The a16z Show

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz and bestselling author, joins Jorge Conde for a dynamic discussion on leadership. They dive into the crucial differences between wartime and peacetime CEOs and how decisive actions can shift company culture. Ben shares insights from his book, exploring how historical figures like Toussaint Louverture reveal profound leadership lessons. The conversation also tackles the challenges of startups in healthcare and emphasizes the need for founders to embrace AI's potential.

Join Marc Andreessen, a tech visionary and cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, as he discusses his provocative Techno-Optimist Manifesto with fellow cofounder Ben Horowitz. They dive into how technology can uplift marginalized communities and counter pessimistic narratives. The duo examines the importance of competition in markets, explores the potential of nuclear energy, and critiques the current education system. Plus, they debate whether society should allow people not to work, highlighting the need for purposeful engagement in a tech-driven world.

In an intriguing conversation, David George, a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, discusses the nuances of growth investing. With experience in notable companies like Databricks and Figma, he shares insights on leveraging non-consensus views for breakout success. David breaks down unit economics and the importance of assessing long-term potential versus entry prices. He reflects on painful investment misses and explains how to navigate competition with crossover funds. Plus, he candidly discusses his personal motivations in the high-stakes world of investing.

Martin Casado, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, shares insights from his journey as a founder and investor. He discusses why he believes we are still early in the AI boom, likening it to the dot-com era. Casado highlights the potential of AI coding as a multi-trillion-dollar market and the importance of open-source models. He also emphasizes the value of product experience over technical skills in investing and warns that U.S. lagging in open-source could lead to risks of losing ground to China.

In this insightful discussion, Justine Moore, a consumer investor focused on AI product design, emphasizes the contrasting approaches of Google and OpenAI in launching consumer products. Anish Acharya dives into advancements in image and video realism, highlighting remaining challenges in model reasoning. Bryan Kim discusses the nuances of product design that influence user engagement, particularly in how Gemini's onboarding could reshape adoption. The panel forecasts an exciting 2026 for consumer AI, emphasizing the potential for innovative startups and multimodal applications.

In this discussion, Guy Willett, a crypto expert focused on on-chain finance, enlightens us on the emerging trends of programmable money and synthetic financial products. Oliver Hsu, a partner in AI and robotics, shares insights on autonomous labs that integrate AI and automation for rapid scientific discovery, emphasizing the need for interpretability. James DaCosta introduces the Greenfield Strategy, advocating for AI-native startups to sell to each other at formation, outlining how this model can foster growth and community in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Join Erin Price-Wright, an advocate for industrial revitalization, as she champions a 'factory-first' approach for scalable projects. Ryan McEntush dives into the 'electro-industrial stack', emphasizing the crucial electrified components for future industry. Zabie Elmgren emphasizes the need for multimodal sensing layers to ensure safe autonomy in real-time environments. Lastly, Will Bitsky discusses how messy industrial data will be the game-changer in physical AI, shifting the advantage from compute power to data collection.

Olivia Moore, a partner focusing on AI voice agents, highlights how voice AI is transforming regulated industries like healthcare and finance. Julie Yoo, a healthcare expert, introduces the concept of 'healthy mouths'—continuous monitoring for proactive care. Bryan Kim discusses how consumer AI trends are shifting towards deeper connections and interactions. The conversation revolves around trust and reliability, emphasizing that in high-stakes situations, systems must be both dependable and measurable to succeed.

Seema Amble, a partner on the enterprise AI investing team, discusses how Fortune 500 companies can leverage coordinated multi-agent systems for efficiency. Angela Strange, an expert in financial services, advocates for the replacement of legacy systems with AI-native platforms that unify data. Alex Immerman introduces 'multiplayer mode,' where humans and agents collaborate through trust rules. David Haber emphasizes the importance of AI that reinforces business models, highlighting how proprietary outcomes data can create competitive advantages.

In a riveting discussion, Marc Andrusko, a partner at a16z focusing on AI Apps, reveals how AI interfaces are evolving from prompting to proactive execution. Stephanie Zhang, an investing partner at a16z Ikra, advocates for 'machine-legible' design that enhances agent interaction and warns of challenges with cheap content. Finally, Sarah Wang, a general partner at a16z Growth, predicts that dynamic agent layers will replace traditional systems, streamlining workflows and consolidating intent to execution. Discover the fascinating future of AI in this insightful conversation.