Where We Are in the AI Cycle

In this episode of a16z bio Journal Club, general partner Vijay Pande, bio deal team partner Andy Tran, and bio editor Lauren Richardson discuss a novel CRISPR-Cas-based anti-viral strategy.The discussion covers the differences between this newly developed prophylactic strategy, traditional vaccines, and anti-viral drugs; how this strategy can be engineered to target a huge range of coronavirus and influenza strains; and the next steps needed to go from paper to practice:“Development of CRISPR as an Antiviral Strategy to Combat SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza” in Cell (April 2020), by Timothy Abbott, Girija Dhamdhere, Yanxia Liu, Xueqiu Lin, Laine Goudy, Leiping Zeng, Augustine Chemparathy, Stephen Chmura, Nicholas Heaton, Robert Debs, Tara Pande, Drew Endy, Marie La Russa, David Lewis, and Lei Qia16z Journal Club (part of the a16z Podcast), curates and covers recent advances from the scientific literature -- what papers we’re reading, and why they matter from our perspective at the intersection of biology & technology (for bio journal club). You can find all these episodes at a16z.com/journalclub.

15 Maj 202017min

Video game technology has evolved into a global phenomenon that extends far beyond entertainment. In this episode, John Riccitiello, CEO of the game software development company Unity Technologies, is interviewed by a16z general partner Andrew Chen on the rise of esports and streaming, the potential of cloud gaming, and  far-reaching applications for game technology. This conversation originally took place at our most recent innovation conference, the a16z Summit.

7 Maj 202020min

In this episode of the a16z Podcast, we take a deep dive into the world of drug development—specifically "undruggable drugs": a category of protein, protein family or even piece of RNA that’s so difficult to target that many researchers don’t even want to touch it. Jay Bradner, President of the Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research, shares with a16z General Partners Jorge Conde and Vijay Pande, and a16z's Hanne Tidnam, all the new tools, technologies and breakthroughs which are causing the science of therapeutics to explode in some of these areas where it's been incredibly difficult (even impossible) in the past. From molecular glues to cell and gene therapies, Bradner shares the behind-the-scenes science stories of what it really takes to make a new drug that shatters the category of an "undruggable" target.

6 Maj 202028min

This episode—which originally took place as a live event—is a conversation between Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner and a16z Cultural Leadership Fund partner Chris Lyons. Wagner is known for his power on the field and his business acumen off it. Last year, he negotiated his own three-year, $54 million contract extension to become the highest-paid middle linebacker in the NFL. In this candid conversation, Wagner and Lyons discuss how to identify standout companies and talent (for better or worse), the growing influence of cultural leaders in tech, and the potential of "shared genius."

2 Maj 202013min

The Chief Security Officer (CSO/CISO) used to manage on-premise servers, now the information they have to secure has migrated to the cloud. As the responsibility of CSOs has expanded, the role has moved from technical IT to the boardroom. How do the best CSOs prepare for and respond to a crisis, from redteaming to comms? What responsibility should cloud & SaaS vendors, not to mention the government, have in security and data breaches?  And how is the role going to evolve in the next five years? At our a16z Innovation Summit last year, we sat down with two security leaders whose career has evolved as the role has – Joe Sullivan, former CSO at Uber and Facebook, now at Cloudflare and Joel de la Garza, current security partner at a16z, formerly CISO at Box.

29 Apr 202020min

a16z Journal Club (part of the a16z Podcast), curates and covers recent advances from the scientific literature -- what papers we’re reading, and why they matter from our perspective at the intersection of biology & technology (for bio journal club). This inaugural episode covers 2 different topics, in discussion with Lauren Richardson:0:26 #1 identifying new antibiotics through a novel machine-learning based approach -- a16z general partner Vijay Pande and bio deal partner Andy Tran discuss the business of pharma; the specific methods/  how it works; and other applications for deep learning in drug discovery and development based on this paper:"A Deep Learning Approach to Antibiotic Discovery" in Cell (February 2020), by Jonathan Stokes, Kevin Yang, Kyle Swanson, Wengong Jin, Andres Cubillos-Ruiz, Nina Donghia, Craig MacNair, Shawn French, Lindsey Carfrae, Zohar Bloom-Ackermann, Victoria Tran, Anush Chiappino-Pepe, Ahmed Badran, Ian Andrews, Emma Chory, George Church, Eric Brown, Tommi Jaakkola, Regina Barzilay, James Collins11:43 #2 characterizing the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic -- a16z bio deal partner Judy Savitskaya shares what we can learn from the protein structures; the relationship to the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic; and more based on these two research articles: "Structure, Function, and Antigenicity of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein" in Cell (April 2020), by Alexandra Walls, Young-Jun Park, M. Tortorici, Abigail Wall, Andrew McGuire, David Veesler"Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation" in Science (March 2020), by Daniel Wrapp, Nianshuang Wang, Kizzmekia Corbett, Jory Goldsmith, Ching-Lin Hsieh, Olubukola Abiona, Barney Graham, Jason McLellanYou can find these episodes at a16z.com/journalclub.

26 Apr 202024min

Announcing a16z Journal Club, a new show where we curate and discuss recent research papers with a16z experts and others. This new show continues the a16z Podcast mission of not just bringing you conversations about the future (as well as about building companies for this), but of also putting specific trends in context -- whether through news (as with our other show 16 Minutes), or, through journal articles (as with this new show -- which will soon have its own feed as well). The first episode, of bio journal club, focuses on why specific scientific advances matter from our perspective at the intersection of biology & technology. It is hosted by one of our a16z bio editors, Lauren Richardson, a former senior editor of open-access journal PLOS Biology with a background in cell and molecular biology and genetics (and with a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley).You will hear it next in this feed, and can also find new episodes here as they come out every few weeks and at a16z.com/journalclub. ~sonal

26 Apr 20201min

Here is Ali's tweetstorm on the Narrow Waist of Blockchain Computing

24 Apr 202040min