The Olympics of Talent: France's Tech Boom

Most of us have probably heard of bitcoin and ethereum -- but did you know there were 15 new cryptocurrencies launched this past month alone? How then do we know which protocols to invest in -- not just as a developer or user, but as an investor? Because, let's face it, open source software and services need resources not just to survive but thrive. General partner Chris Dixon talks about this dynamic between open vs closed in this episode of the a16z Podcast in conversation with Sonal Chokshi and with Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder of (a16z investment) Polychain, a new kind of hedge fund that invests directly in cryptocurrencies at the protocol layer. But what does that actually mean? Instead of investing in the companies that are building on top of these protocols, Polychain invests in the protocols themselves -- in much the same way that you could have invested in domain names instead of early internet companies like Amazon in the early days (which most people actually didn't have access to do). Imagine if you could have bought equity in Linux! As people create application-specific tokens for these protocols (also known as “app coins”) to crowdfund and share equity in these networks, it's actually "bringing capitalism into open source" -- and could even one day lead to less centralized platforms and a web owned by users. It's also creating a whole new asset class... but whatever you do, do NOT try this at home! The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

3 Apr 201732min

In this episode of the a16z Podcast recorded at our inaugural Summit, Jonathan Downey, CEO of Airware, Grant Jordan, CEO of Skysafe, and Kyle Russell, partner at a16z, discuss our future with “eyes in the sky.” How do you balance experimentation and following the rules in a space where people have fears about what a future with drones might look like? This conversation covers the most interesting enterprise use cases for commercial drones, where we are in the introduction of drones into the consumer and commercial space (including the most interesting enterprise use cases for commercial drones), and how the industry will scale. Downey, Jordan, and Russell parse out what the new FAA regulation means big picture for drones and airspace, and what’s been overlooked. Regulation, says Grant, is just one element. What do we want our drone future to look like — where we want them flying and where we don't — and how will our responses to consumer and commercial drones affect each other? What are the privacy and safety implications, and how do we navigate them?

25 Mars 201719min

An aerospace engineer who worked for NASA for over 40 years, Dr. Christine Darden is one of the mathematicians that the book and movie Hidden Figures was based on. Darden eventually would lead the sonic boom team, going on to become the first African-American woman in senior management at NASA. In this intimate conversation with a16z’s general partner Jeff Jordan, held at the SF Jazz Center, Darden shares with Jordan how she first fell in love with geometry and math; the effect that Sputnik had on our culture (and her); and what it was like to work at NASA in the 1960s. And finally, Darden shares with us all the secrets of the sonic boom.

22 Mars 201738min

As we enter a new era of distributed computing -- and of big data, in the form of machine and deep learning -- storage becomes (even more) important. It might not be sexy, but storage is what makes the internet and cloud computing go round and round: "Without storage, we wouldn't have databases; without databases, we wouldn't have big data; we wouldn't have analytics ... we wouldn't have anything because information needs to be stored, and it needs to be retrieved." This is especially complicated by the fact that more and more computing is happening at the edge, as with autonomous car sensing. Clearly, storage is important. But now it's also undergoing a renaissance as it becomes faster, cheaper, and more in-memory. What does this mean for all the big players in the storage ecosystem? For CIOs and IT departments? For any company competing on data, whether it's in analyzing it or owning it? And for that matter: What is data, really? Beyond the existential questions, this episode of the a16z Podcast -- with a16z partner Peter Levine; Alluxio (formerly Tachyon) founder and CEO Haoyuan Li (“HY”); and storage industry analyst Mike Matchett of The Taneja Group -- covers all this and more. It even tries to make storage, er, great again.

21 Mars 201722min

A lot of machine learning startups initially feel a bit of “impostor syndrome” around competing with big companies, because (the argument goes), those companies have all the data; surely we can’t beat that! Yet there are many ways startups can, and do, successfully compete with big companies. You can actually achieve great results in a lot of areas even with a relatively small data set, argue the guests on this podcast, if you build the right product on top of it. So how do you go about building the right product (beyond machine-learning algorithms in academic papers)? It’s about the whole system, the user experience, transparency, domain expertise, choosing the right tools. But what do you build, what do you buy, and do you bother to customize? Jensen Harris, CTO and co-founder of Textio, and AJ Shankar, CEO and co-founder of Everlaw, share their lessons learned here in this episode of the a16z Podcast — including what they wish they’d known early on. Because, observes moderator (and a16z board partner) Steven Sinofsky, “To achieve product market fit, there’s a whole bunch of stuff beyond a giant corpus of data, and the latest deep learning algorithm.” Machine learning is an ingredient, part of a modern software-as-a-service company; going beyond the hype, it’s really about figuring out the problem you’re trying to solve… and then figuring out where machine learning fits in (as opposed to the other way around). Customers are paying you to help solve a problem for them, after all. The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

17 Mars 201721min

Your brand, says head of a16z marketing and Outcast Agency co-founder Margit Wennmachers, is what people say about you when you're not in the room. And it's going to happen, whether you choose to have an active part in it or not. But what does this mean at an individual, not just company/product level? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Wennmachers and Outcast CEO Alex Constantinople -- both longtime veterans of public relations and building executive profiles -- de-mystify what having and building a personal brand takes. It's not only about "thought leadership", either... a personal brand can also provide a filter for choosing what to do (and what not to do), as well as define your aspirations for where you want to go next. Even if you cringe at the idea of putting yourself in the spotlight. This conversation, moderated by a16z partner Hanne Tidnam, was recorded as part of the BreakLine Tech program for military veterans, an immersive education program for veterans transitioning into new careers (including a week of talks and courses hosted at Andreessen Horowitz).

13 Mars 201731min

Starbucks supposedly spends more on healthcare than it does on coffee beans. And 20 years ago, says Rajeev Singh, CEO of Accolade, healthcare was 10% of GDP; today it’s 19% -- that's nearly one-fifths of our gross domestic product. So what tools do we have to address the high costs of health care, especially as stakeholders increasingly look for value-based care? This episode, recorded at our a16z inaugural Summit and moderated by Vijay Pande (a16z general partner on the bio fund) discusses approaches that combine new tech + people + data to address and improve healthcare. What are the macro trends driving innovations in the business of healthcare? And what will define the success of companies in this space? (Hint: it's not directly related to costs or healthcare reform.) The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

9 Mars 201717min

In this episode of the a16z Podcast introduced by Vijay Pande (based on a presentation at our summit event), Russ Altman, Stanford professor of bioengineering -- and former chairman of their Bioengineering Department -- takes us on a short but deep tour of the possibilities of genomics in drug discovery. Including how building a large bank of human genetic variations will change our understanding and optimization of drug response. Altman (who also hosts his own radio show, "The Future of Everything" on SiriusXM and Stanford radio) describes how in much the same way we inherit our grandmother's eyes, or our great grandfather's ears, we also inherit a response to certain drugs: whether they work or not, what side effects we'll experience, how we react to them. But it's not just genetics information that matters here; it's also molecular, cellular, tissue, and other data about the whole organism. By applying data science and bioinformatics on a more complete data "bank" like this, for the first time, we can see the whole range of actions and side effects -- as well as possible new uses -- that specific drugs will have on specific individuals. The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

7 Mars 201714min