Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke and A16Z co-founder discuss building startups, retail evolution, workplace dynamics, AI, crypto, handling activism, and embracing negativity in business. They explore Lütke's snowboarding background, management style, software evolution, AI-assistants, change management, company values, decentralization in crypto, and technology advancements.

Discussions on Internet's corporate takeover, blockchains inheriting open source ethos, AI's role, next global political battleground. Exploring economic moats, network effects, AI communism, and the importance of DAOs in reshaping business.

Steven Johnson, a prolific author of books about technology and innovation, and Chris Dixon, founding partner of a16z crypto, discuss the history of their shared interests, emergent properties of decentralized networks, and the past, present, and future of the internet. They explore blockchain's potential in AI and content distribution, challenges of publishing, blockchain's impact on the music industry, and the transition to proof of stake and token implementation.

The podcast explores the power of blockchains to reshape the Internet and covers intersecting technologies. They discuss the challenges of writing a book and the value of books as a technology. The process of distilling complex ideas into catchy taglines and the importance of networks. They talk about books as a tool for the network and frustrations in the blockchain space. Strategies for optimizing reading habits and the progression of the Internet and its impact on tech work. The significance of receiving positive feedback and closing the gap.

Jonathan Dotan, tech founder and Emmy-nominated producer, discusses using cryptographic technologies in conflict zones, the history of open source regulation, and establishing authenticity in chaotic environments with Robert Hackett on web3 with a16z crypto.

Explore the importance of effective communication in the crypto and technical industries. Learn strategies for preparing to be spontaneous, effective communication in strategic planning, using the STAR method for communication, the value of storytelling, tips for hybrid meetings, handling confrontations, and modeling and communicating with weights.

This podcast delves into the complexities of choosing the right blockchain to build on in the evolving web3 space. The speakers explore trade-offs, decision-making factors, and dimensions such as technical specs, community support, marketing, security, custody, and programming languages. They discuss successful blockchain switches made by projects like helium and Axie Infinity, compare the evolution of semiconductors to blockchain technology, and debate the inclusion of application logic and consensus in blockchain development. Additionally, they provide insights on considering factors like exit cost and portability when selecting the right blockchain for a project.

In this podcast, Anatoly Yakovenko, Co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, discusses blockchain architectures, scalability, company-building, and engineering hiring. They explore the differences between Ethereum's roll-up vision and a permissionless system, the demand for block space, attracting developers, leadership in the crypto space, and predictions for crypto adoption. Builders are encouraged to focus on product market fit and pursue innovative ideas.

David Marcus, CEO and co-founder of Lightspark and co-creator of Diem (formerly Libra), shares insights on company building, decentralization, platforms, and financial freedom. They discuss the challenges and advantages of small teams, the regulatory environment's impact on innovation, simplifying the global payment system, exploring the potential of Bitcoin and interoperability in blockchain technology, and the parallel between the history of the internet and decentralized organizations.

with @alive_eth @danboneh @smc90This week's all-new episode covers the convergence of two important, very top-of-mind trends: AI (artificial intelligence) & blockchains/ crypto. These domains together have major implications for how we all live our lives everyday; so this episode is for anyone just curious about, or already building in the space. The conversation covers topics ranging from deep fakes, bots, and the need for proof-of-humanity in a world of AI; to big data, large language models like ChatGPT, user control, governance, privacy and security, zero knowledge and zkML; to MEV, media, art, and much more. Our expert guests (in conversation with host Sonal Chokshi) include: Dan Boneh, Stanford Professor (and Senior Research Advisor at a16z crypto), a cryptographer who’s been working on blockchains for over a decade and who specializes in cryptography, computer security, and machine learning -- all of which intersect in this episode;Ali Yahya, general partner at a16z crypto, who also previously worked at Google -- where he not only worked on a distributed system for a fleet of robots (a sort of "collective reinforcement learning") but also worked on Google Brain, where he was one of the core contributors to the machine learning library TensorFlow built at Google.The first half of the hallway-style conversation between Ali & Dan (who go back together as student and professor at Stanford) is all about how AI could benefit from crypto, and the second half on how crypto could benefit from AI... the thread throughout is the tension between centralization vs. decentralization.  So we also discuss where the intersection of crypto and AI can bring about things that aren't possible by either one of them alone...pieces referenced in this episode/ related reading:The Next Cyber Reasoning System for Cyber Security (2023) by Mohamed Ferrag, Ammar Battah, Norbert Tihanyi, Merouane Debbah, Thierry Lestable, Lucas CordeiroA New Era in Software Security: Towards Self-Healing Software via Large Language Models and Formal Verification (2023) by  Yiannis Charalambous, Norbert Tihanyi, Ridhi Jain, Youcheng Sun, Mohamed Ferrag, Lucas CordeiroFixing Hardware Security Bugs with Large Language Models (2023) by Baleegh Ahmad, Shailja Thakur, Benjamin Tan, Ramesh Karri, Hammond PearceDo Users Write More Insecure Code with AI Assistants? (2022) by Neil Perry, Megha Srivastava, Deepak Kumar, Dan BonehAsleep at the Keyboard? Assessing the Security of GitHub Copilot's Code Contributions (2021) by Hammond Pearce, Baleegh Ahmad, Benjamin Tan, Brendan Dolan-Gavitt, Ramesh KarriVoting, Security, and Governance in Blockchains (2019) with Ali Yahya and Phil Daian    As a reminder: none of the following should be taken as investment, legal, business, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information -- including to a link to a list of our investments – especially since we are investors in companies mentioned in this episode.