The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 183 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 3 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Building a $25B company isn't enough to compete with Sequoia
“Like if I were to go in and try to compete with Andreessen and Sequoia with all those folks, I don't even, that's not, I don't think that's a good enough angle.”
Tomaino: Andreessen Horowitz's crypto fund has probably grown too big
“A-Six and Z is a great fund. In crypto. And I have a lot of respect for them. I do think they probably got too big.”
Jordan: a16z Avoids Investing in Startups Reliant on Paid Marketing
“I am reluctant to invest in companies that, that require heavy paid marketing to build their audience.”
Jordan: a16z Avoided Fast Commerce, Viewing It as a Kozmo Redo
“We didn't make a bet in in fast commerce. That's one word that some of us internet veterans remember Cosmo and, you know, our concern was it's Cosmo redo redo without anything really new. On top of it. So we did not place a bet in that in that sector.”
a16z does not base investment decisions on current market size
“We strive as a firm not to base investment decisions on current market size, because a lot of the best businesses created new markets to create new markets.”
Jordan: Instacart lost $20-$25 per order when a16z first invested
“From recollection, they were billing something like 10 or 12 dollars per order when we invested, and they were losing 20, 25 dollars per order on each one”
Jordan: a16z passed on fast commerce, viewing it as Kozmo.com 2.0
“We didn't make a bet in in fast Fast commerce. That's one word. Some of us internet veterans remember Cosmo and... Our concern was it's Cosmo redo, redo without anything really new on top of it. So we did not place a bet in that in that sector.”
Casado denies doing billion-dollar Series B rounds or overpaying for deals
“I've never done any of these billion dollar bees. I've never done, you know, some strange non-competitive deal where it's an outsized price. Normally in any competitive deal that you've seen I'm almost always on the low end.”
Emil Michael: VC funds must go multi-stage to survive fewer mid-tier exits
“And to win big, you've got to try to invest across multiple stages. And that's what Sequoia can do. That's what age can do. That's what rivet can do. That's what DST can do. And I think if you can't, You're just going to get, have to get lucky because there's …”
Harrison: Andreessen Horowitz most closely resembles Blackstone in venture capital
“And I think that the firm that closely, most closely resembles that in venture is Andreessen. You know, the way that they have approached things like you know, gaming and crypto and biotech and so like that, but that's sort of them saying, hey, we have this fu…”
Friedberg: Andreessen Horowitz pioneered Silicon Valley's over-capitalization strategy
“Andreessen was the first to kind of make the statement where Mark Andreessen said, when I was raising my Series B, Andreessen Horowitz actually gave me a term sheet. So did Founders Fund and Kosla, and I went with Kosla. Andreessen was like, look, we're going …”
Friedberg: Top VC firms like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz are post-economic
“This bifurcation in the market that's underway, which is the folks that have made it, they've gotten to the top of Mount Everest. At this point, I would argue those funds are post-economic, and now they can operate more rationally over the long run, like Found…”
George: Market leaders capture the vast majority of tech sector market cap
“And so we actually think most many or most tech markets play out in market cap in a similar way where the leader captures the vast majority of the market cap creation.”
Strange: Every consumer and business company will embed financial services
“Similarly, we are going to see, and we are already seeing, an explosion of financial services. Which is new neobanks, new, directly new fintech companies, but then more to the point, all of these consumer companies, all of these business companies are adding f…”
Ravasio rejected VCs offering to double Andreessen Horowitz's Series B valuation
“For our most recent series B, you know, I had to cancel a lot of meetings and was hearing things like, you know, whatever you got, I'll double it. And, you know, it doesn't matter. And I just think like having the grounding to know that that's not what I'm loo…”
Horowitz: Andreessen Horowitz faced criticism for marketing VC before competitors copied it
“It was basically known as a given that you did not market Venture capital firms. Nobody had ever marketed their venture capital firm in any kind of context, and it's definitely the decision we got the most criticism for before everybody copied it”
a16z Optimizes for Ownership Percentage Rather Than Entry Valuation
“For us, it doesn't matter if we invest at twelve million pre or fifteen million pre or eighteen million pre. Like, there's really no difference. Like, we're optimizing for ownership, and that's what we really care about.”
Top VC firms will be forced to adapt to new funding models
“Sequoia, Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, they're not going away anytime soon. This isn't like, we're out to beat them and kill them. Not in the same way Airbnb is not going to delete hotels overnight. It's going to change how hotels work. I think that's a bett…”
a16z Seeded Fred Turner's Startup With $1.65M Without A TAM Calculation
“Their bio fund did our seed round right out of YC, and I don't think they did the TAM calculation. They were like, oh, this sounds interesting, and then they did the round. It was a small round, it was like, 1.65 million.”
Acharya: Evaluate viral AI startups using Month-Two retention as baseline
“Retention really matters, and if you take a look at the best AI products, you know, even if you look at M-II as the new M-I, right, because again, you're getting a lot of sort of tourists who come in at M-I, you're not paying anything for them. Month one, that…”
Acharya: Fast-growing startups are skipping $500 million growth funding rounds
“Yeah, that's right.”
a16z Evaluates GPs via Founder 360s Every Two Years
“And he's like, well, in the near term, we don't measure you based on returns. We measure you by going and talking to every one of your founders every two years, doing a three 60 on you. And if your founders say you're telling them the truth, you're showing up,…”
Acharya: 50% Month-Two retention is solid for viral AI startups
“Like the bigger the better, but certainly 50% is solid, right? And if you're 60, 70%, I mean, we're very, very happy.”
Lemkin: Absence of major VCs in TikTok deal signals hidden risks
“There's a reason they're not in that deal. It's free money. Otherwise, right. We're missing something.”
O'Driscoll: VC mega-funds cannot generate target returns without top outliers
“You simply can't make this kind of math work without getting those top exits. And you don't have to get in at the A, but, you know, you don't have to do the A of SpaceX, but you better show up on the cap table before they hit total, because that's a trillion d…”
O'Driscoll: a16z backed 10% of $5B+ Series A outcomes over last decade
“That work that we talked about way back last year that the partner from DST did showed by over the last decade, Andreessen did roughly 10% of all series A's that became five billion dollar outcomes.”
Rampell: Haggled over $5M on Plaid's Series B, later invested at $2.4B
“It probably was one of the first rounds of Plaid, which I subsequently corrected myself for by doing the Series C of Plaid. So I think we invested at 2.4 billion for the Series C, and I was debating a five million dollar difference with Zach for the Series B. …”
a16z Passed on Company That Later Reached $1B Valuation
“There was a deal that I guess we should have done, candidly, because, like, this company just raised it, like, a billion dollar plus valuation, but we turned it down. The company had, like, less than a million dollars in revenue, and they wanted, like, a two h…”
Half of a16z's growth investments are follow-ons from its venture portfolio
“By the numbers, about half of what we do is follow-ons from existing venture companies. And then from a dollar standpoint, another 15% is follow-ons from existing growth stage companies. And then about a third or so is fully net new companies.”
a16z historically refuses to sell secondary shares in late-stage portfolio companies
“We could, but we historically have not. And so, you know, for the most part, for the companies that have decided to stay private, we've been really excited to stay in them, keep backing them. And that's probably the strategy that we'll, we'll continue to have.”
VCs should invest in exceptional strengths rather than a lack of weaknesses
“When we make an investment, we should always be investing in strength of strengths as opposed to lack of weaknesses.”
Recent a16z portfolio startups would access cheaper capital in public markets
“I can say in our portfolio, the companies that we have invested in over the last year or so, I'm pretty confident that if they were in the public markets, they'd probably have access to capital at a cheaper cost.”
Altman: Mid-sized $700M VC funds face severe structural challenges
“I think it's really challenging to be like a seven hundred million dollar fund. Now I think you're either a really massive, powerful platform like an Andreessen or a GC Or you just have the legacy cachet, like a Sequoia or a Kleiner, or you have to be a boutiq…”
Decagon raised seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz before having an idea
“The seed round we raised before we had any ideas. So we raised from Andreessen Horowitz.”
O'Driscoll: Andreessen Horowitz has invested at least $500M into Databricks
“For that guy, you probably, I'm willing to bet they have the guts of a billion dollars in that deal. Could be wrong. Half a billion at least.”
Ben Horowitz called Databricks his highest-upside portfolio company in 2015
“So I was like looking at Mongo or Square or some of those companies and he was like, yeah, this company called Databricks, it's way earlier stage than anything you're looking at, but it's got the most upside of any company in my whole portfolio.”
Casado: Company diligence is far more reliable than predicting market adoption
“And so, I actually don't believe You can predict the future of technology adoption. It's a very tough thing, right? I mean, you don't know what a big company is going to do, can wipe out an entire market. You don't know what innovation will wipe out entire mar…”
Casado: Andreessen Horowitz Walks Away From Deals Over Ownership, Not Price
“Price? No. Ownership? Yes.”
Akhund: Dedicated fintech funds refused to invest in Mercury's seed round
“Even after Andreessen had come in with a lead check, it was so hard to get any fintech fund to invest alongside them because all fintech funds saw was like all the problems. They were like, this doesn't work for this reason and that reason. And I was like, I r…”
Moore: Investing in competing AI providers is rational if founders agree
“And I think what you're seeing with, say, Andreessen Horowitz is they're trying to invest in every one of these companies. And I think it's a rational strategy so long as you have buy-in from the entrepreneurs so as to not ruin that relationship.”
Andreessen Horowitz passed on Postmates four or five times
“I pitched him four times or five times the entire firm with Postmates. They were smart enough to say no”
Corcos: Most VC Platform Services Fail, but a16z Is the Best
“I think part of the answer is that most firms are not good at it. It's sort of the short answer. I think most firms, they understand when they talk to founders, they say that it's the thing that they want, but they're not very good at delivering on the value. …”
Corcos: Levels Has Extracted Value From Over 110 a16z Operating Partners
“I think our team has extracted value from, I think more than a 110 of the operating partners. From the Andreessen team.”
Andreessen Horowitz Held Zero Board Meetings and Responded in 20 Minutes
“Personally, you know, I worked with Andreessen Arvitz with my previous startup. It was incredible because they never call. They never ask for anything. We didn't even have board meetings. And when I, every time I need something, you know, 20 minutes I get huge…”
Jordan: a16z Advises Portfolio Startups to Delay Fundraising as Long as Possible
“You know, we're today counseling our businesses, try to be try not to need to go to market for as long as you sustainably can without hurting the business.”
Jordan: Instacart Lost $20 to $25 Per Order When a16z Invested
“When I, from recollection, they were billing something like 10 or 12 dollars per order when we invested and they were losing 20, 25 dollars per order on each one.”
Jordan: Incredible Health Had More Cash Pre-Series B Than Post-Series A
“Incredible health went you know, we did the a, they went three years without raising while the business was going very well. And when Iman finally did raise earlier this year. She had more cash in the bank when she raised than she did when after we funded her.”
Lemkin: Andreessen Horowitz Has Generated 3.5x Blended Net Returns Historically
“If you look at the overall numbers for Andreessen, I'm shocked at how wildly successful Andreessen has been across these funds as they've grown. Wildly successful. That their blended returns are like, 3.5 X net after all these years.”