a16z Live

An excerpt from a Clubhouse conversation, where Marc interviews Ken Griffin, CEO and founder of Citadel, on GameStop one year later and why the stock price hasn't crashed, as well as about his winning bid for the Constitution in the auction against ConstitutionDAO.

What are you doing with real world data? [1:39] How valuable is real world data? [7:24] How and where do we need shared data infrastructure? [16:37] Can real world data be used for clinical decision support? [20:40] Are diagnostic companies becoming the data aggregator layer? [26:52] What will define the core competency of academic medical centers (AMCs)? [30:35]  How could drug manufacturers use...

Who is your "B" and who is your "C"? [2:02] Why did they choose B2C2B? [6:36] How did they craft their enterprise story? [11:42] Does going B2C2B increase CAC (customer acquisition costs)? [16:56] Three things to build an enterprise story around [22:26] How did their choice of B2C2B impact investor conversations? [34:23] What mix of consumer vs. healthcare talent did they need? [40:42]  For more o...

This is an excerpt from the a16z Clubhouse show One on One with A and Z, where a16z cofounders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz answer questions on tech trends, company building, and more. To catch full live episodes of the show, follow the a16z Club on Clubhouse. 

Indra didn't plan her career -- and that was a good thing [2:15] The personal tradeoffs of professional success [4:24] Deciding between a job at GE and PepsiCo [7:27] Rising up the ranks of PepsiCo [12:13] Transitioning PepsiCo to healthier foods... and doing well by doing good [16:34] Management hack: writing letters to parents [19:04]  "Performance with Purpose" -- what is it and why does it mat...

This is an excerpt from the a16z Clubhouse show One on One with A and Z, where a16z cofounders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz answer questions on tech trends, company building, and more. To catch full live episodes of the show, follow the a16z Club on Clubhouse. 

The early days of Zimrides [2:08] Driving early virality [7:56] Competing with Uber [15:47] Why they took political stances [27:03] Managing through the pandemic [38:09] The future focus for Lyft -- autonomous vehicles and the end of car ownership [42:50] Follow the a16z Club to join conversations with tech founders, builders, and leaders live and in-full.

An overview of diabetes Type 1 and Type 2 [2:58] Thinking beyond Type 1 and Type 2 [6:58] New treatment options: stem cells, continuous glucose monitoring [14:19] What's the timeline on stem cell therapies? [17:15] Therapies for controlling, rather than curing, diabetes [23:52] The current technology challenges to treating diabetes [29:52] The challenges in education and access [35:41] This is an...

Founding story of Nautilus [1:43] Why was the Nautilus approach to proteomics a breakthrough? [6:12] Why a startup instead of academic research? [9:57] How to pick a good cofounder (it's not that different from choosing a spouse) [15:32] Advice for academic founders: how to work with VCs  [21:14] The tipping points of scale & the challenges of finding good talent  [25:17] Is proteomics really a ga...

This is an excerpt from the a16z Clubhouse show One on One with A and Z, where a16z cofounders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz answer questions on tech trends, company building, and more live . To catch full episodes of the show, follow the a16z Club on Clubhouse.   

The MSCI origin story [1:07] How does an index get constructed? [6:51] How do you keep an index accurate? [11:42] MSCI business model... how do they get paid? [16:27] MSCI, competition, and why not an open source index? [23:14] ESG and investment objectives [27:00] ESG disclosure frameworks and the role of government in ESG [32:50] Defining ESG [34:44] MSCI, crypto, and other asset classes [42:55]...

SPEAKERS: Aarthi Ramamurthy, international, Clubhouse Donnie Dinch, founder and CEO, Bitski Gabby Dizon, cofounder, Yield Guild Games Jarrod Dicker, operating partner, TCG Jesse Walden, founder, Variant Fund Jon Lai, principal, a16z Packy McCormick, founder, Not Boring Sriram Krishnan, general partner, a16z Twobadour, founder, Metapurse Justin “3LAU” Blau, producer and musician originally aired on...

This conversation centers on the arguments and findings of the a16z piece The Cost of Cloud, a Trillion Dollar Paradox .  The Core Findings of The Cost of Cloud piece [5:22] Cloud is a significant part of COGS for public SaaS companies [8:38] Should you allocate engineers to reduce cloud cost or just focus on growth? [12:06] How much of a problem is not knowing cloud spend? [15:56] The tradeoff be...

This podcast is an excerpt. Follow the a16z Club to join conversations with tech founders, builders, and leaders live and in-full. Early days of a16z crypto [2:38] New crypto governance capabilities [16:34] How is the VC model different when investing in crypto? [22:24] Crypto regulation and the recent attempt at holiday rulemaking [29:49] Is anyone effectively regulating crypto? [34:15] How do yo...

What makes a category? [0:37] The leading indicator? Everyone thinks you're crazy. [5:36] Can you create a category whole cloth? [7:02] How to create a category [12:05] The best category creation CEOs are product marketers [15:55] Category creation tactics: certification programs [18:54] Category creation tactics: persona-based storytelling [22:17] Is there a repeatable way to make a category? [25...

SPEAKERS (in order they are heard in the episode): Shannon Kelly, a16z Connie Chan, a16z Brandon Chu, VP Product and GM  of Platform, Shopify D'Arcy Coolican, a16z Nait Jones, a16z Jess Lee, Cofounder and CEO, Modern Citizen Imran Khan, Co-founder and CEO, Verishop This is an excerpt from the a16z Clubhouse show People Behind the Product. To catch full episodes of the show, follow the a16z Club on...

The origins of growth hacking [1:20] Brand building vs. growth hacking? [13:58] Where does growth fit into the organization?  [31:06] The cold start problem: growth hacking from 0 to 1 [36:47] What can't be measured? [47:53] How do you test and validate new channels? [51:38]  Do growth hacks always work, or at some point does it come down to product? [54:55] How do you allocate budget? [1:00:27] F...

Why  Future with Marc Andreessen, Margit Wennmachers, and Sonal Chokshi [2:20] The New Creator Economy with Joost van Dreunen, Wes Kao, Cuy Sheffield, Chris Lyons, Lauren Murrow, and Zoran Basich [17:58] Bubbles, Speculation, and Innovation with Byrne Hobart, Jamie Catherwood, and Zoran Basich [35:38] Work Models & Measures for the Information Age with  Rajiv Ayyangar, Nicole Forsgren, and Das Rus...

What was the biggest surprise from the past 15 months of remote work? [5:24] How do you handle conflict and build trust? [10:09] What's the role of offsites? [15:45] Should you adjust compensation for different geographies? [24:02] How do you measure productivity? [34:10] What is the impact of remote work on retention and turnover? [49:17] How do startups built on decentralized  platforms (e.g., E...

This podcast is an excerpt. Follow the a16z Club to join conversations with tech founders, builders, and leaders live and in-full. In this episode:  The abandoned M&A with Visa [3:47] Communicating to employees around the M&A [8:29] Plaid's near death experiences in the early days [12:41] The fintech trends that made Plaid possible [17:29] What is a bank now? [26:54] Fintech and new revenue models...

In what ways is digital health for complex care under or overrated? [4:04] Are digital health solutions better suited to tackling clinical or non-clinical needs for complex care? [17:32] The challenge of the physician's inbox [27:55] Have we meaningfully moved the needle on complex digital care? If so, where? [32:08] Should we focus on applying basic tech to easy optimization and automation proble...

Decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, are one of the hottest topics in crypto and tech right now. But what exactly are they? Why do they matter? And what new modes of governance, ownership, and creation do they make possible?

mRNA research before COVID and how "mRNA is code" [3:21] The early days of COVID: designing a vaccine in 48 hours [5:44] The software behind the vaccine: getting mRNA researchers out of Excel and into a drug design studio [9:11] The first draft of the vaccine was the final draft [11:10] How the government sped up vaccine development for COVID [12:18] What other new vaccines will come from mRNA?  [...

Fab 5 Freddy on New York in the 70s, Warhol, Blondie, Basquiat, and Yo! MTV Raps [1:40] Contrarian strategy and challenging assumptions [5:12] Boring AI and solving meaningful problems [8:42] Drop-in audio copycats [14:39] How is copying software different from remixing hip hop? [21:07] Do you want a CEO as an inventor or an operator? [24:12] Recruiting sales development reps [30:34] Being a boss...

The six functions in an enterprise marketing org [2:54] Why product marketing is the killer function [6:52] How do you hire a world class product marketer? [11:16] Is community or developer evangelists its own function or part of product marketing? [17:46] How does community tie into the marketing funnel? [22:56] Is community top of funnel, an accelerant for the whole funnel, or something else ent...