brand Building Ideas… and People

Nov 20 • 34 min

with @wennmachers @smc90 Many technical founders believe that great products and ideas sell themselves, without any extra effort or marketing. But in reality, they often need public relations (PR). The irony is, most of the work involved in PR is actually…

Come for the Games, Stay for the Party

Nov 2 • 22 min

From Fortnite to Untitled Goose Game, next-generation video games are unlike anything we’ve seen before. These are the tech trends turning gaming into a massive, culture-defining phenomenon.

AI in B2B

Oct 23 • 24 min

Consumer software may have adopted and incorporated AI ahead of enterprise software, where the data is more proprietary, and the market is a few thousand companies not hundreds of millions of smartphone users. But recently AI has found its way into B2B,…

Free Software and Open Source Business

Oct 21 • 35 min

Today, despite the critical importance of open source to software, it’s still seen by some as blasphemous to make money as an open source business. In this podcast, Armon Dadgar, Cofounder and CTO of HashiCorp; Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks; and a16z…

Of Emojis and Innovation

Oct 15 • 38 min

with @fredbenenson @jenny8lee and @smc90 A whole new set of emojis are about to hit people’s phone within a month, but that’s not the only reason we’re re-running this popular (and defining!) episode of the a16z Podcast from 2015. It’s an evergreen…

The Environment, Capitalism, Technology

Oct 3 • 46 min

It used to be that the only way for humanity to grow — and progress — was through destroying the environment. But is this interplay between human growth vs. environment really a zero-sum game? Even if it were true in history, is it true today? If…

16 Minutes on the News #10: Amazon Healthcare, Oculus VR/AR, Google Quantum Supremacy?

Sep 29 • 22 min

News and trends covered this week include: * Amazon’s move into care delivery, initially for employees, what it means for incumbents and startups, the future of healthcare — with @julesyoo @jorgecondebio * Oculus Connect 6, Facebook’s annual developer…

New Business Models for Gaming, Collaboration, Creativity

Sep 28 • 42 min

The biggest shift in gaming happened with the combination of cloud, social, and mobile. As with all great tech shifts, though, it’s really the underlying business models that really create new startup opportunities. With blockchain technology and…

16 Minutes on the News #9: All the Recent Phone Hacks

Sep 22 • 19 min

News and trends covered this week include: * FBI’s latest note on social engineering of two-factor authentication * Simjacker spyware via SMS * Google Project Zero vs. Apple, and Apple’s year in security * what can we do to secure ourselves? …with…

The Biology of Pain

Sep 17 • 36 min

What is the nature of physical pain? Why do we even experience it? Is there one type, or many? Do people experience pain differently? What is happening in our brains and our bodies when we experience pain? What is the biological link between pain …

16 Minutes on the News #8: Apple Camera, Services; Wearables - Where are We

Sep 16 • 19 min

with @benedictevans @vijaypande and @smc90 This is episode #8 of our news show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way — why they’re in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech — and share our…

How to Pay for Healthcare Based on Health

Sep 6 • 36 min

There’s been a lot of talk about the need for our healthcare system to shift away from volume and fee-for-service, where you pay by appointment, procedure, etc, to value-based care, where you pay for both quality and outcomes—essentially, good health…

The Hustler’s Guide to the Hair Business

Sep 5 • 40 min

with @bhorowitz @shakasenghor @diishanimira @therealritabee Hustlin’ Tech is a new show (part of the a16z Podcast) that introduces the technology platforms — and mindsets — for everybody and anybody who has the desire, the talent, and the hustle t…

The Hustler’s Guide to Getting Paid

Sep 5 • 30 min

with @bhorowitz @shakasenghor ram @earnin & vaughn ferguson Hustlin’ Tech is a new show (part of the a16z Podcast) that introduces the technology platforms — and mindsets — for everybody and anybody who has the desire, the talent, and the hustle to …

The Hustler’s Guide to Preschool

Sep 5 • 37 min

with @bhorowitz @shakasenghor @8ennett & sherie james Hustlin’ Tech is a new show (part of the a16z Podcast) that introduces the technology platforms — and mindsets — for everybody and anybody who has the desire, the talent, and the hustle to do g…

Introducing Hustlin’ Tech

Sep 5 • 0 min

We’re excited to introduce a new podcast series hosted by a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz and Shaka Senghor, a leading voice in criminal justice reform and bestselling author. The series is called “Hustlin’ Tech” and so far, there are three episodes to …

Making Culture, Making Influence — Dapper Dan!

Sep 2 • 68 min

“You cannot be IN it… and not be OF it.” Dapper Dan a.k.a. Daniel Day shares his remarkable history and story of defining an era of fashion and cultural influence in this special episode of the a16z Podcast — based on his conversation in San Franc…

From the Internet’s Past to the Future of Crypto

Aug 29 • 27 min

What can we learn from the history of the internet for the future of crypto? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, general partner Katie Haun interviews a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen — and co-founder of Netscape, which helped popularize and mainstr…

What to Know about FedRAMP

Aug 27 • 34 min

with @ldhawke and @stevesi The government wants to get onto the cloud! But how do they assess the levels of risk in adopting specific cloud products, and which “cloud service providers” (aka “CSPs”) to work with? That’s where FedRAMP — the Federal…

16 Minutes on the News #7: Apple Card, BEC Scams Federal Indictment

Aug 25 • 17 min

with @illscience and @smc90 This is episode #7 of our news show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way — why they’re in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech — and share our experts’ views…

Software has eaten the world…and healthcare is next

Aug 15 • 46 min

Back in 2011, a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen first made the bold claim that software would eat the world. In this episode (originally recorded as part of an event at a16z), Andreesseen and a16z general partner on the bio fund Jorge Conde (@JorgeConde…

16 Minutes on the News #6: Health Claims, Corporate Breaches

Aug 12 • 17 min

with @julesyoo @smc90 This is episode #6 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way — why they’re in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech — and share our experts’ views on the…

16 Minutes on the News #5: Fed Real-time Payments, Death of Retail

Aug 11 • 16 min

with @astrange @jeff_jordan and @smc90 This is episode #5 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way — why they’re in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech — and share our expe…

16 Minutes on the News: The Opioid Crisis

Aug 4 • 18 min

with @jorgecondebio @vijaypande and @smc90 This is episode #4 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way — why they’re in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech — and share our …

16 Minutes on the News: Fortnite, Esports, Gaming, and Entertainment

Aug 4 • 18 min

with @andrewchen @dcoolican and @smc90 This is episode #3 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way — why they’re in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech — and share our expe…

16 Minutes on the News: Mobile Malware, Drug Pricing

Jul 28 • 19 min

with @martin_casado @jorgeconde @jayrughani and @smc90 This is episode #2 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way — why they’re in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech — an…

The Search for the Secret Metal that Powers All Our Devices

Jul 23 • 32 min

with Kurt House (@kurtzhouse), John Thompson, Connie Chan (@conniechan) and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) The exploration for and mining of certain metals has driven huge epochs of human civilization, from copper and iron to gold and diamonds. In t…

16 Minutes on the News: Neuralink & Brain Interfaces, TikTok, FaceApp, iHeartRadio

Jul 21 • 20 min

with @vijaypande @conniechan @jpm25 and @smc90 Introducing our new podcast, 16 Minutes, a short news podcast where we cover the top headlines of the week, the a16z podcast way — why are these topics in the news; what’s real, what’s hype from our va…

How To Get The Most From Your Board

Jul 19 • 21 min

In this final of a 3-part series (which originally aired as YouTube videos) on working with venture investors, a16z Managing Partner Scott Kupor shares best practices for working with your board as it grows from just you, your co-founders and first i…

How To Raise Money From A Venture Investor

Jul 18 • 33 min

So you’ve decided raising venture capital is the best fundraising strategy for your startup. Now what? In this second of a 3-part series, a16z Managing Partner Scott Kupor shares actionable fundraising advice based on his experience of seeing thousa…

How To Understand And Choose A Venture Investor

Jul 17 • 26 min

Incentives matter. So understanding the incentives of venture capitalists will help you decide if raising money from a venture investor makes sense for your business. In this first of a 3-part series, which originally aired as YouTube videos, a16z M…

Beyond Software, to Talent and Culture

Jul 4 • 38 min

with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen) Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), we’re resurfacing some of our previous episodes featuring Andr…

Beyond Zero Sum, Again

Jul 4 • 42 min

with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Steven Johnson (@stevenbjohnson) Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), we’re resurfacing some of our previous episodes featuri…

Beyond Software Eating the World

Jul 4 • 41 min

with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), Scott Kupor (@skupor), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), we’re resurfacing some of our previous ep…

Beyond Disruption Theory

Jul 4 • 17 min

with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Michael Copeland Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), we’re resurfacing some of our previous episodes featuring Andreessen Ho…

Entrepreneurs, Then and Now

Jun 28 • 44 min

with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Stewart Butterfield (@stewart) A lot in technology — and venture — happens in decades. New cycles of technology come and go, including some secular shifts; a new generation of founder…

Damage-free Genome Editing — Next in CRISPR

Jun 25 • 15 min

Two recent scientific journal papers show what’s possible when CRISPR moves from cutting DNA tool to a full-fledged platform — expanding its toolkit for medicine across R&D, therapeutics, and diagnostics: “Transposon-encoded CRISPR-Cas systems dire…

Stories from the Frontlines of Synthetic Fraud

Jun 25 • 34 min

Synthetic fraud—yes, it’s a thing: a new evolution of consumer fraud that’s been emerging in financial services, to the tune of $1-$2B a year. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Naftali Harris, co-founder and CEO of Sentilink, which builds techno…

The History and Future of Machine Learning

Jun 19 • 41 min

How have we gotten to where were are with machine learning? Where are we going? a16z Operating Partner Frank Chen and Carnegie Mellon professor Tom Mitchell first stroll down memory lane, visiting the major landmarks: the symbolic approach of the 19…

The Politics of Technology

Jun 15 • 31 min

with Tony Blair (@InstituteGC), Scott Kupor (@skupor), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) If the current pace of tech change is the 21st-century equivalent of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution — with its tremendous economic growth and lifestyle change …

AI and Your Doctor, Today and Tomorrow

Jun 13 • 44 min

with Eric Topol (@EricTopol) and Vijay Pande (@vijaypande) Artificial intelligence is coming to the doctor’s office. In this episode, Dr. Eric Topol, cardiologist and chair of innovative medicine at Scripps Research, and a16z’s general partner on th…

10+1 Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur Justin Kan

Jun 10 • 48 min

Want actionable advice from a founder who has built multiple tech companies and has invested the time to be open, introspective, and transparent about lessons learned? In this episode (which originally aired as a YouTube video), a16z General Partner…

Deep Learning for the Life Sciences

Jun 6 • 31 min

with Vijay Pande (@vijaypande) and Bharath Ramsundar Deep learning has arrived in the life sciences: every week, it seems, a new published study comes out… with code on top. In this episode, a16z General Partner Vijay Pande and Bharath Ramsundar t…

The Power of Restorative Justice

Jun 3 • 36 min

with Van Jones (@VanJones68), Shaka Senghor (@ShakaSeghnor), and Chris Lyons (@clyons) True redemption can be hard to come by in our justice system today. And yet, we need it more than ever before. In this episode (based on an event hosted by Andree…

The Economics of Expensive Medicines

May 30 • 33 min

with Andrew Lo (@AndrewWLo) and Jorge Conde (@JorgeCondeBio) The advent of new gene and cell therapies are beginning to approach that holy grail of medicine—that of a possible cure. But they are also more expensive than any medicines ever sold befor…

Collectively Driving Change

May 26 • 38 min

with Laurene Powell Jobs (@LaurenePowell) and Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) Laurene Powell Jobs is, among many other things, founder and President of the Emerson Collective — the social impact firm she founded to drive change and reform through philant…

What Time Is It? From Technical to Product to Sales CEO

May 20 • 46 min

with David Ulevitch (@davidu) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Since the startup (and founder) journey doesn’t go neatly linear from technical to product to sales, tightening one knob (whether engineering or marketing or pricing & packaging) creates slack…

Five Open Problems Toward Building a Blockchain Computer

May 13 • 52 min

Do you sometimes wish you had been born in a different decade so you could have worked on the fundamental building blocks of modern computing? How fun, challenging, and fulfilling would it have been to work on semiconductors in the 1950s or Unix in t…

A Guide to Making Data-Based Decisions in Health, Parenting… and Life

May 11 • 41 min

with Emily Oster (@ProfEmilyOster) and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Are chia seeds actually that good for you? Will Vitamin E keep you healthy? Will breastfeeding babies make them smarter? There’s maybe no other arena where understanding what the …

Innovating in Bets

May 7 • 46 min

with @annieduke, @pmarca, and @smc90 Every organization, whether small or big, early or late stage — and every individual, whether for themselves or others — makes countless decisions every day, under conditions of uncertainty. The question is, ar…

Seven Trends in Blockchain Computing

May 7 • 50 min

In a followup to one of our most popular podcast episodes which originally aired in April 2017 (https://a16z.com/2017/04/03/cryptocurrencies-protocols-appcoins/), a16z Crypto Fund General Partner Chris Dixon returns to talk with Olaf Carlson-Wee of P…

The Future Of Decision-Making—3 Startup Opportunities

Apr 29 • 29 min

As companies digitize, they change the way they make decisions: decisions are made lower in the organization, based on data, and increasingly automated. This creates opportunities for startups creating new ways to collect and analyze data to support …

So You Wanna Build a Software Company in Healthcare?

Apr 25 • 36 min

with Jorge Conde (@JorgeCondeBio), Julie Yoo (@julesyoo), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Building a software company in healthcare is hard — and comes along with unique challenges no other entrepreneurs face. In this conversation, a16z bio gene…

Inside Apple Software Design

Apr 19 • 96 min

Join longtime Apple software engineer Ken Kocienda in conversation with a16z Deal and Research operating partner Frank Chen for an insider’s account of how Apple designed software in the golden age of Steve Jobs, spanning products like the first rele…

Fintech for Startups and Incumbents

Apr 4 • 50 min

In this episode of the a16z Podcast — which originally aired as a video on YouTube — general partner Alex Rampell (and former fintech entrepreneur as the CEO and co-founder of TrialPay) talks with operating partner Frank Chen about the quickly chan…

A Podcast About Podcasting

Apr 2 • 67 min

with Nick Quah (@nwquah), Connie Chan (@conniechan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) It’s a podcast about podcasting! About the state of the industry, that is. Because a lot has changed since we recorded “a podcast about podcasts” about four years ago: p…

How Many Taps in the Apple (Plus) Tree?

Mar 30 • 28 min

with Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) and Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) What does Apple’s recent event — in which a range of new services was announced, from Apple News Plus to Apple TV Plus to the Apple card — mean for the company’s overall strategy an…

Incenting Innovation Inside, Loonshots to Moonshots

Mar 25 • 47 min

with Safi Bahcall (@safibahcall), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) A “moonshot” is a destination (like going to the moon, quite literally) — but nurturing “loonshots” (which often involves a number of stumbles along the way) is…

For the Billions of Creatives Out There

Mar 15 • 66 min

with Brian Koppelman (@briankoppelman), Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The writer-showrunner is a relatively new phenomenon in TV, as opposed to film, which is still a director-driven enterprise. But what does it mean, as both…

Lessons Learned from Chinese Education Startups

Mar 12 • 31 min

When people talk about trends in education technology, they often focus on how to disrupt higher education in the U.S., whether it’s about breaking free of the “signaling” factor of elite educations or how to shift education out of its “cottage indus…

What’s in the Water at the George Church Lab?

Feb 26 • 40 min

with George Church (@geochurch) and Jorge Conde (@JorgeCondeBio) Renowned scientist George Church is known for his groundbreaking work and methods used for the first genome sequence, and for his work in genome editing, writing & recoding — in fact,…

Capitalizing on an Autonomous Vehicle Future

Feb 24 • 48 min

with Peter Ludwig, Qasar Younis (@qasar), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) When people talk about autonomous vehicles, we hear everything from “we’re much closer than you think” to “we’re much further than you think”. So where are we, really, in the wides…

Gaming Goes Mainstream

Feb 17 • 34 min

Bobby Kotick is the CEO of Activision Blizzard (a merger he engineered); it’s one of only two video gaming companies in the Fortune 500, and the largest game network in the world. The company is responsible for some of the most iconic entertainment f…

Who’s Down with CPG, DTC? (And Micro-Brands Too?)

Feb 16 • 47 min

with Ryan Caldbeck (@ryan_caldbeck), Jeff Jordan (@jeff_jordan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) It’s clear that all kinds of commerce companies and consumer products have been disrupted — or enabled — by tech. Yet for certain categories, like consumer…

To All the Robots I’ve Loved Before

Feb 14 • 27 min

with Kate Darling (@grok_) and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) We already know that we have an innate tendency to anthropomorphize robots. But beyond just projecting human qualities onto them, as we begin to share more and more spaces, social and pri…

Cryptonetworks as Emerging Economies (Done Right?)

Feb 11 • 45 min

with Chris Burniske (@cburniske), Joel Monegro (@jmonegro), Denis Nazarov (@Iiterature), and Jesse Walden (@jessewldn) When designing cryptonetworks — really, emerging economies — how do we avoid some of the monetary and fiscal policy failings of …

Voting, Security, and Governance in Blockchains and Cryptonetworks

Feb 10 • 38 min

with Phil Daian (@phildaian) and Ali Yahya (@ali01) Whether in corporations, boardrooms, or political elections, voting is something we see in all kinds of social systems… including blockchains. It’s the natural human tendency for how to organize …

Product-Market SALES Fit (What Comes First?)

Feb 2 • 50 min

with Jyoti Bansal (@jyotibansalsf), Peter Levine, Satish Talluri (@satishtalluri), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) One of the toughest challenges for founders — and especially technical founders who are used to focusing so much on product features over …

Stories and Lessons in Enterprise Sales

Jan 29 • 27 min

with Mark Leslie (@mleslie45) and Peter Levine What does it actually take to win at enterprise sales? In this episode, Mark Leslie, former CEO and chairman and founding team member of Veritas Software, and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School …

Finding Go-to-Market Fit in the Enterprise

Jan 29 • 37 min

with Peter Levine, Bob Tinker, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) For consumer companies, often when the holy grail of product-market fit is achieved, the company takes off: magic happens, growth unlocks. Enterprise B2B companies face a different c…

Connecting Hearts, Bodies, and Networks to Cure Cancer

Jan 26 • 36 min

Veterinary oncology can inform human oncology, and vice versa — providing a better model for looking at drug performance, interrelationships, and more. Especially when you add in data (there’s no “doggy HIPAA!”) and networks to get a “living laborat…

The Business of Cybercrime

Jan 17 • 36 min

with Joel de la Garza, Jonathan Lusthaus, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) The idea of the cybercriminal as lone wolf or hobby hacker is no longer much of a reality. Instead, the business of cybercrime looks a lot more just like that — a large, g…

Pulse Check on Consumer Tech Trends 2019, CES and Beyond

Jan 16 • 42 min

with Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) and Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) puts the latest and greatest developments in consumer technology on display in Vegas. But beyond the excitement and the hype, what’s …

Dark Data in Healthcare

Jan 15 • 36 min

with Susannah Fox (@susannahfox), Anil Sethi (@anilsethiusa / @ciitizencorp), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The problem of “dark data” in healthcare isn’t just a feel-good empowerment thing, but a structural issue that leads…

The Science and Business of Innovative Medicines

Jan 13 • 59 min

with Vas Narasimhan (@vasnarasimhan), Jorge Conde (@jorgecondebio), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) On average, only 1 out of 20 medicines works when we actually bring them into the human body, and these rates of success haven’…

All About Synthetic Biology

Jan 11 • 35 min

with James J. Collins, Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) The idea of ‘designing biology’ — once science fiction — has over the last 20 years become just… science. In this episode, a16z bio general partner Vijay Pande …

What’s Next for Marketplace Startups (Hint: Services)

Jan 9 • 41 min

The past and future of marketplace startups — where are we? Ever since eBay popularized an internet meeting place for buyers and sellers of, well, just about everything, we’ve been waiting for 100 other at-scale marketplaces for everything else, inc…

Talent, Tech Trends, and Culture — with Ben, Marc, and Tyler Cowen

Dec 29, 2018 • 38 min

with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), and Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen) This episode of the a16z Podcast features the rare combination of a16z co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in conversation, together, with economist Ty…

How the Internet Happened

Dec 24, 2018 • 46 min

In his book (and podcast), Brian McCullough chronicles the history and evolution of the internet — from college kids in a basement and the dot-com boom, to the applications built on top of it and the entrepreneurs behind them. General partner Chris…

All About Stablecoins

Dec 21, 2018 • 49 min

with Andy Milenius (@realzandy), Jesse Walden (@jessewldn), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The history, evolution, and use of money revolves around the important concept of debt: It’s what allows us to “time travel” and build toward the future — growing…

The Infrastructure of Total Health

Dec 20, 2018 • 48 min

with Bernard J. Tyson (@bernardjtyson) and Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) Bernard J. Tyson is the chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, a $73 billion non-profit health organization that provides healthcare and coverage with more than 22,000 physicians c…

Building Crypto, from Vision to Reality

Dec 17, 2018 • 32 min

with Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong), Chris Dixon (@cdixon), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Where are we, really, right now — in terms of what we can/ can’t do with crypto today? And what will it take to get from vision to mainstream reality? This e…

On Marrying Entertainment and Technology

Dec 4, 2018 • 44 min

with Jeffrey Katzenberg, Meg Whitman (@MegWhitman), and Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) In this episode of the a16z Podcast, based on a discussion that took place at our annual a16z Summit, Marc Andreessen interviews Jeffrey Katzenberg — formerly CEO and…

The IQ and EQ of Robots

Nov 21, 2018 • 35 min

with Boris Sofman (@bsofman), Dave Touretzky (@DaveTouretzky), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) We’re just now beginning to truly see the the first ‘real’ robots in the home, from Roombas to toys to companions to… well, much more. How are humans…

Ancient Dreams of Technology, Gods & Robots

Nov 19, 2018 • 37 min

with Adrienne Mayor (@amayor) and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Is it possible that ancient Greeks and Romans dreamed of technological innovations like robots and artificial intelligence millennia before those technologies became realities? In this…

M&A and Innovation, Inside Out

Nov 16, 2018 • 42 min

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 in…

Automation + Work, Human + Machine

Nov 5, 2018 • 28 min

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 Inno…

Eyeballs on the Game

Oct 18, 2018 • 26 min

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 ey…

From Research to Startup, There and Back Again

Oct 8, 2018 • 55 min

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 th…

How to Manage a PR Agency

Sep 27, 2018 • 39 min

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 pub…

New Upstarts in an Old Industry

Sep 25, 2018 • 33 min

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-entren…

Technological Trends, Capital, and Internet ‘Disruption’

Sep 23, 2018 • 54 min

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 fin…

Tesla and the Nature of Disruption

Sep 17, 2018 • 43 min

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 Tesl…

What’s at the Core of the Latest Apple Announcement?

Sep 13, 2018 • 28 min

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 t…

Seeing into the Future — Making Decisions, Telling Stories

Sep 8, 2018 • 46 min

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 …

The Case Study of Dollar General and Surviving (Thriving!) Retail

Sep 4, 2018 • 21 min

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…

When Organic Growth Goes Enterprise

Aug 25, 2018 • 29 min

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…. enterpris…

Crypto and the Evolution of Open Source

Aug 20, 2018 • 37 min

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…

The Basics of Growth 2 — Engagement & Retention

Aug 9, 2018 • 32 min

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, whic…

The Basics of Growth 1 — User Acquisition

Aug 9, 2018 • 20 min

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 mi…

Earned Secrets

Aug 3, 2018 • 16 min

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 a…

Cryptonetworks and Cities — Analogies

Jul 31, 2018 • 37 min

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 mu…

Cryptonetworks and Decentralization — Building Blocks

Jul 31, 2018 • 46 min

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 bitc…

High Growth in Companies (and Tech)

Jul 20, 2018 • 34 min

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……

The Regulatory Landscape for Crypto

Jul 16, 2018 • 33 min

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 enviro…

Building Companies in Crypto, from People to Code

Jul 16, 2018 • 27 min

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 r…

Decentralization and Crypto, the Big Picture

Jul 16, 2018 • 41 min

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 …

The Scientific Revolution of Ancient DNA

Jul 13, 2018 • 31 min

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 …

On Mentors and Mentees

Jul 11, 2018 • 32 min

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 mor…

Beyond Zero-Sum Thinking in the Game of Tech… and Life

Jul 6, 2018 • 42 min

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 di…

All Things Compensation

Jun 21, 2018 • 39 min

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 t…

Construction Under Tech — The Build

Jun 14, 2018 • 36 min

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 declin…

Construction Under Tech — Info Flows

Jun 13, 2018 • 32 min

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 actual…

The End (and Beginning) of Programming

Jun 8, 2018 • 19 min

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 Pet…

The Hard Things about Security

Jun 6, 2018 • 33 min

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,…

Autonomy in Service

May 25, 2018 • 28 min

with Gregory Allen (@Gregory_C_Allen), Gayle Lemmon (@gaylelemmon), Ryan Tseng, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) We now live in a world where connecting the dots between intel and modeling threats has become infinitely more complex: not only is th…

When Journalism Goes Global

May 23, 2018 • 23 min

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is the organization responsible for the compilation and release of the first the Panama Papers, a series of 11.5 million documents that detailed the offshore dealings of governments and indivi…

B2B2C

May 18, 2018 • 29 min

When it comes to B2B2C business models — which combine both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) — who really “owns” the customer? That question might not matter as much in more symbiotic, mutually beneficial marketplaces and o…

Network Effects, Origin Stories, and the Evolution of Tech

May 16, 2018 • 65 min

“The rules of the game are different in tech,” argues — and has long argued, despite his views not being accepted at first — W. Brian Arthur, technologist-turned-economist who first truly described the phenomenon of “positive feedbacks” in the econom…

The Oral History Of TrialPay — Obstacles and Opportunities in Payments

May 10, 2018 • 46 min

In this hallway-style conversation (originally recorded as a video), a16z general partner Alex Rampell and Terry Angelos, SVP of Commerce Solutions at Visa, discuss the trials and tribulations of their time as co-founders of TrialPay, an e-commerce p…

Shifting Risk Mindsets, From Tech to Bio

May 10, 2018 • 27 min

What challenges do first-time founders or tech founders encounter when building companies in the bio space, and how do they differ from traditional tech companies? In this hallway-style conversation episode of the a16z Podcast (originally recorded as…

The Case Against Education, From Signaling to Rainbow’s End

May 8, 2018 • 44 min

with Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan), Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Signaling and credential inflation — not learning — can explain why education pays in the labor market, and why we shouldn’t invest (any more) in it, argues B…

Breaking Into Bio

May 1, 2018 • 41 min

with Atul Butte (@atulbutte), Daphne Koller (@daphnekoller), and Vijay Pande (@vijaypande) Whether you’re an academic seeking to move out of research and into industry, or simply interested in working at a bio startup, this episode of the a16z Podca…

Principles and Algorithms for Work and Life

Apr 21, 2018 • 49 min

with Ray Dalio (@raydalio), Alex Rampell (@arampell), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Can one really apply the lessons of history and of the past to the present and the future, as a way to get what they want out of life? By deeply understanding cause-eff…

On Recent Consolidation in the Healthcare Industry

Apr 16, 2018 • 8 min

Many of the healthcare headlines lately have been about consolidation in the industry: Walmart and Humana; Aetna and CVS; Amazon, JP Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway. But what does it all mean for patients, and startups — Will it decrease costs? What …

Players and Paths for Healthcare Startups

Apr 16, 2018 • 7 min

The creation of each new biotechnology enables a tool, a therapy, or a diagnostic: a molecule, a protein, an app, a platform. And the process underneath isn’t just complex in the science and engineering of it, but in the go to market. So who are the…

When (and How) Biology Becomes Engineering

Apr 16, 2018 • 22 min

Hypothesis, test, revise — that’s science. Engineering, however, doesn’t quite go that way: You have parts you know and understand (like legos), and then you use those parts to design and build something (like bridges). But the key is that when scie…

What to Know about GDPR

Apr 12, 2018 • 35 min

with Lisa Hawke (@ldhawke) and Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) Given concern around data breaches, the EU Parliament finally passed GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) after four years of preparation and debate; it goes into enforcement on May 25, …

Feedback Loops — Company Culture, Change, and DevOps

Mar 28, 2018 • 44 min

with Nicole Forsgren (@nicolefv), Jez Humble (@jezhumble) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) From the old claim that “IT doesn’t matter” and question of whether tech truly drives organizational performance, we’ve been consumed with figuring out how to measu…

From Teaching Leadership to Being a Leader

Mar 26, 2018 • 22 min

Few operators become VCs, and even fewer go back to leading companies… so how does these perspectives change how one leads? Obviously, it’s a lot easier to think of a solution than execute on one… but then how does a leader empower one’s team to …

Improv’ing Leadership

Mar 23, 2018 • 23 min

Leadership is not just about management, but about passion, a bit of humor, and resilience. General partner Peter Levine and Dick Costolo (entrepreneur, former CEO of Twitter, and erstwhile comedian) share their thoughts on the topic in this episode …

On Morals and Meaning in Products, Business, and Life

Mar 21, 2018 • 24 min

Focusing only on the technical, “crunchy, wonky stuff” behind policies or products sometimes misses the humanity at the center of why we’re doing the thing in the first place. Because systems — whether algorithms and artificial intelligence, or capi…

How to Live Longer and Better

Mar 16, 2018 • 17 min

with Kristen Fortney (@kpfortney), Jeff Kaditz (@jeffkaditz), David Sinclair (@davidasinclair), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Even without a mythical fountain of youth, scientific advances have already dramatically increased how long humans liv…

The API Economy — The Why, What, and How

Mar 13, 2018 • 30 min

with Cristina Cordova (@cjc), Augusto Marietti (@sonicaghi), Laura Behrens Wu (@laurabehrenswu), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) APIs (application programming interfaces), observe the guests in this episode of the a16z Podcast, can be described as everyt…

Containing the Monolith — From Microservices to DevOps

Mar 7, 2018 • 18 min

What happens when monolithic architectures are broken down into containers and microservices (or when things are broken down into smaller units, not just in infrastructure but perhaps even in company structure too)? From building more dynamic website…

Space — the Near Frontier

Mar 4, 2018 • 14 min

When most people think of space, they think of outer space: Mars, billionaires with rockets, and the “final frontier”. But space innovation is actually playing out right now — in an immediate and more accessible way, thanks to techonologies getting …

The State of Security

Feb 27, 2018 • 17 min

with Joel de la Garza, Stina Ehrensvärd, Niels Provos, and Martin Casado Given the heated discussions around security and the c-word (“cyber”), it’s hard to figure out what the actual state of the industry is. And clearly it’s not just an academic e…

Creating a Category, from Pricing to Positioning

Feb 24, 2018 • 31 min

with Martin Casado (@martin_casado), Michel Feaster (@michelfeaster) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The purpose of category creation, argue the guests in this episode of the podcast, isn’t just about making a dent in the way companies work and changing …

The Self-Flying Camera

Feb 22, 2018 • 23 min

with Adam Bry (@adampbry), Chris Dixon (@cdixon), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Now that we’ve finally reached the age of the truly autonomous commercial small drone — and in this case, a self-flying camera — what happens when you take the pi…

The Internet of Taste, Streaming Content to Culture

Feb 18, 2018 • 42 min

Once upon a time it was inconceivable that a company in Silicon Valley could make content that was any good; the running joke, shares Marc Andreessen, “was like, what are we gonna do — we’re gonna film a router instruction manual? It was just an abs…

The Business of Continual Change

Feb 18, 2018 • 26 min

Every large company — especially ones that have been around for a long time — goes through multiple cycles of change. But how do you know where to go next, and when, and how? The management literature is full of case studies, research, and of cours…

How Technology Is Changing Investing

Feb 16, 2018 • 16 min

As people begin to gain access to information that was previously left to only trained specialists, a new set of asset classes are being created — and they are changing the way we think about everything from banking to customizing portfolios and mor…

Data, Insight, and the Customer Experience

Feb 13, 2018 • 16 min

In 2017 The Economist declared data to be the world’s most valuable resource. And yet “data insight” is one of those phrases that, while important, is now so ubiquitous it’s been numbed of meaning. So how do you actually get the most meaningful insig…

The Evolution of Payments

Feb 11, 2018 • 19 min

The battle between every startup and incumbent comes down to whether the startup gets distribution before the incumbent gets innovation, oft observes a16z general partner Alex Rampell. But how does this play out when most of the players, big and smal…

When Is VR’s iPhone Moment?

Feb 6, 2018 • 23 min

There was a lot of hype about VR ad then it seemed to go pretty quiet. So where are we right now? Bigscreen founder Darshan Shankar and a16z general partner Chris Dixon take the pulse on VR, AR, and mixed reality — especially where it’s going the ne…

All about Bike Sharing

Feb 2, 2018 • 30 min

with Lee Kleinman (@LeeForDallas), Joshua Schank (@joshuaschank), Andrew Savage, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) There’s a new wave of bike-sharing in town. But this wave looks a little different than previous waves — from docked rows of governm…

Self-Driving Cars — Where Are We, Really?

Jan 30, 2018 • 17 min

As cars become more like iPhones and less like just, well, cars — everything changes, from data to mapping to interfaces to security and more. How so? Where are we anyway, given all the hype around when self-driving cars will appear everywhere? And w…

Beyond CES: Connected Home Devices, Voice, and More

Jan 22, 2018 • 33 min

In this hallway conversation of the a16z Podcast, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky discuss CES 2018 and share insight on what they took from this year’s show. How much can you discern each company’s “big picture” strategy out of the slew of new pro…

Mental Models for Understanding Crypto Tokens

Jan 21, 2018 • 34 min

This episode of the a16z Podcast goes deep on various trends in cryptocurrencies — from mental models for understanding tokens and what may give them long-term value; to the role of stablecoins in the ecosystem; to scaling, on-chain and off-chain pr…

Reinventing Food

Jan 12, 2018 • 19 min

It’s surprising that how (and what) we eat has actually changed very little over the ages, despite how much we’ve advanced as a species. Now, however — driven by globalization, environmental factors, and other considerations — the way we move, tast…

Revisiting the Gene

Jan 9, 2018 • 15 min

The complete sequencing of the human genome is one of the most powerful examples of technology and science in action: We’ve gone from needing $3 billion and over 13 years to read a single human genome to today, to where we can do that same amount of …

Community and Culture, Online

Jan 5, 2018 • 20 min

We’re so used to thinking of “community” as our friends, families, and neighbors. But what a community is, and who it is made of, has changed thanks to the internet, and without our noticing it. What happens when online communities — really, new sub…

Fintech for the People

Dec 19, 2017 • 18 min

New fintech companies are democratizing access to financial services in different ways, whether it’s making food stamps more efficient, no longer waiting two weeks for a paycheck, or enabling anyone with a smartphone in developing countries to create…

Trends in Cryptocurrencies

Dec 19, 2017 • 22 min

The internet, believe it or not, was just the beginning. Yes, it spawned an incredible number of uses (some unexpected), from marketplaces and commerce to publishing and social networks… but that’s all been built with old models of funding and coor…

The $200 PC in the Enterprise

Dec 19, 2017 • 32 min

What capabilities do enterprise companies really want from their computers? Twenty years ago, those capabilities might’ve been bundled into a mainframe. Ten years ago, it might’ve been the PC. Today, as more and more businesses rely on devices that n…

Of Governors and Mayors, and Tech Policy

Dec 14, 2017 • 11 min

Many of the big tech policy issues of the day play out more so at the state and local level, not just federal level. The decisions that cities and states make every day — from autonomous vehicles to bike sharing — may therefore end up setting the s…

Taking the Pulse on Bio

Dec 13, 2017 • 28 min

This conversation between the members of a16z’s bio team — including general partners Jorge Conde and Vijay Pande; Malinka Walaliyadde; and Jeffrey Low (the interviewer) — takes a quick pulse on where we are with when bio becomes more like engineer…

Scaling Healthcare

Dec 13, 2017 • 19 min

No matter how grand a vision for a particular industry, disruption in practice is hard. This is especially true in industries like healthcare, which have long been resistant to software-driven change. But sometimes you can innovate within the bounds …

Market Shifts

Dec 10, 2017 • 34 min

NASDAQ CEO Adena Friedman runs one of the world’s largest financial services companies, including the NASDAQ stock exchange that’s home to more than 3,500 listed companies. They were also the creator of the world’s first electronic stock market. Yet …

On Data and Data Scientists in the Age of AI

Dec 5, 2017 • 9 min

Data, data, everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Or so would say Coleridge, if he were a big company CEO trying to use A.I. today — because even when you have a ton of data, there’s not always enough signal to get anything meaningful from AI. Why? Be…

AI, from ‘Toy’ Problems to Practical Application

Dec 1, 2017 • 34 min

When you have “a really hot, frothy space” like AI, even the most basic questions — like what is it good for, how do you make sure your data is in shape, and so on — aren’t answered. This is just as true for the companies eager to adopt the technolog…

The Rise of the CCO

Nov 17, 2017 • 25 min

There’s a new C-level role in town: the CCO, or Chief Customer Officer. This episode (based on a previous event) is all about the rise of this new role, why it’s so important — and what the actual scope and function of the role should be. a16z’s Ma…

How Founders Hire a VP of Product

Nov 10, 2017 • 29 min

Hiring a VP of Product — especially as the founder of the company — can almost feel like handing over your baby to someone else to hold, observes a16z executive talent team partner Caroline Horn, who hosted an event on this topic earlier this year …

Putting AI in Medicine, in Practice

Nov 3, 2017 • 29 min

with Brandon Ballinger (@bballinger), Mintu Turakhia (@leftbundle), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) There’s been a lot of talk about technology — and AI, deep learning, and machine learning specifically — finally rea…

The Why Behind the Weird

Oct 31, 2017 • 27 min

Author and professor at George Mason University, Peter Leeson describes himself as not just an economist but as a “collector of curiosa.” In his latest book, WTF?! An Economic Tour of the Weird, Leeson looks at just that — the strangest beliefs, sup…

Revenge of the Algorithms (Over Data)… Go! No?

Oct 22, 2017 • 40 min

with Frank Chen, Steven Sinofsky, and Sonal Chokshi There are many reasons why we’re in an “A.I. spring” after multiple “A.I. winters” — but how then do we tease apart what’s real vs. what’s hype when it comes to the (legitimate!) excitement about a…

Platforming the Future

Oct 13, 2017 • 34 min

with Tim O’Reilly and Benedict Evans In this hallway-style podcast conversation, O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly and a16z partner Benedict Evans discuss how we make sense of the most recent wave of new technologies —- technologies that are perh…

A New Lab Rises

Oct 12, 2017 • 29 min

with Ion Stoica, Peter Levine, and Sonal Chokshi We’ve already talked quite a bit about the Algorithms, Machines, and People lab at U.C. Berkeley (AMPLab) — all about making sense of big data — so what happens when the entire world moves towards art…

Mindsets for Engineering Biology

Oct 5, 2017 • 28 min

Head of the largest bioengineering lab in the world, former chairman of the FDA and one of the few recipients of the National Medals of Science and of Technology and Innovation, Bob Langer’s work has spanned multiple fields and settings and has been …

Why Crypto Tokens Matter

Sep 28, 2017 • 35 min

with Chris Dixon and Fred Ehrsam We’ve already talked about why bitcoin matters. But as the set of cryptocurrencies — and networks and “tokens” enabled by the underlying blockchain — grow (Ethereum being one of the fastest-growing ones), where do we…

The Case Study of Lyft and Local Governments

Sep 26, 2017 • 20 min

with David Mack, Joseph Okpaku, and Matt Spence How should startups engage with policymakers, build their own government relations (GR) function (whether in house or with consultants), and just begin to figure out their GR playbook? Let alone explai…

Exploding the Map

Sep 16, 2017 • 38 min

with Wei Luo, David Rumsey (@davidrumseymaps), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) In this episode, Wei Luo, founding COO of DeepMap — who build HD maps for autonomous vehicles — and David Rumsey, founder of the David Rumsey Map Collection (one of …

Getting Applications Into People’s Hands

Sep 14, 2017 • 21 min

with Juan Benet and Chris Dixon The story of how innovation happens is a long one — from government funding early basic research, to the heyday of corporate R&D like Bell Labs, to startups as experiments before product-market fit. Through all that, …

The Asshole Survival Guide

Sep 13, 2017 • 34 min

with Michael Dearing (@mcgd), Bob Sutton (@work_matters), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) Bob Sutton’s book The No Asshole Rule was all about how to foster company cultures that don’t tolerate asshole behavior. But sometimes, dealing with an assh…

Adjusting to Trade… and Innovation

Sep 10, 2017 • 38 min

with Russ Roberts, Noah Smith, and Sonal Chokshi Beyond the overly simplistic framing of trade as “good” or “bad” — by politicians, by Econ 101 — why is the topic of trade (or rather, economies and people adjusting to trade) so damn hard? A big part…

The Macro and Micro of Parenting

Sep 5, 2017 • 29 min

We tend to talk about tech and parenting through devices and artifacts — screen time, to code or not to code — but actually, there’s a bigger, macro picture at play there: game theory, economic incentives, culture, and more. So in this back-to-scho…

Competing Against Luck

Sep 1, 2017 • 37 min

with Clayton Christensen, Marc Andreessen, and Steven Levy In business, mistakes of omission may be just as bad as (if not worse than) mistakes of commission — simply because of the loss in potential upside: new companies, new products, new opportu…

Engineering Intent

Aug 30, 2017 • 28 min

“Young hungry and scrappy” is how Hamilton described his country, and it’s how many — including the guests on this episode — describe startups… or more precisely, the mindset that engineers in startups need to balance both creativity and efficien…

A Society Under Construction - Modernizing Infrastructure

Aug 25, 2017 • 22 min

What is “infrastructure” actually? In the 19th and 20th century, that usually meant the transportation systems supporting roadways, airports, trains… but we don’t even really know yet what it might potentially mean in the age of rapidly changing te…

Cash, Growth, and CEO ❤️ CFO

Aug 24, 2017 • 19 min

with Ben Horowitz, Scott Kupor, and Caroline Moon “The only unforgivable sin in business is to run out of cash” [so said Harold Geneen], yet startup CEOs “always act on leading indicators of good news, and lagging indicators of bad news” [according …

The Taxonomy of Collective Knowledge

Aug 15, 2017 • 26 min

What do disease diagnostics, language learning, and image recognition have in common? All depend on the organization of collective intelligence: data ontologies. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, guests Luis von Ahn, founder of reCaptcha and Duoli…

Centers of Power, War, and History

Aug 11, 2017 • 28 min

with Graham Allison and Matthew Colford “When a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, shit happens.” It’s true of people, it’s true of companies, and it’s even more true of countries. It’s also the fundamental insight captured by ancien…

The Strategies and Tactics of Big

Aug 7, 2017 • 29 min

What happens when companies grow exponentially in a short amount of time — to their organization, their product planning, their behavior towards change itself? In this “hallway conversation”, a16z partners Steven Sinofsky and Benedict Evans discuss …

Independents on the Board

Aug 3, 2017 • 22 min

with Anne Mitchell, Lars Dalgaard, and Scott Kupor “Orthogonal thinking” but “shared core values” — that’s what makes an ideal board… especially when it comes to “independents”, i.e., board members who aren’t also investors. But how do you get th…

From Mind at Play to Making the Information Age

Aug 3, 2017 • 29 min

with Jimmy Soni, Rob Goodman, and Steven Sinofsky Modern technology owes much to the introduction of the binary digit or “bit”, first proposed by Claude Shannon in “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, a paper published in 1948. The bit would go…

The Curious Case of the OpenTable IPO

Jul 24, 2017 • 30 min

There are the things that you carefully plan when it comes to an IPO — the who (the bankers, the desired institutional investors); the what (the pricing, the allocations); and the when (are we ready? is this a good public business?). But then there …

Making a (Really) Wild Geo-Engineering Idea Real

Jul 18, 2017 • 30 min

Here’s what we know: There’s a pair (father and son) of Russian scientists trying to resurrect (or rather, “rewild”) an Ice Age (aka Pleistocene era) biome (grassland) complete with (gene edited, lab-grown) woolly mammoths (derived from elephants). I…

Addiction vs Popularity in the Age of Virality

Jul 14, 2017 • 26 min

In the age of virality, what does it actually mean to be popular? When does popularity — or good product design, for that matter — cross over from desire and engagement… to addiction? Journalist and editor Derek Thompson, author of Hit Makers: Th…

The Golden Era of Productivity, Retail, and Supply Chains

Jul 11, 2017 • 33 min

This episode of the a16z Podcast takes us on a quick tour through the themes of economics/historian/journalist Marc Levinson’s books — from An Extraordinary Time, on the end of the postwar boom and the return of the ordinary economy; to The Great A&…

The Cloud Atlas to Real Quantum Computing

Jun 30, 2017 • 25 min

A funny thing happened on the way to quantum computing: Unlike other major shifts in classic computing before it, it begins — not ends — with The Cloud. That’s because quantum computers today are more like “physics experiments in a can” that most c…

Companies, Networks, Crowds

Jun 29, 2017 • 35 min

Is a network — whether a crowd or blockchain-based entity — going to replace the firm anytime soon? Not yet, argue Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson in the new book Machine, Platform, Crowd. But that title is a bit misleading, because the real qu…

Lobbying Tech

Jun 24, 2017 • 22 min

What is lobbying, really? Is it “white”, “heavy-set” men “playing golf” and making arrangements in “smoke-filled back rooms”? It’s not like that anymore, according to two lobbyists who join this episode of the a16z Podcast to pull back the curtain on…

Cybersecurity in the Boardroom vs. the Situation Room

Jun 18, 2017 • 23 min

“We’re always fighting the last war” — that’s a phrase historians like to use because policymakers and others tend to be so focused on the threats they already know, and our mindsets and organizational structures are oriented to respond that way as …

Taking the ‘Cyber’ Out of Cybersecurity

Jun 16, 2017 • 8 min

Nearly every cybersecurity discussion/presentation follows this formula: We don’t know what we’re doing; the bad guys are getting smarter; our defenses are getting worse; everything’s more connected than ever; we’re heading towards a digital . But ev…

Changing the Conversation about Cybersecurity

Jun 15, 2017 • 19 min

When individuals gain the abilities that only nation states once had, how do we put cyber threats in perspective for policymakers — without unduly “inflating” the threats? As it is, security is an intense and important topic, so our job is to be sca…

Taking the Measure of Tech in Policy — with Kamala Harris

Jun 8, 2017 • 27 min

“Slow down, cowboys” — that’s what Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) said when prosecutors in her office wanted to bring a case against companies that let apps download someone’s entire address book, because surely that’s a complete violation of …

Modernizing Government Services, From Food Stamps to Foster Care

Jun 7, 2017 • 19 min

When people think of modernizing government, they tend to think of new IT, of improved procurement, of new infrastructure … rather than social services like foster care or food stamps. But how can we actually help improve daily lives — less in the…

The Law (and Tech) of Warfare

Jun 4, 2017 • 32 min

Rules, guidelines, regulations, and “laws” are all sometimes used interchangeably — but what’s legal and what isn’t is far more complex when it comes to policy, especially when politics (and technology) enters the picture. Take encryption for instanc…

The Living Museum

May 29, 2017 • 32 min

Every industry (for-profit, non-profit, government, private-sector) has been touched by tech, with most trying to lead the charge in order to stay ahead. But museums and memorials, by definition, lag rather than lead there. How is that changing as vi…

Giving and Getting Feedback — for Bosses and Employees

May 26, 2017 • 25 min

There’s feedback and there’s guidance; there’s praise and there’s criticism. All of it is important to do better work, but to develop a better and more productive workplace and relationships — especially given how much time we spend at work! — the …

What Technology Wants, Needs, Does

May 22, 2017 • 35 min

Turnabout is fair play: That’s true in politics, and it’s true at Andreessen Horowitz given our internal (and very opinionated!) culture of debate — where we often agree to disagree, or more often, disagree to agree. So in this special “turnabout” e…

Tech Policy and the Courts

May 21, 2017 • 21 min

Discussions and headlines around tech policy tend to be dominated by what the President and the White House (aka the executive branch of the government) and what the Senate and House of Representatives (aka the legislative branch) are saying and doin…

The Blockchain, in Congress

May 20, 2017 • 20 min

There’s an interesting paradox when it comes to the U.S. government and tech: Either they’re an inventor, early adopter, and buyer of emerging new tech … or they’re a very late adopter (as in the case of government officials using Blackberries vs. iP…

For Your Ears Only

May 17, 2017 • 32 min

When it comes to spycraft — or rather, “tradecraft,” as they say in the biz — what do the movies get right, and what do they get wrong? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Michael Morell — former Deputy Director and twice-Acting Director of the CIA …

From Jobs to Flying Cars

May 15, 2017 • 33 min

In this lively conversation — from our recent annual tech and policy summit in Washington, D.C. — Axios’ Dan Primack interviews a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen about the two major narratives dominating discussions about the tech industry right now:…

Quantum Computing, Now and Next

May 13, 2017 • 26 min

Moore’s Law — putting more and more transistors on a chip — accelerated the computing industry by so many orders of magnitude, it has (and continues to) achieve seemingly impossible feats. However, we’re now resorting to brute-force hacks to keep p…

Boards, from Both Sides of the Table

May 10, 2017 • 20 min

A board veteran who has sat on both sides of the table, CEO of PagerDuty Jennifer Tejada shares what you gain from board membership (vs. being only an operator). How does being a board member change you as a CEO, and vice versa? Recorded as part of …

On Wearables, Quantified Self, and Biohacking

May 1, 2017 • 31 min

It’s the end of the beginning — not the beginning of the end — for wearables, argue the guests in this episode of the a16z Podcast. Especially as we move from the first, to the next, generation of wearable devices: not just activity trackers and watc…

The Rise of the Digital ‘Pill’

Apr 28, 2017 • 26 min

The first thing that comes to mind when treating health problems is the need to take a pill (or other pharmaceutical) of some kind. But could a digital therapeutic — a software-based intervention — not only complement, but possibly even replace pil…

QR. AR. VR.

Apr 25, 2017 • 28 min

In this hallway-style episode of the podcast, a16z partners Connie Chan and Kyle Russell discuss recent announcements at Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, in the context of trends such as: messaging and QR codes; brain computer interfaces; …

The Science Of Extending Life

Apr 17, 2017 • 29 min

Is it real or science fiction to dream of being able to treat… getting old? In this episode, we discuss with Dr. Thomas Rando from Stanford (who directs the Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging), Kristen Fortney, CEO of BioAge, and a16z’s general pa…

Crisis Communications

Apr 13, 2017 • 33 min

A crisis is an opportunity to change one’s culture, to model scenarios and set up a crisis plan/process, to become a better company. But it’s also a bit like therapy, from the act of asking probing questions to get at the facts … to dealing with em…

Monetizing Open Source (Or, All Enterprise Software)

Apr 11, 2017 • 29 min

Here’s what we know about open source: Developers are the new buyers. Community matters. And there will never be another Red Hat (i.e., a successful “open core” business model … nor do we necessarily think there should be). Yet open source is real, …

The Changing Culture of Open Source

Apr 8, 2017 • 39 min

The culture of open source has changed across generations, from previous ones that had to fight for the brave new way — to the current “GitHub generation” that not only accepts open source, but expects it as the default. Which makes sense given that…

Cryptocurrencies, App Coins, and Investing in Protocols

Apr 3, 2017 • 32 min

Most of us have probably heard of bitcoin and ethereum — but did you know there were 15 new cryptocurrencies launched this past month alone? How then do we know which protocols to invest in — not just as a developer or user, but as an investor? Bec…

Eyes in the Sky

Mar 24, 2017 • 19 min

In this episode of the a16z Podcast recorded at our inaugural Summit, Jonathan Downey, CEO of Airware, Grant Jordan, CEO of Skysafe, and Kyle Russell, partner at a16z, discuss our future with “eyes in the sky.” How do you balance experimentation and…

From Hidden Figure to Sonic BOOM

Mar 22, 2017 • 38 min

An aerospace engineer who worked for NASA for over 40 years, Dr. Christine Darden is one of the mathematicians that the book and movie Hidden Figures was based on. Darden eventually would lead the sonic boom team, going on to become the first African…

The Storage Renaissance

Mar 21, 2017 • 22 min

As we enter a new era of distributed computing — and of big data, in the form of machine and deep learning — storage becomes (even more) important. It might not be sexy, but storage is what makes the internet and cloud computing go round and round:…

The Product Edge in Machine Learning Startups

Mar 17, 2017 • 21 min

A lot of machine learning startups initially feel a bit of “impostor syndrome” around competing with big companies, because (the argument goes), those companies have all the data; surely we can’t beat that! Yet there are many ways startups can, and d…

Build Your Personal Brand

Mar 13, 2017 • 31 min

Your brand, says head of a16z marketing and Outcast Agency co-founder Margit Wennmachers, is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And it’s going to happen, whether you choose to have an active part in it or not. But what does this m…

The Business of Healthcare

Mar 9, 2017 • 17 min

Starbucks supposedly spends more on healthcare than it does on coffee beans. And 20 years ago, says Rajeev Singh, CEO of Accolade, healthcare was 10% of GDP; today it’s 19% — that’s nearly one-fifths of our gross domestic product. So what tools do w…

The Genetics Of Drug Delivery

Mar 6, 2017 • 14 min

In this episode of the a16z Podcast introduced by Vijay Pande (based on a presentation at our summit event), Russ Altman, Stanford professor of bioengineering — and former chairman of their Bioengineering Department — takes us on a short but deep t…

Technology, Mobility, and the American Dream

Mar 1, 2017 • 37 min

The irony of our systems working so well — technological, corporate, and yes, even political — is that we’ve become too comfortable: matching to others just like us, producing less, taking fewer risks. But isn’t the very point of technology to make…

The Future of… You

Feb 27, 2017 • 19 min

Humans have always wanted to enhance themselves — from getting nutrition just-right to optimizing their performance, whether in sports or health or work. And food is a big part of all that. But our current systems of food production (and consumptio…

Tech and Entertainment in the ‘Era of Mass Customization’

Feb 26, 2017 • 45 min

Imagine, for a moment, an alternative universe: One where Netflix got disrupted by some other streaming-content company that made its DVD rental business irrelevant. But that’s just a counterfactual. What happened instead is that Netflix cannibalized…

Brains, Bodies, Minds … and Techno-Religions

Feb 23, 2017 • 44 min

Evolution and technology have allowed our human species to manipulate the physical environment around us — reshaping fields into cities, redirecting rivers to irrigate farms, domesticating wild animals into captive food sources, conquering disease. …

When Will Genomics Live Up to the Hype?

Feb 21, 2017 • 25 min

It’s been nearly 15 years since the Human Genome Project was completed. But “are we there yet” in the golden age of genomics? What did we think we’d have by now, what do we actually have, and what do we really still need to make genomics live up to i…

Startups, Pivots, Culture, and Timing (Oh Shit!)

Feb 19, 2017 • 32 min

The hardest thing about pivots (major shifts in company/product direction) isn’t just the actual pivot. It’s the courage to make the decision… and being honest with yourself as a CEO. Especially since, no matter how great the team or board or even …

Securing Infrastructure and Enterprise Services

Feb 14, 2017 • 19 min

The modern enterprise holds all sorts of applications, devices, and workflow needs. How should we be thinking about securing infrastructure — and identity — in this context, for entities like major news media outlets or financial institutions such …

Cars and Cities, the Autonomy Edition

Feb 8, 2017 • 35 min

Thanks to freeways, cities became something to get through instead of something to get to. Now, as the next transportation revolution — from rivers to trains to cars to autonomous cars — promises to change the face of our cities, what happens to ca…

What Startups Should Know about Analyst Relations

Feb 1, 2017 • 31 min

In the age of the internet — where information is freely available online, and connections between sellers and buyers of software products are visible on LinkedIn — do analysts really matter? Do they play a role in decision-making for purchases fro…

Building Worlds with VR, Art, and Narrative

Jan 26, 2017 • 38 min

Once upon a time, Robert Stromberg got a phone call from “Jim” Cameron (aka James Francis Cameron of Terminator and Titanic fame) about a little project called Avatar. Before he knew it, he was responsible for designing the organic world of Pandora, …

The Why, How, and When of PR

Jan 25, 2017 • 42 min

“Punch above your weight” — If there’s one thing public relations (PR) should help startups and founders do, it’s that. Unfortunately, some companies are actually punching below their weight when there’s a strong company, founder, product … yet no…

VR, AR, and Beyond: The New Medium of Human Experience

Jan 23, 2017 • 26 min

The building blocks for VR and AR are finally here — but the content is just beginning. So everything you’ll actually experience and consume in these new mediums over the next few years is being built right now. Formats aren’t yet defined or locked …

Of Policy, Capital, and the Startup Ecosystem

Jan 21, 2017 • 23 min

How to think about business policy and top-of-mind issues for the tech industry, given a new president? From what agencies matter for startups and VC to what the first 100 days (and next two years!) look like, a16z managing partner Scott Kupor and pr…

Of Presidents, Policies, and Tech

Jan 21, 2017 • 40 min

How to think about tech policy and top-of-mind issues for the tech industry, given a new president? From what agencies matter for different tech domains — e.g., autonomous cars, drones, fintech, healthcare — to recent staffing moves, the a16z Polic…

Culture and/of Design

Jan 17, 2017 • 29 min

“Mobile-first” (and now too AI-first) has been a mantra of sorts in design, but what does that mean at a company, product management, and competitive level? Especially when someone in company X will always say “we should do what Y did” — even if the…

Real Estate — Ownership, Asset, Economy

Jan 13, 2017 • 29 min

The largest asset class in the United States is owner-occupied real estate, yet options for homeowners accessing this are very binary right now: either own 100% of your home (with a mortgage), or own nothing. And when people do “own”, that ownership …

Machine Intelligence, from University to Industry

Jan 11, 2017 • 27 min

From the significance of Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo wins to recent advances in “expert-level artificial intelligence” in playing an imperfect/ asymmetric information game like poker, toys and games have played and continue to play a critical role in a…

New Year, New Horizons — Pluto!

Jan 1, 2017 • 49 min

What (on earth) does it take to get a signal to Pluto? Stanford senior scientist and astronomer Ivan Linscott, part of the team that ran the radio science experiment on the New Horizons probe, shares in conversation with a16z’s Frank Chen all the nit…

The Movement of Money

Dec 30, 2016 • 27 min

As companies expand out from the internet into the rest of the economy — the proverbial bits to atoms — “the business models are becoming more complicated, more interesting, more payment based”, observes Patrick Collison, CEO and co-founder of paymen…

The Realities of Aging / When Healthcare Is Local

Dec 26, 2016 • 31 min

As people live longer, aging is more top of mind than ever. This is especially true for the “sandwich generation” wedged between caring for aging parents as well as young children at the same time. The fact is, the 65+ year old population (but don’t…

Mobility and the Global Refugee Crisis

Dec 15, 2016 • 34 min

“We throw around words like ‘crisis’ very easily, but this is a global crisis, and it is of historic proportions,” says current U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken about the refugee crisis (for which he and his department mobilized a response…

Produce or Perish! (What We Eat)

Dec 14, 2016 • 35 min

Nature is the ultimate complex system, of course — but with today’s technology, it’s now provided us with an “incredible toolkit” of different molecules that material scientists can treat like Legos to make some really interesting products. One of th…

The Internet Is Your Movement

Dec 8, 2016 • 22 min

Clearly disruption plays out not just in business but also in politics. Whether it was the Scottish national party, recent election campaigns, or local school boards, people grew and organized communities online all last year through NationBuilder —…

Health Data — A Feedback Loop for Humanity

Dec 5, 2016 • 30 min

“We live in a world where we use millions of variables to predict which ad you’re going to click on. Whether or not you deserve to get a loan. What movie you might watch next. But when it comes to our bodies and even serious diseases, we want to redu…

Knowledge Builds Technology and Technology Builds Knowledge — with Joel Mokyr

Nov 27, 2016 • 36 min

The Industrial Revolution (and period between 1500-1700) was an unprecedented age of technology and economic progress — not unlike today’s, in fact — where we took “quantum leaps” forward in tech by taming electricity, making cheaper steel and refini…