In this episode, a16z partner Seema Amble talks with Dimitri Dadiomov, the co-founder and CEO of payment operations platform Modern Treasury, about the challenges of creating a new category, hiring for marketing before you hire for sales, and why developing new features is similar to birding.0:00 - 1:20 Intro1:20 - 8:55 The founding of Modern Treasury8:55 - 15:28 First customers15:28 - 20:07 Building trust20:07 - 32:00 Creating a category32:00 - 35:28 Advice for founders/Outro

In this podcast, Zach Perret, Co-founder of Plaid, discusses the early days of Plaid and how they built a supportive builder community. Topics include targeting initial customers, pricing philosophy, creating personal relationships, and the importance of feedback.

Jason Gardner, Co-founder of Marqeta, shares the beginning of Marqeta and their first customers. They discuss the challenge of finding product market fit and how to build customer relationships. Lastly, Jason gives advice to early stage founders on various topics including hiring and fundraising.

Waseem Daher, Co-founder of Pilot, discusses Pilot's beginning, first customers, pricing, building a GTM team, advice for founders. They delve into their approach to targeting the right customers, founder-led sales, and the importance of shipping a product quickly.

Sales wants more features. Product gets bogged down with one-off requests. Progress and growth grinds to a halt. It's a familiar story. How Segment turned the sales-product tension into a successful $3.2B acquisition, as told by the former CRO Joe Morrissey and former chief product development officer Tido Carriero.[00:01:29] Joe's start as CRO[00:03:40] The low point: annual planning[00:07:59] Building a more focused product roadmap[00:10:57] Why GTM feedback is essential to building great product[00:13:04] Identifying value drivers in 48 hours[00:19:11] How technical should sales be?[00:20:44] How annual planning changed day-to-day operations[00:22:57] Segment's Lighthouse program[00:24:54] Reorging to deliver on new product priorities[00:27:14] How engineering helped develop the product roadmap[00:29:18] Leading a platform initiativeThis conversation was recorded at ELC 2023. To read a transcript of this conversation, click here. For more about value-based selling and moving upmarket, check out Getting Ready to Move Upmarket and The Key to Selling in a Downturn. .

In a new episode of My First 16, a16z partner Seema Amble talks with co-founder and CEO of Mercury Immad Akhund about the idea of a “minimum delightful product” in fintech, doing the spreadsheet math on unit economics early on, and how to compete in a category already filled with incumbents. 0:00 - 1:28 Introduction1:28 - 9:14 History of Mercury9:14 - 19:07 Mercury's first customers19:07 - 22:15 Scaling up22:15 - 25:48 Pricing journey25:48 - 31:37 Lessons and advice

Kevin Scott, Microsoft's expert in AI, discusses Microsoft's approach to AI, the next Industrial Revolution, developer productivity & flow state, reprogramming the American Dream, and advice to builders in the AI Revolution series on a16z Live podcast.

Noam Shazeer, Character.ai CEO and cofounder, talks to a16z's Sarah Wang about the dawn of universally accessible intelligence, the compute it will take to power it, and his pursuit of AGI's first use...[0:59] Real Noam vs. AI Noam[6:14] Next unlocks[8:11] First use case for AGI[11:06] Building a full-stack LLM[13:33] Noam calculates global compute capacity[15:24] Universally accessible intelligenceThis conversation is part of our AI Revolution series, recorded August 2023 at a live event in San Francisco. The series features some of the most impactful builders in the field of AI discussing and debating where we are, where we’re going, and the big open questions in AI. Find more content from our AI Revolution series on www.a16z.com/AIRevolution.

As CTO of OpenAI, Mira Murati oversaw the development and release of GPT-4 and ChatGPT. Here she tells Martin Casado the story behind the release of ChatGPT—and what it tells us about the future of AI and human-machine interactions. [0:59] Mira's background[4:55] Math, physics, and AI[7:31] Natural language interfaces[10:51] OpenAI Roadmap[17:47] Scaling Laws[20:48] One model to rule them all?[23:34] The next 5-10 yearsThis conversation is part of our AI Revolution series, recorded August 2023 at a live event in San Francisco. The series features some of the most impactful builders in the field of AI discussing and debating where we are, where we’re going, and the big open questions in AI. Find more content from our AI Revolution series on www.a16z.com/AIRevolution.

Will AI take all the design jobs? Dylan Field, founder and CEO of Figma, looks at the relationship between designers, developers, and AI, in conversation with a16z's David George. [0:58] Will AI replace designers?[4:13] Human vs. AI creativity[8:38] Applying AI to design[11:35] Startups vs. incumbentsThis conversation is part of our AI Revolution series, recorded August 2023 at a live event in San Francisco. The series features some of the most impactful builders in the field of AI discussing and debating where we are, where we’re going, and the big open questions in AI. Find more content from our AI Revolution series on www.a16z.com/AIRevolution.