The Different Orientations of Red Affirm

There's some firms that are great for 10 years and then struggle. What separates the firms? I think it's a combination of the lasting parts like the culture and then the parts that change like the leadership. Ben Harwitz: If you just have a couple of smart investors but no culture to speak of, then you're probably not going to do a great generational handoff. It's a 10 years is a pretty good run for investors.

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Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and one of the most influential venture capitalists of the last decade, joins Erik for the inaugural episode of Turpentine VC. If you’re looking to make fund administration easy and intuitive, check out: http://carta.com/turpentine

We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Episode Preview

(02:25) Ben on what allows the legendary VC firms to be great for multi-decades

(03:37) a16z’s unique product-first, investor-second approach

(04:34) YC as a16z’s closest spiritual analog

(06:20) The strategy behind how Ben and Marc set up their firm structure

(08:12) Ben on why venture firms should stay private

(09:32) How a16z scaled their fund sizes to market opportunities

(10:54) Why a16z chose to go bigger than Benchmark or USV on fund size