a16z Podcast
The Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Podcast discusses tech and culture trends, news, and the future as “software eats the world.” It features industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors (often a16z partners) exploring topics in startups, VC, and emerging technology markets. Multiple episodes per week cover everything from venture funding insights to deep tech trends.
Chris Dixon: From Quant Trading to Building A16z Crypto
In this episode, Chris Dixon recounts his journey from a self‑taught programmer in the 1980s to a quant developer, serial entrepreneur, and now a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz leading its crypto practice. He shares insights from founding SiteAdvisor, an early anti‑phishing/security tool sold to McAfee, and his stint at Bessemer where he helped fund Skype, illustrating how his diverse background shaped his view of the internet as a platform for new economic architectures. Dixon explains how his finance and tech experience informed his unconventional bets on crypto, including early investments in Oculus and Coinbase, and his work on stablecoin policy. The conversation highlights the importance of cross‑disciplinary thinking and the evolution of internet security and decentralized finance.
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...
WSJ X A16z: The Next 25 Years of Defense Innovation
In this WSJ Invest Live episode, Andy Serwer interviews a16z general partner Katherine Boyle about the firm’s American Dynamism practice, which she launched to focus on defense and national‑security tech. They explore how openly championing "America" sparked debate in Silicon...
Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan on Transforming a 250-Year-Old Company
In this episode, a16z partner Jorge Conde interviews Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan about reshaping the 250‑year‑old conglomerate into a focused medicines company, a move he estimates will unlock $180 billion of value. Narasimhan outlines Novartis’s three platform pillars—cell and gene therapies,...
Keycard: 2026 Is the Year of Agents
In this episode, a16z partner Joel de la Garza talks with Keycard CEO Ian Livingstone about the rapid shift from AI copilots to fully autonomous agents expected in 2026, and why enterprises will be the first adopters. They explore the...
What Comes After ChatGPT? The Mother of ImageNet Predicts The Future
Fei‑Fei Li and her former student Justin Johnson discuss their new model Marble, which creates explorable 3D worlds from text or images, highlighting how spatial intelligence differs fundamentally from language and why current world models lack physics understanding. They argue...
The Psychology Every Founder Needs Right Now | A16z GP Reveals Secrets to Success
In this episode, a16z GP Anish Acharya explains why consumer tech is resurging, highlighting how AI now enables products to reach 100 million users at unprecedented speed. He outlines the distribution shifts and founder mindsets required for success through 2026, emphasizing...
The $700 Billion AI Productivity Problem No One's Talking About
In this episode, Russ Fradin and a16z General Partner Alex Rampell argue that the $700 billion AI productivity gap stems from a lack of robust measurement infrastructure, similar to what drove the internet ad boom. They explain how companies struggle to...
The 2045 Superintelligence Timeline: Epoch AI’s Data-Driven Forecast
Epoch AI researchers discuss a data‑driven timeline for superintelligence, arguing that Anthropic could build the first gigawatt‑scale AI datacenter and that breakthroughs like solving the Riemann hypothesis may arrive within five years. They challenge the notion of "energy bottlenecks," framing...
Emmett Shear on Building AI That Actually Cares: Beyond Control and Steering
In this episode, Emmett Shear—founder of Twitch and former OpenAI interim CEO— challenges the prevailing "control and steering" approach to AI alignment, arguing it’s fundamentally flawed and proposing an "organic alignment" model where AI genuinely cares about humans. He explains...
The Brutal Truth About Biotech: Why $2B Per Drug Is Killing Innovation
In this episode, venture capitalists Elliot Hershberg and Lada Nuzhna examine how soaring drug development costs—now around $2.5 billion per approval—are stifling biotech innovation, identifying three key forces they call the "three horsemen" that drive expense. They contrast the U.S. model...
The Frontier of Spatial Intelligence with Fei-Fei Li
In this episode, a16z partner Martin Casado chats with AI pioneers Fei‑Fei Li and Justin Johnson about the evolution from early AI winters to deep learning breakthroughs like ImageNet, and how those advances paved the way for spatial intelligence and Large...
Rocket Mortgage CEO: Here’s How to Fix the Housing Crisis
In this episode, Alex Rampell and Rocket Mortgage CEO Varun Krishna dissect how asset inflation has turned homeownership into a wealth‑transfer mechanism, pushing the median first‑time buyer’s age from 30 to 38. They explain Rocket’s strategy of owning the entire...
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan: How AI Will Cure All Disease
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan explain how the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is creating AI‑driven computational tools—like the open‑source Cell Atlas and virtual cell models—to accelerate discovery, test high‑risk hypotheses in silico, and ultimately cure, prevent, and manage all disease by...
Seeing The Future From AI Companions to Personal Software
In this episode, Eugenia Kuyda, the founder of Replika and CEO of Wabi, discusses how AI‑driven personal software will shift from a developer‑only tool to a creative medium accessible to anyone, likening command‑line AI interfaces to the early days of...
ElevenLabs CEO: Why Voice Is the Next AI Interface
In this episode, ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski explains how his small, autonomous, globally‑hired team ships research‑grade AI—text‑to‑speech, licensed AI music, and real‑time voice agents—at lightning speed, arguing that voice will become the primary human‑computer interface. He details the Voice Marketplace’s creator‑centric...
David Sacks: AI, Crypto, China, Dems, and SF
In this episode, White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks joins Marc, Ben, and Erik to dissect the Trump administration’s approach to AI and crypto, highlighting a regulatory capture strategy by major AI firms. He argues that open‑source technology...
Why Speed, Not Size, Will Define the Next War
In this episode, Horacio Rozanski of Booz Allen Hamilton and Gary Shield of Shield AI explain how speed, software agility, and public‑private partnerships are reshaping U.S. defense amid rising global tensions. They draw lessons from the Ukraine and Taiwan conflicts,...
Beyond Chatbots: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz on AI's Future
In the closing keynote of a16z’s Runtime conference, host Erik Torenberg chats with co‑founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz about the event’s highlights, the current capabilities of large language models, and why massive AI capital expenditures don’t signal a bubble....
"Is There an AI Bubble?” Gavin Baker and David George
In this a16z Runtime conversation, Managing Partner Gavin Baker and GP David George examine the macro forces driving the AI surge, including the trillion‑dollar data‑center expansion and shifting economics of GPU pricing. They assess whether the rapid growth signals a...
Building the Real-World Infrastructure for AI, with Google, Cisco & A16z
In this episode, a16z’s Raghu Raghuram talks with Google’s Amin Vahdat and Cisco’s Jeetu Patel about the massive physical build‑out required for AI, covering everything from custom chips and power grids to global data‑center networks. They frame this as an...
Raghu Raghuram: AI, Robotics, and the Rebirth of Infrastructure
Raghu Raghuram reflects on his front‑row experience of the early internet wars, the Netscape‑Microsoft browser battles, and the landmark VMware acquisition of Nicira that reshaped networking. He and the a16z hosts discuss how VMware grew from a modest startup to...
Marc Andreessen and Amjad Masad: English As the New Programming Language
In this episode Marc Andreessen, Erik Torenberg, and Replit CEO Amjad Masad explore how AI agents are reshaping programming, arguing that English‑based prompts are becoming the new coding language. Masad explains how reinforcement learning unlocked reasoning in large models, how...
Why Creativity Will Matter More Than Code
In this episode, a16z partner Anish Acharya and host Kevin Rose discuss how AI is sparking a new consumer technology renaissance, emphasizing that the next wave of products will blend emotion, utility, and creativity rather than just code. They explore...
How Kong Was Born: APIs, Hustle, and the Future of AI Infrastructure
In this episode, a16z host Martin Casado interviews Kong co‑founder and CEO Augusto "Aghi" Marietti about his journey from a Milan garage to building a leading API infrastructure firm, highlighting the relentless grind, near‑death moments, and the bootstrap funding that...
Reid Hoffman on AI, Consciousness, and the Future of Humanity
Reid Hoffman, alongside Erik Torenberg and Alex Rampell, explores how AI will transform work, science, and humanity, emphasizing that the most impactful breakthroughs will arise beyond obvious productivity tools. They discuss current AI’s reasoning limits, debate whether consciousness is required...
Keith Rabois: Israel, OpenAI, Opendoor, and DOGE
Keith Rabois argues that the U.S. is on the cusp of a new AI‑driven economic expansion that could boost GDP growth to around 5%, emphasizing the rise of sovereign AI projects and the nation’s ability to grow out of debt....
Ben Horowitz and Ali Ghodsi: How to Run a Billion-Dollar Business
In this "Boss Talk" episode, Ben Horowitz and Databricks co‑founder Ali Ghodsi recount their founder war stories, from building Loudcloud during the dot‑com bust to steering Databricks through a crisis and scaling it to a $100 billion valuation. They discuss practical...
Is AI Slowing Down? Nathan Labenz Says We're Asking the Wrong Question
In this episode, Nathan Labenz and a16z host Erik Torenberg examine whether AI progress is truly slowing or simply becoming less sensational, questioning the hype around a potential GPT‑5. They explore the current state of AI reasoning, automation, and the...
Columbia CS Professor: Why LLMs Can’t Discover New Science
In this episode, Columbia computer‑science professor Vishal Misra explains why large language models, despite their rapid progress, are unlikely to generate truly novel scientific breakthroughs because they lack causal understanding and grounding in real‑world experimentation. He delves into why chain‑of‑thought...
Monitoring the Situation #3: Who Is Nick Land?
In this episode, a16z partners Erik Torenberg, Katherine Boyle, and Erin Price‑Wright interview Zach Dell, founder and CEO of Base Power, about the challenges and opportunities in home power generation, misconceptions around data‑center energy use, and strategies to modernize the...