a16z Podcast: Centers of Power, War, and History

Some of the best management books are actually military books, argues Ben Horowitz. There's just a certain mental toughness and focus that that experience gives you, adds Dick Costolo based on his observations. So how then do you build trust on a team in a company, when it's not (literally) life or death as it is in the military? When giving someone a public "object lesson" -- the equivalent of Sun Tzu's chopping someone's head off -- could mean losing talent ... or being more tyrant than leader? How do you tell the difference? This conversation -- between Horowitz and Costolo (entrepreneur, former CEO of Twitter, comedian and consultant on the HBO show "Silicon Valley") -- took place before a group of 25 veterans who participated in the Breakline education and hiring program (one week of which was hosted at Andreessen Horowitz) for veterans shifting into careers in the tech industry.

2 Apr 201627min

Most investors try to invest in things that don't change and last forever -- Warren Buffett for example loves Heinz ketchup! But VC is about investing in things that do change... a lot. How does this basic mindset challenge much of what people learn in business school or classic leadership training? Do software-led businesses require different mindsets? What are some of the most common things first-time vs. serial entrepreneurs do? This Q&A -- with Marc Andreessen interviewed by Don Faul (former U.S. Marine platoon commander and head of operations at Google, Facebook, Pinterest, and now COO at Athos) -- covers these topics, as well as what to consider when working for a big- v. small- (and especially intermediate-) -sized company, what it takes to make a career transition, and how to "go back to kindergarten". The conversation took place before a group of 25 veterans who participated in the Breakline education and hiring program (one week of which was hosted at Andreessen Horowitz) for veterans shifting into careers in the tech industry. photo credit: Rene Tate for Breakline

25 Mars 201628min

In this episode of the a16z Podcast sharing more founder stories, Ben Horowitz interviews a16z partner Lars Dalgaard about SuccessFactors, one of the earlier software-as-a-service companies. (It was founded on 2001, IPO'd in 2008, and was acquired by SAP in 2012). SuccessFactors focused on software for "human capital management" in the enterprise. But what are the success factors in talent, scaling companies, and most importantly, scaling culture? Lars and Ben cover everything from what motivates (the best) founders, the difficulties of entrepreneurship, and team building and building culture. Especially if you have values -- not just an HR offsite exercise -- that mean something, like "no assholes!" .... but then how do you balance a value like that with the desire to succeed (for example, if you have a 10Xer who is an asshole)?? All that and more in this episode.

17 Mars 201626min

How do you get into tech when you don’t have a tech background? And what special expertise can leaders from other fields -- like the military -- bring to tech startups? This Q&A -- with Lars Dalgaard interviewed by Bethany Coates (assistant dean at Stanford Graduate School of Business who runs global education and social mission programs that primarily focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership) -- covers these topics. As well as what it means to what to bring one’s raw, real self to work, beginning from the interview to working together and sharing feedback later. The conversation took place before a group of 25 veterans who participated in the Breakline education and hiring program (one week of which was hosted at Andreessen Horowitz) for veterans shifting into careers in the tech industry.

16 Mars 201615min

Why are people so fired up about a computer winning yet another game? Whether it's checkers, chess, Jeopardy, or the ancient Chinese game of Go, we get excited about the potential for more when we see computers beat humans. But then nothing "big" -- in terms of generalized artificial intelligence -- seems to happen after that burst of excitement. Now, with the excitement (and other emotions) around Google DeepMind's "AlphaGo" using machine learning and other techniques to beat one of the world's top Go players, Lee Sodol, in Korea ... it's like the dream of the 1990s (and 1980s, and 1970s, and 1960s) is alive in Seoul right now. Is this time different? How do we know? a16z's head of research and deal team Frank Chen and board partner Steven Sinofsky -- who both suffered through the last “AI winter” -- share how everything old is new again; the triumph of data over algorithms; and the evergreen battle between purist vs. "practical" approaches. Ultimately, it's about how innovation in general plays out, at a scale both grand (cycles and gestation periods) and mundane (sometimes, the only way to make a product work is to hack together the old, the new, and everything in between). NOTE: The Super Mario World video referenced in this podcast is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6UVOQ0F44

11 Mars 201629min

Men and women who have spent decades in prison are being released into an iPhone-enabled world that they hardly recognize. Shaka Senghor is one of those people, imprisoned at age 19 for second-degree murder and released almost two decades later in 2010. “It was like Fred Flintstone walking into an episode of the Jetsons,” he tells Ben Horowitz in a conversation about his book, Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison. Today, Senghor is an activist, advocate, and mentor for young men and women who find themselves on the same troubled path he took. This episode of the a16z Podcast covers Ben and Shaka's conversation about healing, humanity, and redemption -- especially if you believe that it's how you finish, not just how you start, that matters.

11 Mars 201655min

YouTube star Casey Neistat rejects the term “viral video,” which is strange because he’s had more than his share of internet monsters. To say I want to make a viral movie, is like a musician saying I want to make a hit song -- it’s just not a good place to start, Neistat says, paraphrasing a point made on Twitter. So how does Neistat start? How does he both attract an audience of millions, and keep them coming back on a daily basis? Neistat is joined on this segment of the pod by Bailey Richardson, one of the early team members at Instagram. With the tools of production available to everyone, how do you create something that people will stop and pay attention to? Neistat does it by ripping up the snowy streets of New York on a snowboard towed behind a jeep, but what about the rest of us?

11 Mars 201630min

If network effects are one of the most important concepts for software-based businesses, then that may be especially true of data network effects -- a network effect that results from data. Particularly given the prevalence of machine learning and deep learning in startups today. But simply having a huge corpus of data does not a network effect make! So how can startups ensure they don't get a lot of data exhaust but get insight out of and add value to that data and the network? How can they make sure that the (arguably inevitable) data aspect of their business isn't just a sideshow or accident? How should founders strike the balance between not overbuilding/ building a data team vs. having enough data for those data scientists to work with in the first place? And finally, what are the ethical considerations of all this? The a16z general partners most focused on bio and fintech -- Vijay Pande and Alex Rampell -- join this episode of the a16z Podcast to share their observations and advice on all things data network effects.

8 Mars 201631min