a16z Podcast

When Giants Don’t Go Public: Inside the $5 Trillion Private Tech Market

In this episode, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway interview David George, head of growth at Andreessen Horowitz, about the massive $5 trillion private tech market and why the most high‑growth companies are staying private longer. George explains that deeper, more liquid private capital, reduced regulatory burdens, and innovative employee liquidity mechanisms like tender offers make staying private attractive, while public markets now favor larger caps and impose costly compliance. He highlights that private‑market giants such as SpaceX, Databricks, Stripe, OpenAI and others represent a power‑law share of this valuation, and that hyper‑growth firms are hard to find among public stocks. The discussion also touches on the shift in compensation dynamics and the evolving outlook for future mega‑IPOs.