Daily Product Usage Is Essential for VC Investors, But Most Don't
Anish Acharya · a16z, Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead? Do Margins Still Matter? Why We Are Not in an AI Bubble? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Feb 9, 2026 · at 52:58
Anish Acharya, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), argues that unlike previous cycles like fintech, the current AI landscape requires investors and founders to actively test new models daily.
0:00 / 0:48exact quote · 48.5s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Well, I think the number one thing, and here's my free advice to other investors, but also founders, is just like, you have to use the products today more than ever. You know, and I think the investing landscape of five or seven years ago when there was a ton of FinTech, and I have, I'm a FinTech guy, I love FinTech, but it was harder to build intuition for, you know, like a small business factoring solution. Like, I'm not really, I don't know, maybe I should start a small business. Like, there's too many steps to actually try the product. But today, being native in this product cycle just means waking up every day and being like, if there's three new models today, I'm going to try three new models. I'm actually going to make something. So holding yourself to an incredibly high standard of trying everything just gives you so much information and intuition. I think it's non-negotiable for founders, and I think it's incredibly important for investors as well, yet most don't do it.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Anish Acharya
Acharya: Software market is oversold and vibe-coding narrative is wrong
“The general story that we're going to vibe code everything is flat wrong, and the whole market is oversold software.”
Acharya: The current AI tech market is not in a bubble
“For the record, I don't believe we're in that period, but I do think that any time you have this sort of superheated markets, you have some distortion, okay?”
Acharya: a16z Mandates Seeing and Winning 100% of Target Deals
“I don't think we're allowed to believe in luck at Andreessen. We have to see a hundred percent of the deals in our domain, and that we win a hundred percent of the deals that we go after.”
Acharya: 75% of public SaaS companies raised prices post-ChatGPT
“I looked at the data this morning, and if you look at SaaS, public market SaaS companies, 75% have raised prices since ChatGPT was released.”
Acharya: Coding agents dramatically lower enterprise software switching costs
“But now with coding agents, the complexity of transitioning from SAP to Oracle is dramatically lower, the speed, the risk. So that is how I think coding agents shows up in enterprise software, especially amongst public names. Decrease switching costs, more cus…”