a16z Podcast: The Promise (and Nightmare) of Cross-Platform Software

In this episode from February 2021, early Amazon execs Colin Bryar and Bill Carr -- in conversation with a16z's Sonal Chokshi -- go beyond the well-known artifacts of Amazon innovation, like the memo and the press release, and share the leadership principles, decision making practices, and operational processes that helped Amazon continue to innovate, invent new products and learn from its mistakes, as it scaled. It’s all based on their book, Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon, drawing from the 27 years combined experience of being in the room where it happened at Amazon.

18 Maj 20221h 4min

Gross margins–which are essentially a company’s revenue from products and services minus the costs to deliver those products and services to customers–are one of the most important financial metrics for any startup and growing business. And yet, figuring out what goes into the “cost” for delivering products and services is not as simple as it may sound, particularly for high-growth software businesses that might use emerging business models or be leveraging new technology. In this episode from June 2020, a16z general partners Martin Casado, David George, and Sarah Wang talk all things gross margins, from early to late stage. Why do gross margins matter? When do they matter during a company’s growth? And how do you use them to plan for the future? The conversation ranges from the nuances of and strategy for calculating margins with things like cloud costs, freemium users, or implementation costs, to the impact margins can have on valuations.

11 Maj 202236min

This week, we have a special crossover episode from June 2021: Joel Beasley, host of the Modern CTO podcast, interviews a16z general partner David Ulevitch about David’s journey from working at an ISP and Dot Com company mp3.com in high school; to starting, running, and selling his own enterprise security company, OpenDNS; to becoming an investor at a16z. They also discuss the value of product marketing for enterprise, David’s philosophy around pricing enterprise products how to survive and lead through hard times, new trends in startup investing, and more. This is part of our occasional series where we feature relevant episodes from like-minded shows on the a16z Podcast, to surface other shows you might be interested in. The Modern CTO podcast is by and for CTOs and other technical leaders at places like Microsoft, NASA, Reddit, Launch Darkly, and more, all sharing how to build strong companies and organizations. It’s hosted by Joel Beasley, CTO of Leaderbits and author of the book, The Modern CTO. Check out more episodes of this show wherever you get your podcast. And for more on how to grow from a technical to product to Sales CEO, check out David’s previous episode on this podcast called “What Time Is It”.

4 Maj 202249min

In this wide-ranging conversation from April 2019, a16z’s Frank Chen sits down with Ken Kocienda, a longtime software engineer and designer at Apple from 2001 to 2017, who wrote a book about his career there, called Creative Selection.They discuss Ken’s unconventional path from freelance photographer to software engineer at Apple, his work on many core products from Safari web browser to iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch and features like Autocorrect, what it was like to demo new products for Steve Jobs, and more.

28 Apr 20221h 37min

In this re-run from September 2018, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky talk all about Tesla — and more broadly, the nature of disruption overall. How disruptive is Tesla really, and what exactly are they disrupting — from the dashboard to car makers to vendors to energy source to autonomy overall?The tech industry is littered with leading innovators... who nonetheless failed to be the dominant leader in the end. So the question should be, is this new thing fundamentally difficult for the incumbent to do, and how does it relate to market dominance? Which of these things are important in order for Tesla to be the new BMW or the new GM? Looking back at other examples historically (Microsoft, GM's Saturn Brand, and of course the iPhone), what kind of disruption matters most for market dominance? And what is the long view of how software is eating transportation?

21 Apr 202245min

In this episode from September 2020, originally recorded for the Commonwealth Club of California, Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hasting talks about his new book "No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention" with a16z co-founder and fellow author Ben Horowitz, who also wrote a bestselling book about culture in 2019. During the conversation, Reed tells the story of Netflix's evolution and his management philosophy, including the hard lesson he learned about what happens when you optimize for efficiency at the expense of creative talent. He also explains why sometimes a more narrow market focus is better for growth and shares the tactics that have helped Netflix expand globally and translate a culture of innovation across different countries, from Japan to Brazil to America.

14 Apr 202243min

After achieving product-market fit and starting to gain users, how do startups then avoid the "leaky bucket" problem of losing users as quickly as they gained them? By focusing on user engagement and retention, startups can not only keep their hard-won customers but also ensure that each new cohort of users gets more and more value out of their product.This episode is part two in a two-part series on the basics of growth. Featuring a16z general partners Andrew Chen (formerly of Uber and author of the book, The Cold Start Problem) and Jeff Jordan (formerly of OpenTable, eBay, Disney, and more), in conversation with Sonal Chokshi, the conversation goes deep on many aspects and nuances of engaging and retaining users: from how network effects come into play and if there is really a magic number or "aha" moment for a product to who are the power users and the power user curve for measuring, finding, and retaining those users.For a deeper discussion on user acquisition, check out last week's episode, the first part of this series.

6 Apr 202233min

Once known as “growth hacking”, the concept of Growth has now evolved into an entire discipline that spans marketing, product management, user experience, and more. Why? After achieving product-market fit, startups need to capitalize quickly on that initial traction to capture and retain more users and market share before the competition does, and building an efficient and resilient growth strategy is a critical component.This episode -- one of two in a series -- focuses on the user acquisition aspect of growth. Featuring a16z general partners Andrew Chen (formerly of Uber and author of the book, The Cold Start Problem) and Jeff Jordan (formerly of OpenTable, eBay, Disney, and more), in conversation with Sonal Chokshi, the discussion also covers the nuances of paid vs. organic marketing (and the perils of blended CAC); the role of network effects; where does customer lifetime value (LTV) come in; and much more. Because at the end of the day, businesses don't grow themselves.

30 Mars 202221min