The a16z Show

Latest Episodes:

Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy with Palmer Luckey Mar 07, 2023

Show notes

Starting in the 1960s, technology companies, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, were essential for creating the processors that would eventually launch satellites and guide missiles. Half a century later, today’s tech companies can — and need — to move even faster and smarter, as international adversaries scale up their aggressions. In this episode, Anduril Industries Founder Palmer Luckey will discuss how Silicon Valley is using new technologies to build new tools, systems, and companies to defend our nation and its interests.

Resources:

American Dynamism Summit: https://a16z.com/AD-summit/

Anduril’s website: https://www.anduril.com/

Find Palmer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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The Robot Lawyer Resistance Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

What happens when you don’t have the resources to fight for your rights? Whether it’s a major medical bill or a more minor parking ticket… even if you were in the right, is it easier to just… pay?

Well, Joshua Browder's answer is Do Not Pay!

He’s built a thriving company of the same name, that helps consumers “fight corporations, beat bureaucracy, and sue anyone at the press of a button.” Through the power of technology, DoNotPay has resolved over 2m cases successfully and in this interview we get to hear where Browder hopes to take the organization, including his first-hand account of his recent plan to bring the robot lawyer into the physical courtroom.

Topics Covered:

00:00 - Introduction

01:51 - DoNotPay’s origin

03:09 - Surprising laws

05:49 - General counsel for consumers

06:54 - The role of AI and technology

09:26 - Ensuring quality counsel

13:19 - Prioritizing features

14:43 - Corporate pushback

17:11 - Reshaping the legal system

20:28 - Entering the physical courtroom

24:50 - Cross border possibilities

26:14 - Looping humans into modeling

29:01 - Deflationary impacts

30:05 - Recent pushback

33:13 - Is AI already writing law?

35:15 - Why is law so complex?

37:54 - Entering the Supreme Court

38:38 - Lawyer support

39:47 - Looking forward

43:07 - Building horizontal vs vertical

45:28 - Does this law exist?

Resources:

DoNotPay: https://donotpay.com/

Find Josh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jbrowder1

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The Challenge of Replicating Reality Feb 22, 2023

Show notes

What would you do if you believed in an idea but everyone said it would fail, nobody would fund you, and the industry was experiencing a nuclear winter?

Despite experiencing exactly that, Sandbox VR founder Steve Zhao doubled down and invested all of his personal savings into the unproven business. 7 years and 1 bankruptcy later, Steve has built the world’s leading full-body VR experience with over 30 locations across the globe.

In this interview, we get to chat with Steve about the many challenges he faced, how Sandbox made it through the pandemic, the future of VR, and the difficult task of tackling hardware, software, a new computing platform, and real estate.

Resources:

Check out Sandbox VR: https://sandboxvr.com

Find Steve Zhao on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zhaosaurus

Learn more about the Squid Game partnership: https://venturebeat.com/games/squid-game-is-coming-to-sandbox-vr-immersive-experience-locations/

Watch Steph’s highlight video: https://sandboxvr.com/event/b0b22aad-7c73-475d-ab43-281a456ff590

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The 1000x Developer Feb 16, 2023

Show notes

A small minority – likely less than 1% – of the world can code. Yet also widely known that the skillset tends to yield outsized returns, with developers generating some of the highest paying salaries out there.

But the field is quickly shifting, especially with the advent of wide-scale AI. In this podcast, we get to chat with Amjad Masad, founder of Replit, about these foundational shifts.

We cover how Replit has integrated AI into its platform and the implications on both current and future developers. It’s easier than ever to learn to code, but is it still worthwhile? Listen in to find out.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
02:04 - What is Replit?
04:15 - Stories behind Replit
11:10 - The software hero’s journey
13:09 - Making coding fun
15:58 - AI powering software
19:37 - Training your own models
22:36 - Building UX around AI
24:16 - The developer landscape
26:23 - The 1000x engineer
30:40 - Should you still learn to code?
34:41 - What does AI enable?
40:54 - Developing on mobile
43:24 - A software labor market
45:53 - Differentiating a marketplace
48:23 - Building new market dynamics
50:45 - Looking ahead

Resources:

Replit: https://replit.com/

Replit Ghostwriter: https://replit.com/site/ghostwriter

Replit Bounties: https://replit.com/bounties

Find Amjad on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amasad

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The State of Apps Feb 09, 2023

Show notes

A few weeks ago, Apple released a stunning statistic: they’ve paid developers over $320B — yes, billion! — since the launch of the App Store in 2008, highlighting the cast opportunity in the marketplace.

And around the same time, a16z Consumer Partner, Olivia Moore, compiled a list of the top apps across the US app store throughout 2022.

In this episode, you’ll get to hear which apps made it to the top and what they have in common. Hint: the big winners were in social, but perhaps a new wave of social apps!

We also get the scoop on what it really takes to not just hit #1, but stay there. This episode highlights numerous surprising examples ranging from a new-age Beanie Baby app, a viral talking dog, an app from 2012 that finally broke the top 10, and the Chinese app that’s been at #1 for a majority of 2023, and it’s not TIkTok!

There are endless learnings about how new founders can take advantage of these opportunities.

Timestamps:

01:51 - Top apps in 2022
03:32 - A new era of social?
07:22 - Hitting #1
09:30 - Staying on top
11:20 - Building a sticky product
13:46 - Growing an app in 2023
15:35 - User-generated growth
17:48 - 2022 category winners
20:39 - Anonymous social
22:24 - Early monetization
26:30 - Monetization trends
31:07 - Leveraging platform shifts
35:26 - Surprising hits
37:50 - Looking toward 2023
39:38 - Invisible AI products
41:46 - Limiting virality
45:13 - Vertical social networks
48:37 - When digital goes physical
51:44 - TikTok growth
53:27 - Geographic trends
56:18 - A decade old app
1:00:25 - App challenge

Resources:

Follow Olivia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/omooretweets
Olivia's 2022 analysis: https://twitter.com/omooretweets/status/1605983056682045440
Olivia's 2021 analysis: https://twitter.com/omooretweets/status/1483482099562602500
Justine’s Boating app commentary: https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1616121691830390784
Olivia’s Tinder subscription commentary: https://twitter.com/omooretweets/status/1616480480546942976

Apps mentioned:

BeReal: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bereal-your-friends-for-real/id1459645446
TikTok: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tiktok/id835599320
Gas App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gas/id1641791746
Talking Ben the Dog: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/talking-ben-the-dog/id416345319
Argo Boating Navigation: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/argo-boating-navigation/id1463869636
NoteIt: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noteit-widget-get-it-now/id1570369625
Locket Widget: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/locket-widget/id1600525061
LiveIn: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/livein-share-your-moment/id1606780589
Slay: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/slay-komplimente-umfragen/id1645858841
Lensa AI: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lensa-photo-editing/id1436732536
Starlink: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/starlink/id1537177988
NOAA Weather: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/noaa-weather/id436760574
Stardust Period Tracker: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stardust-period-tracker/id1495829322
Temu: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/temu-team-up-price-down/id1641486558
SquadApp: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/squadapp-collection-database/id1623120952
TravelBoast: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/travelboast-my-journey-routes/id1476504378
Subway Surfers: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/subway-surfers/id512939461

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Disrupting the World’s Largest Asset Class with Adam Neumann Feb 07, 2023

Show notes

Back in August, after a16z announced our investment into Adam Neumann’s new company, Flow, it felt like almost everyone – whether it was other VCs, founders, or journalists – had something to say.

But the one person that you didn’t hear from was Adam himself.

In this never-before shared footage from a16z’s American Dynamism Summit in Washington DC, Adam Neumann sits down with Marc Andreessen and David Ulevitch, to discuss the opportunities that have emerged from post-pandemic shifts in both work and home, and what Flow is doing to capitalize.

Find the full library of American Dynamism Summit recordings at a16z.com/ad-summit.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
01:40 - Getting back in the arena
09:03 - The opportunity in housing
16:19 - Lessons from WeWork
19:13 - Work & home post-pandemic
27:34 - Moving to the cloud
34:23 - Office serendipity
37:51 - Building Flow
43:51 - Cities as startups

Resources:

Flow’s website: https://www.flow.life/

American Dynamism recordings: https://a16z.com/ad-summit

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Healthspan, Lifespan, and the Biology of Aging Feb 03, 2023

Show notes

In this cross-over episode from Bio Eats World, Kristen Fortney, cofounder and CEO of BioAge, joins Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead, to discuss the biology of aging, how she started a company, and some fun things — like how long a hypothetical venture capitalist can expect to live.

Resources:

Greg Egan, whose writing inspired Kristen, has a list of his books on his website

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2023 Big Ideas in Technology (Part 2) Jan 27, 2023

Show notes

At the end of 2022, our team at a16z asked dozens of partners across the firm to spotlight one big idea that startups in their fields could tackle in 2023.

Emerging from this exercise came 40+ builder-worthy pursuits for the year, ranging from entertainment franchise games to precision delivery of medicine to small modular reactors, and of course loads of AI applications.

In our 2-part series, we’ll be covering 12 of these big ideas with the partners that shared them.

Here in part 2, we’ll cover Fintech, American Dynamism, and Bio & Health. Listen in as we chat with Anish Acharya, Angela Strange, Michelle Volz, Ryan McEntush, Vijay Pande, and Julie Yoo.

And for the full list of 40+ ideas, check out the full article: https://a16z.com/2022/12/15/big-ideas-in-tech-2023/

Topics Covered:

(0:59) GPT Unlocks Credit Counseling - Anish Acharya
(9:53) Compliance as a Competitive Advantage - Angela Strange
(23:31) Small Modular Reactors Advance the Nuclear Renaissance - Michelle Volz
(33:48) Overhauling the Space Supply Chain - Ryan McEntush
(44:40) The Biggest Company in the World - Vijay Pande
(51:17) The Value-Based Care Stack - Julie Yoo

Resources:

https://a16z.com/2022/11/02/america-space-age/

https://a16z.com/2022/11/11/the-biggest-company-in-the-world/

https://a16z.com/2021/01/08/the-new-tech-stack-for-virtual-first-care/

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2023 Big Ideas in Technology (Part 1) Jan 24, 2023

Show notes

At the end of 2022, our team at a16z asked dozens of partners across the firm to spotlight one big idea that startups in their fields could tackle in 2023.

In our 2-part series, we’ll be covering 12 of these big ideas with the partners that shared them.

Here in part 1, we’ll cover Consumer, Games, and Enterprise, with a little Fintech sprinkled in. Listen in as we chat with Connie Chan, Anne Lee Skates, Jack Soslow, Doug McCracken, Sarah Wang, and Sumeet Singh.

And look out for part 2 dropping soon, covering Fintech, American Dynamism, and Bio & Health!

For the full list of 40+ ideas, check out the full article: https://a16z.com/2022/12/15/big-ideas-in-tech-2023/

Topics Covered:

(1:30) Breakthroughs in Buying (Finally!) - Connie Chan
(16:40) Unlocking the “Third Place” - Anne Lee Skates
(30:14) Games as a Neverending Turing Test - Jack Soslow
(46:09) The Metaverse Goes Fashion Forward - Doug McCracken
(59:24) Generative AI Advances Beyond “Text to Image” to Complex Workflows - Sarah Wang
(1:12:23) Embracing Large Language Models and Maintaining Trust - Sumeet Singh

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The Human Behind the Genius Jan 19, 2023

Show notes

In this special episode, we share never heard before footage from Steve Wozniak alongside his cofounder and best man, Alex Fielding.

Listeners get an inside look into what drove Woz to building a computer, but also how Steve’s zest for life was applied beyond computers – from the rare opportunity to play Tetris on the side of a building or throw a concert across borders.

Full Privateer episode: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/new-the-data-highway-above-with-privateers-steve-wozniak-alex-fielding-and-dr-moriba-jah

Full Privateer episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/ZZbrwxOs0y4

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