a16z Podcast: Fintech Revolution or Evolution?

There's no question automation is taking over more and more aspects of work and some jobs altogether. But we're now entering a "third era" of automation, one which went from taking over dangerous work to dull work and now decision-making work, too. So what will it take to deal with a world -- and a workplace -- where machines could be thought of as colleagues? The key lies in distinguishing between automation vs. augmentation, argue the guests on this episode of the a16z Podcast, IT management professor Thomas Davenport and Harvard Business editor Julia Kirby, who authored the new book Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines. But the argument isn't as simple as saying humans will just do the creative, emotionally intelligent work and that machines will do the rest. The future of work is complex and closely tied to the need for structure, identity, and meaning. Which is also why linking the discussion of things like "universal basic income" to the topic of automation isn't just unnecessary, but depressing and even damaging (or so argue the guests on this episode).

23 Maj 201626min

Innovation or invention? Platform or app? Vertical or horizontal? Strategy or tactic? Does the smartphone eat VR? And (not to get all existential about it or anything but), what is an app, really? a16z partners Benedict Evans, Connie Chan, Kyle Russell, and board partner Steven Sinofsky explore these tensions in this episode of the podcast as they share some quick reactions to Google I/O, Google's annual developer conference, where the company announced a number of new platform products -- for VR to messaging to the smart home. Maybe most new things are really old things, but maybe those distinctions don't matter as artificial intelligence leaps into how we live our lives, automating (and anticipating) things in a new way...

20 Maj 201626min

One of the most important lessons of the internet age is what happens when we give people -- including companies, developers, engineers, hobbyists, and yes, even a few bad (or dumb) actors -- a new platform, along with the freedom to innovate on top of it. For example, who could have predicted how profoundly the internet would change our economy, given how it started off as a research project -- one where commercial applications were actually frowned upon in the early days? Now, the U.S. is on the cusp of opening up another such platform for commercial and social innovation: airspace (think drones, the non-military kind). There's so many use cases for drones that we already know about, but what about new business use cases? And then, on the policy front, how do we calculate the risk of innovation on a platform made up of atoms (drones) vs. bits (the internet)? What are the pros and cons of registration? Because even though drones are like flying smartphones controlled by software, they're also hard objects that could fall out of the sky ... or go places where no one could go before, for better or worse. The guests on this episode of the a16z Podcast -- continuing our D.C. and tech/innovation/policy theme -- share their thoughts on safety, privacy, paper airplanes, and what they think are some of the most exciting things now possible in airspace. Joining the conversation are Washington, D.C.-based Mercatus Center tech policy lead Eli Dourado, along with graduate research fellow Samuel Hammond; Airware founder and CEO Jonathan Downey; and SkySafe CEO and co-founder Grant Jordan.

18 Maj 201640min

It almost seems like gospel -- or at least a given -- today for startups to embrace the cloud. Services like AWS have powered an entire generation of startups that can now spin up new applications, new businesses, and new experiments with very little investment in new infrastructure. But what about governments -- both in the U.S. and around the world -- trying to adopt the cloud? How do they approach this widely known (yet still nebulous) concept of THE CLOUD? Especially given sometimes competing considerations around security and compliance with the desire to innovate? Teresa Carlson, Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector for Amazon Web Services, shares tales from the field in this episode of the a16z Podcast -- continuing our on-the-road series from Washington, D.C. Adopting a cloud-based approach is one of the ways to democratize entrepreneurship, but how do countries and governments, not just companies and entrepreneurs, think about this, especially given the tendency towards "balkanization" of the cloud? All this and more in this episode...

17 Maj 201629min

If the next 20 years of startup-led tech innovation are going to be about addressing massive problems -- like health, energy, transportation, cities, education, and more -- it will mean more directly confronting (instead of stealthily bypassing) regulatory barriers and incumbent-driven regulatory capture challenges. So how can startups "growth hack" in a highly regulated sector? In this episode of the a16z Podcast -- the second of our podcasts from our most recent on-the-road trip in Washington, D.C. -- Evan Burfield, the co-founder and co-CEO of D.C.-based global incubator 1776, outlines the techniques (really, an art form) of "regulatory hacking". It's not just a way to enter a market, but a way to create a market ... much like Elon Musk did with Tesla: using the very system that drops lemons to make lemonade. The technique begins by understanding informal and formal power; "power mapping" the influencers all across the chessboard (from the top down and bottom up); telling your startup brand/product story in a particular way; and then making your moves. Just as there's a playbook for navigating Silicon Valley, there's one for navigating D.C., argues Burfield; and while many entrepreneurs instinctively just want to get regulations out of the way, sometimes, you just need to know how to play the game.

17 Maj 201634min

Sometimes, our career paths are accidental not intentional... but then it all fits together and makes perfect sense in hindsight. This was especially true for Ezra Klein, who went from writing for his college's alternative paper The Fish Wrap Weekly in the early days, to blogging, and then went to The American Prospect; Washington Post (where he started the very popular policy blog Wonkblog); and now, Vox, where he is the editor-in-chief. All without quite knowing, until after the fact, that he happened to be very interested in policy. In this episode of the a16z Podcast -- the first of our podcasts from our most recent on-the-road trip, this time from Washington, D.C. -- Klein shares his views on tech, policy, and more, including: the productivity (measurement) debate, immigration, the Trump x media phenomenon, and media entrepreneurship overall. Oh and on full-stack startups, too.

12 Maj 201640min

Every big technological shift (per Carlota Perez) brings with a structural shift too — an “institutional adjustment” in how companies innovated and build new products, according to Steve Blank and Evangelos Simoudis. Large organizations used to (and continue to) set up remote R&D labs in places like Silicon Valley. But now, those companies are also investing more energy and resources in setting up corporate venturing arms and/or “innovation outposts” in such startup ecosystems — especially as they believe that startup-driven innovation is one of the best ways to keep up with and address disruption in their industries. But… it’s not enough to simply establish a presence in these places; how do you also “sense” and respond to the right opportunities? Are they in the right places? Does beginning with corporate venturing really work for such outposts? And finally, how can these orgs avoid just acting out “innovation theater”? Simoudis — who has also written about whether “the elephant can dance again” using the case of IBM and Watson/ AI — offers his views on how big companies can and should use the Valley (and other innovation clusters) in this episode of the a16z Podcast.

11 Maj 201631min

Whether you think of it as a distributed ledger, decentralized database, computing infrastructure, open source/ software development platform, cryptocurrency, transaction platform, or financial services marketplace, the bitcoin blockchain is driven by two key features: that it is a peer-to-peer network, and that it unbundles trust. Imagine moving from Googling for things to offering proof-as-a-service instead (which itself begins with rethinking identity). In fact, there's a lot of parallels -- both in evolution and development -- with the blockchain and the internet before it. Only the blockchain doesn't need the web. And that has profound implications for what applications and new businesses are now possible, especially in financial services. But if "the worst place to develop a new business model is from within your existing business model", then how can banks move beyond mere process innovations to offering entirely new services built on the blockchain? Many financial institutions are trying to get ahead of the blockchain disruption by exploring it proactively, but how do they overcome the innovator's dilemma and looking at startups like animals in a zoo? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, William Mougayar, the author of the new book The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology shares how traditional, established industries can overcome the innovator's dilemma in this case; what the future of banks might be; and what new applications, services, and startups are possible due to the features -- really, benefits -- of the blockchain. Because the blockchain, ultimately, is an innovation platform.

10 Maj 201639min