Podcast: a16z

Why do some consumer products explode into networks that reshape the internet, while others fade away?

Today on the podcast, a16z general partners Anish Acharya and Chris Dixon take on that question. Anish invests in AI-native consumer products and the next wave of consumer tech. Chris is best known for his work in Web3 and network economies, and he’s also led some of a16z’s biggest consumer bets.

Together, they cover the history and power of consumer networks, the exponential forces that shape how they grow, and what it all means for founders building in the age of AI.

What happens when AI collides with salesmanship, streaming-era sports, and healthcare?

In this episode, Erik Torenberg is joined by Mark Cuban, entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks co-owner, and founder of Cost Plus Drugs.

Topics include fiery group chats and how dissent sharpens thinking, the sales playbook of modern politics, and concrete fixes for U.S. healthcare like ending PBM opacity, publishing real prices, and government-backed patient financing. Mark also explains how AI is pushing media from “social” to algorithmic, why he expects millions of models, and why ESOPs are an underrated wealth engine. He shares what he’d build today and weighs in on NBA economics under the new collective bargaining agreement.

Who’s speaking up for startups in Washington, D.C.?

In this episode, Matt Perault (Head of AI Policy, a16z) and Collin McCune (Head of Government Affairs, a16z) unpack the “Little Tech Agenda” for AI- why AI rules should regulate harmful use, not model development; how to keep open source open; the roles of the federal government vs states in regulating AI; and how the U.S. can compete globally without shutting out new founders.

Stainless founder Alex Rattray joins a16z partner Jennifer Li to talk about the future of APIs, SDKs, and the rise of MCP (Model Context Protocol). Drawing on his experience at Stripe—where he helped redesign API docs and built code-generation systems—Alex explains why the SDK is the API for most developers, and why high-quality, idiomatic libraries are essential not just for humans, but now for AI agents as well.

Taken from The Oprah Podcast, this special episode brings together Shaka Senghor, a16z cofounder Ben Horowitz, and Oprah Winfrey for a powerful conversation on resilience and transformation.

Shaka, a resilience expert, motivational speaker, and bestselling author of Writing My Wrongs, shares his journey from incarceration to redemption along with insights from his new book, How to Be Free. Full of hard-earned wisdom and practical tools, it’s a guide for anyone seeking freedom in their own life.

Is non-consensus investing overrated—or the secret to venture returns?

a16z General Partner Erik Torenberg is joined by Martín Casado (General Partner, a16z) and Leo Polovets (General Partner, Humba Ventures) to unpack the debate that lit up venture Twitter/X: should founders and VCs chase consensus, or run from it?

They explore what “consensus” really means in practice, how market efficiency shapes venture outcomes, why most companies fail from indigestion, not starvation, and the risks founders face when they’re too far outside consensus.

Jack Altman sits down with Martin Casado, General Partner at a16z, to unpack the shifting dynamics of venture capital and why media matters more than ever. They cover a16z’s evolution from generalists to specialized platforms, the rise of AI infrastructure, and why today’s fiercest battles are often for talent, not market share.

What if the future of media isn’t controlled by algorithms or legacy institutions—but by independent voices building directly with their audiences?

In this episode, Erik Torenberg is joined by Chris Best, cofounder and CEO of Substack, along with a16z general partners Katherine Boyle and Andrew Chen.

We trace the origin story of Substack and its cultural impact, including how it reinvented the business model for independent media. We also explore the evolution of blogging, the rebundling of media, and what the future holds as attention becomes the scarcest resource.

Venture capital has powered companies like Facebook and TikTok—but what if that same urgency fueled America’s defense and industrial base? Katherine Boyle, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and cofounder of the firm’s American Dynamism practice, argues this is the biggest business opportunity of our time.

In this conversation from The Shawn Ryan Show, Boyle discusses the rise of defense tech startups, why optimism drives her work, and how a new generation of engineers and founders is rethinking innovation and patriotism in America.

In this interview from the 20VC podcast, Martin Casado (a16z General Partner) joins Harry Stebbings to unpack the state of AI, the rise of coding models, the future of open vs. closed source, and how value is shifting across the stack.

Martin offers a candid view of the opportunities and dangers shaping AI and venture capital today.

What are real consumers actually doing with AI today?

In this episode, a16z consumer investors Olivia Moore and Justine Moore break down the fifth edition of our Consumer AI 100, a biannual ranking of the most used AI-native web and mobile products across the globe.

What exactly is an AI agent, and how will agents change the way we work?

In this episode, a16z general partners Erik Torenberg and Martin Casado sit down with Aaron Levie (CEO, Box) and Steven Sinofsky (a16z board partner; former Microsoft exec) to unpack one of the hottest debates in AI right now.

They cover:
-Competing definitions of an “agent,” from background tasks to autonomous interns
-Why today’s agents look less like a single AGI and more like networks of specialized sub-agents
-The technical challenges of long-running, self-improving systems
-How agent-driven workflows could reshape coding, productivity, and enterprise software
-What history — from the early PC era to the rise of the internet — tells us about platform shifts like this one

The conversation moves from deep technical questions to big-picture implications for founders, enterprises, and the future of work.

Erik Torenberg sits down with Ben Horowitz, Cofounder of a16z, for a candid conversation on venture capital, leadership, and the future of innovation. Recorded live at a16z’s Menlo Park offices in 2023, Ben shares practical wisdom and hard-earned lessons on navigating market cycles, building resilient companies, and why culture is a lasting competitive edge.

Highlights:
Venture Cycles: How today’s market compares to past downturns.
Leadership in Uncertainty: Strategies for guiding teams through volatility.
Founder Resilience: The traits that separate enduring founders.
Culture as Strategy: Why culture determines long-term success.
Investment Lens: How a16z identifies standout startups.
Future Trends: Ben’s predictions on AI, crypto, and beyond.

Marc Andreessen, cofounder Andreessen Horowitz, joins the Hermitix podcast for a conversation on AI, accelerationism, energy, and the future.

From the thermodynamic roots of effective accelerationism (E/acc) to the cultural cycles of optimism and fear around new technologies, Marc shares why AI is best understood as code, how nuclear debates mirror today’s AI concerns, and what these shifts mean for society and progress.

Housing and healthcare make up nearly half of household spending, yet both sectors are riddled with inefficiency and rising costs.

In this episode, Erik Torenberg is joined by a16z Growth partner Alex Immerman and Minna Song and Tony Stoyanov, cofounders of EliseAI, to discuss why they’re tackling these critical industries and how AI can transform everything from leasing and maintenance to patient scheduling and compliance.

The conversation covers:
Why the U.S. is 5 million housing units short — and how technology can help unlock existing supply
How automation can cut waste, reduce labor costs, and improve affordability
What fully autonomous buildings might look like, and how that model could extend to healthcare

This is about the costs that touch every household, and the role AI might play in finally bringing them down.

Do tariffs help rebuild American manufacturing or hold it back?

In this episode, American Compass founder and chief economist Oren Cass sits down with commentator and author Noah Smith and a16z General Partner Erik Torenberg for a lively debate on the future of U.S. industry.

They discuss the case for tariff-driven re-industrialization versus free-market approaches, the role of allies in trade policy, and what the numbers really show about manufacturing jobs, investment, and output. Along the way, they challenge each other’s assumptions and explore what it would take to actually bring more production back to American soil.

The AI hardware race is heating up, and NVIDIA is still far ahead. What will it take to close the gap?

In this episode, Dylan Patel (Founder & CEO, SemiAnalysis) joins Erin Price-Wright (General Partner, a16z), Guido Appenzeller (Partner, a16z), and host Erik Torenberg to break down the state of AI chips, data centers, and infrastructure strategy.

We discuss:
- Why simply copying NVIDIA won’t work, and what it takes to beat them
- How custom silicon from Google, Amazon, and Meta could reshape the market
- The economics of AI model launches and the shift toward cost efficiency
- Infrastructure bottlenecks: power, cooling, and the global supply chain
- The rise of AI silicon startups and the challenges they face
- Export controls, China’s AI ambitions, and geopolitics in the chip race
- Big tech’s next moves: advice for leaders like Jensen Huang, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk

Genie 3 can generate fully interactive, persistent worlds from just text, in real time.

In this episode, Google DeepMind’s Jack Parker-Holder (Research Scientist) and Shlomi Fruchter (Research Director) join Anjney Midha, Marco Mascorro, and Justine Moore of a16z, with host Erik Torenberg, to discuss how they built it, the breakthrough “special memory” feature, and the future of AI-powered gaming, robotics, and world models.

They share:
-How Genie 3 generates interactive environments in real time
-Why its “special memory” feature is such a breakthrough
-The evolution of generative models and emergent behaviors
-Instruction following, text adherence, and model comparisons
-Potential applications in gaming, robotics, simulation, and more
-What’s next: Genie 4, Genie 5, and the future of world models

This conversation offers a first-hand look at one of the most advanced world models ever created.

a16z General Partners Martin Casado and Anjney Midha join Erik Torenberg to unpack one of the most dramatic shifts in tech policy in recent memory: the move from “pause AI” to “win the AI race.”

They trace the evolution of U.S. AI policy—from executive orders that chilled innovation, to the recent AI Action Plan that puts scientific progress and open source at the center. The discussion covers how technologists were caught off guard, why open source was wrongly equated to nuclear risk, and what changed the narrative—including China's rapid progress.

The conversation also explores:
- How and why the AI discourse got captured by doomerism
- What “marginal risk” really means—and why it matters
- Why open source AI is not just ideology, but business strategy
- How government, academia, and industry are realigning after a fractured few years
- The effect of bad legislation—and what comes next

Whether you're a founder, policymaker, or just trying to make sense of AI's regulatory future, this episode breaks it all down.

We’re sharing an episode from ChinaTalk that dives into one of the biggest recent reversals in U.S. tech policy.

The U.S. banned Nvidia’s H20 AI chips to China in April. Now, just months later, they’re being sold—with a 15% export fee. What happened? Why the reversal? And what does it mean for the future of AI competition between the U.S. and China?

Chris Miller—author of Chip War—and Lennart Heim from RAND join ChinaTalk host Jordan Schneider to unpack the policy flip-flop, why China is publicly downplaying interest in the H20, and why high-bandwidth memory and semiconductor manufacturing tools may be even more important than the Nvidia chips themselves.