AI Strategy: How It Changes Things at the Firm

I know Marcus spent a bunch of time in AI right now. How do you think about it from an investing perspective, but also does it change things at the firm more broadly? It's kind of like, oh my God, we have non-deterministic computing, like a holy cow. So many of the AI entrepreneurs are actually, they're not even engineers, they're like researchers. This is a totally different type of cat to be starting a company. And you know, what do they need to succeed and that kind of thing. But we're, we can be more excited about it.

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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