Middle East, every mention
73 scenes · ← back to Middle East
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every year anyone Marc Andreessen 17Chris Schroeder 12Erik Torenberg 7Ben Horowitz 7Alex Pruden 6Sonal Chokshi 4Teresa Carlson 3Brad Feld 3Balaji Srinivasan 3Adam Neumann 3
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Middle East comes up
Why AI Demand Is Outrunning Compute Supply
- ▶ 42:35 Gavin Baker Like, you know, at some point, you'll probably see one somewhere in the Middle East.
Building a Company in Stealth | Travis Kalanick with a16z
- ▶ 34:31 Travis Kalanick Like, go, it goes, you know, you know, I think it's, uh, Kitchen Park in Middle East.
Why Physical AI Is the Next Frontier | The a16z Show
- ▶ 14:53 Qasar Younis So we've figured out over the years, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's, uh, LATAM, how to get into these countries,
Ben Horowitz on the Global Race for Tech, Power, and Influence
- ▶ 18:43 unnamed speaker Um, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Mexico, Canada. 2 times in the scene
Goldman Sachs Chairman on Why Finance Adopts AI Differently | a16z
- ▶ 43:04 Lloyd Blankfein I was in the precious metals business, and it made me have to deal with people from the Mideast who were investors in gold and that.
Palantir CEO on Iran, AI Weapons and American Domination | a16z American Dynamism Summit
Sacks, Andreessen & Horowitz: How America Wins the AI Race Against China
- ▶ 49:30 David Sacks Uh, proliferate or diffuse, um, in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia, and I just think it's a really counterproductive strategy.
- ▶ 1:04:30 David Sacks Our, our friends and allies in the Middle East and other places, then while we certainly will.
Keith Rabois: Israel, OpenAI, Opendoor, and DOGE
- ▶ 0:40 Erik Torenberg Big day for the Middle East. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:39 Keith Rabois I think the natural arc of human history is for there be basically progress, innovation, technology, innovation, actually, in the Middle East driving piece, AI data centers.
- ▶ 3:09 Keith Rabois Uh, if you think about the Middle East, on its way to being solved, he'll get Russia and Ukraine solved, I'm pretty sure.
- ▶ 45:11 Erik Torenberg We were talking about real estate, uh, a real estate expert solved the Middle East. 3 times in the scene
Dylan Patel on the AI Chip Race - NVIDIA, Intel & the US Government vs. China
- ▶ 20:47 Dylan Patel Whether it be, uh, the Middle East or Southeast Asia or South Asia or Europe or LATAM, right?
- ▶ 1:33:48 Dylan Patel The, the Middle East, I can't remember what country it is, has AI education starting at like age like eight, and in high school they have to read Attention is all you need.
Marc Andreessen: The US is in a AI Arms Race & It Decides The World's Future
- ▶ 16:40 Marc Andreessen Um, and would have completely separated us from strategic involvement in the, in, in the Middle East for, for, for energy.
Tech vs. Media: Balaji Srinivasan on the Battle Shaping Our Future
- ▶ 42:04 Balaji Srinivasan It's like basically when countries got blown up in, in, you know, the Middle East, other places, when, when countries go on hard times, that's when fundamentalism returns.
Balaji Srinivasan: How AI Will Change Politics, War, and Money
- ▶ 1:14 Martin Casado We both have that ambiguous kind of Middle Eastern look.
Founders, Media, & Memes: a16z’s Strategy for the Future | a16z LP Summit 2025
- ▶ 9:54 Marc Andreessen You know, war in the Middle East.
Adam Neumann: This is How You Build Iconic Companies
- ▶ 14:42 Marc Andreessen You'd already done Middle Eastern studies by that point. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:07:03 Adam Neumann And I remember you asked me, Ben, hey Adam, do you mind coming with me to the Middle East? 3 times in the scene
Rick Rubin: Vibe Coding is the Punk Rock of Software
- ▶ 47:29 Ben Horowitz Yeah, it was actually a big thing in Trump's Middle East speech where it was such a, 2 times in the scene
Sovereign AI: Why Nations Are Building Their Own Models
- ▶ 0:31 Erik Torenberg Uh, our partner Ben is in the Middle East right now.
Autonomy is no longer a moonshot—it’s a market
- ▶ 36:59 Jason Brown Um, look at the Middle East.
Can the Military Move at Startup Speed? How the Army and Navy Are Rebuilding
- ▶ 18:33 Alex Miller So that's what we've been doing with some of our brigades that have been in Europe and in the Pacific and, and frankly, going in and out of the Middle East still.
AI Is Becoming a Regional Race
- ▶ 7:16 Anjney Midha So if you are in the Middle East, um, you may not have massive data centers yet, but what you do have is vast, vast reserves of, of oil.
Las Vegas is Becoming the SAFEST City in America
- ▶ 37:16 Marc Andreessen So one is when, when most people, I think, think of drones, they think of like the predator drones flying overhead in the Middle East or something like that.
AI, Robotics & the New Global Arms Race
- ▶ 18:55 Ben Horowitz By the way, when you go to other countries, like, everybody is driving, like in Mexico, you know, it's just been all around the world, in Mexico, in the Middle East, and so forth.
Trump Vs. Biden: Tech Policy
- ▶ 11:41 Ben Horowitz We've got war in the Middle East.
- ▶ 41:19 Marc Andreessen And then it's also obvious that it's going to have, um, you know, big implications for what's happening in the Middle East, um, and, and, and everywhere, and everywhere else.
Marc Andreessen & Andrew Chen Talk Creative Computers
- ▶ 15:20 Marc Andreessen So, number one, to be able to pull completely out of the Middle East, like, no more of that.
Politics & the Future of Tech
- ▶ 17:49 Marc Andreessen At the time, were viewed as the catalyst for the Arab Spring, which was going to, of course, bring a flowering of democracy to the Middle East.
- ▶ 1:23:33 Ben Horowitz And if you look at the kind of history of, you know, a country like Saudi Arabia, they're coming from a world of fundamentalism and, you know, a kind of set of values that they're, you know, they're trying to modernize, they, you know, and…
- ▶ 1:40:23 Ben Horowitz You know, around the world, um, you know, the, the Middle East is very, very kind of subject and kind of on board with techno-optimism, um, the UAE, uh, Saudi, Israel, of course, um, you know, many, many countries out there are very…
The China Threat: Silicon Valley and the Great Uncoupling
- ▶ 2:18 Congressman Mike Gallagher It will look the current, it will make the current crises in the Middle East and Ukraine look like child's play in comparison.
Tony Robbins on the Future of Health & Longevity
- ▶ 37:08 Tony Robbins I'm like, I, I hate what's happening on both sides of the Middle East when innocent people are injured.
Advancing AI, Approaching VC's & Crypto Scandals: Ask Us Anything!
- ▶ 1:00:30 Ben Horowitz Um, and then the final techno optimist question for us, uh, how do you assess the future economic and technological growth potential in the Middle East, particularly in light of initiatives such as the line in Saudi Arabia, urban…
Why It's Time to Be A Techno-Optimist
- ▶ 55:22 Marc Andreessen One is he declared something called Project Independence, where he said we were, we the U.S. would build a thousand new nuclear fission power plants by 1980, become completely energy sufficient, be able to withdraw completely from the…
Oppenheimer & the Catastrophe of Communism
- ▶ 1:30:27 Marc Andreessen By the way, also the U.S. would not have had to be involved in the Middle East, right?
Global Investing in Tech: Pattern Recognition, Founder Traits, Momentum | Field Notes by Connie Chan
- ▶ 2:06 Chris Schroeder So I spent a lot of time and have invested in, of course, the Middle East, uh, Southeast Asia, Latin America, a little bit in Africa.
- ▶ 4:26 Chris Schroeder And I can remember a few years ago when they were doing quite well in the Middle East, 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 11:55 Chris Schroeder I saw companies from Africa, from the Middle East and Southeast Asia that started, you know, day one going to London and started going to
- ▶ 14:57 Chris Schroeder Well, you know, in, in, in the Middle East and, and South Asia, even I would argue, you've got many effects.
The Network State with Balaji Srinivasan
- ▶ 2:42:19 Balaji Srinivasan And, uh, you know, this is actually, you know, the Sykes-Picot lines in the Middle East? 2 times in the scene
NFTs and the Creator Economy
- ▶ 2:54 Kayvon Turanian You have bidders from London to the Middle East participating in the auction, um, and every single interaction is public, transparent, and viewable on the blockchain.
Blockchain in War Zones
- ▶ 1:05 Alex Pruden About how I learned over the course of my three deployments to the Middle East, that this is a technological innovation that can help address some of the underlying economic issues that often lead to war and conflict.
- ▶ 2:19 Alex Pruden Ah, about a year later, I find myself in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and it was notable not only for its physical beauty, but for the abject poverty under which the people there lived.
- ▶ 5:15 Alex Pruden So shortly after my graduation from, ah, my training, I ended up back in the Middle East, this time in Iraq, and we were sent there because in 2014, the terrorist group known as ISIS had just emerged from the shadows, ah, sweeping through…
- ▶ 7:42 Alex Pruden So because of that experience, my team was then sent to another Middle Eastern flashpoint, ah, this time southern Turkey, where we were training, ah, Syrian rebels. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 15:02 Alex Pruden And this applies to a far greater range of countries than just places in the war-torn Middle East.
a16z Podcast | The Science and Business of Innovative Medicines
- ▶ 48:05 Vas Narasimhan So we're building up these biome centers in San Francisco and in London, other locations in the Middle East, perhaps in China, just trying to say, we're not going to constrain ourselves with our current locations.
a16z Podcast | Market Shifts
- ▶ 18:49 Adina Friedman But this little tech business was in Asia, was in the Middle East, was in Africa.
a16z Podcast | Centers of Power, War, and History
- ▶ 8:48 Graham Allison And the pivot is really an argument about whether we put more weight on our left foot in the Middle East, where we're fighting wars, and ISIS, or on our right foot in Asia, where the future is.
a16z Podcast | For Your Ears Only
- ▶ 28:40 Matt Spence The most valuable hour of my day when I was heading up Middle East Policy at the Defense Department was not reading the
a16z Podcast | Mobility and the Global Refugee Crisis
- ▶ 0:07 Sonal Chokshi The conversation is co-hosted by A-Six and Z policy team partner, Matt Spence, who was previously deputy assistant secretary of defense at the Middle East.
- ▶ 20:51 Matt Spence I mean, one of the things that, that just struck for me and made it personal is, is, you know, when I would go to the Middle East and I went there 30 times in, in three years, and I was talking to a senior Jordanian official and he said,…
a16z Podcast | What's Next for Technology and National Security?
- ▶ 29:27 unnamed speaker I presume one of those parts of the world is the Middle East, where America is not seen as a source of source of strength. 4 times in the scene
a16z Podcast | Politics Over Pragmatism -- On China, Trump, and Smart Guns?
- ▶ 0:27 Evan Osnos Yeah, I worked in the Middle East for a couple of years in Iraq, but really, actually, China was always my focus.
a16z Podcast | The Cloud and The Public Sector
- ▶ 10:55 Teresa Carlson It's in Europe and the Middle East. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 12:39 Sonal Chokshi In other countries though, like the Middle East, besides like 2 times in the scene
a16z Podcast | Connectivity and the Internet as Supply Chain
- ▶ 1:53 Parag Khanna Even the Ottomans had railways that spanned across the Middle East.
a16z Podcast | How Innovation Ecosystems Grow Around the Globe
- ▶ 1:07 unnamed speaker He wrote the book Startup Rising last year, which was one of the first books to document the phenomenon of startups in the Middle East, and more recently he's written about the impact of software-eating the world and how that's been…
- ▶ 12:56 Chris Schroeder I, I had the, the, the man who was the founder, effectively, of the Yahoo of the Middle East, who was a company called Maktoub, which Yahoo, in fact, bought for a 160 or a 170, seventy million dollars about five years ago. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 27:34 Chris Schroeder In the Middle East, I can tell you that the American great social networks are dominant forces there, but there's a reason why Soot.com is worth what it's worth. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 30:36 Brad Feld There's, you know, getting the product, like your example earlier, the best way to ship something from somebody in one country in the Middle East to another country in the Middle East is through New York. 3 times in the scene
a16z Podcast | Is Entrepreneurship a Universal Language?
- ▶ 0:19 Sonal Chokshi We're here also with Christopher Schroeder, who wrote a really interesting book last year called Startup Rising, and has been documenting and facilitating the phenomenon that's happening right now in the Middle East, and particularly in…
- ▶ 3:44 Mohsen Malayeri And, and I, and I could emphasize that at the same time, the same was happening in the middle of this, uh, in the whole region, perhaps. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 9:54 Chris Schroeder I had a wonderful entrepreneur, uh, who built what was effectively the Yahoo of the Middle East called Mach two, which got bought by Yahoo for almost two hundred million dollars.
a16z Podcast | Layering Tech and Culture in Iran
- ▶ 1:01 Chris Schroeder Of the Middle East.
a16z Podcast | Security's Painful Prominence and Why There is No Turning Back
- ▶ 32:18 Marc Andreessen Um, a good friend of mine, Chris Schroeder, who used to work in the State Department and then ran a big internet company, um, spent two years in the Middle East, and he has, he's highly networked in the, throughout Egypt and Syria and… 3 times in the scene
a16z Podcast | Security’s Wakeup Call
a16z Podcast | Startups as Science Experiments -- Can VC Disrupt Academia?
- ▶ 18:35 Marc Andreessen Um, so he's a former internet CEO and State Department official who traveled around the Middle East for a year and a half and has friends in all these countries, you know, Jordan and Egypt and all throughout the, Syria and all throughout… 2 times in the scene
a16z Podcast | Ben and Marc Explain (Practically) Everything – Part 1
- ▶ 24:13 Marc Andreessen The most vivid example is a good friend of mine, Chris Schroeder, wrote an entire book over the last three years called Startups Rising, which is a story of high-tech entrepreneurship in the Middle East, and he basically traveled all…