Jan 2, 2019 · 28m · a16z
a16z Podcast | Investing in (Business and Career) Change
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this Breakline Education Q&A session hosted by Andreessen Horowitz, Don Faul interviews Marc Andreessen on the dynamics of software innovation, career transitions for military veterans, founder evaluation, and continuous learning. Marc contrasts venture capital with traditional investing while offering practical advice on startup stages, leadership mindsets, organizational culture, and personal intellectual routines.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 2.3 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 1.0 The host pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:15 Challenging the premise on tech risk
Marc reframes the audience member's concern over autonomous car risks by contrasting 1.25 million annual human driver fatalities against terrorism, arguing existing norms are far more dangerous than disruptive tech.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 1:04 Warren Buffett contrast promptDon opens the conversation by invoking Warren Buffett's famous refusal to invest in tech, pushing Marc to justify why software investment dynamics fundamentally break traditional value investing rules.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:20 History of carried interestMarc educates the room by tracing the financial structure of modern venture capital carried interest back to 12th-century whalers who retained 20 percent of a whale's yield.
The host holds their own ▶ 9:45 Referencing personal operational experienceDon establishes his credibility and expertise by citing his personal career trajectory through Google, Facebook, and Pinterest when asking Marc how to evaluate startup founders.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investing in Change vs. Stability | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Don opens by framing software's uniqueness through Warren Buffett's refusal to invest in technology. Marc explains that while Buffett invests in stability, VCs invest in disruption, using encyclopedias and IBM as prime examples. | |
| Tech Leadership and Inventing the Future | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Don asks how tech leadership differs from traditional business management. Marc contrasts business school management of stable firms with tech leadership, where leaders must continuously invent the future rather than perform standard turnarounds. | |
| Choosing the Right Startup Stage for Career Transitions | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Don prompts Marc for advice for military veterans choosing between early-stage startups and established tech giants. Marc outlines the trade-offs between scale and speed, highlighting mid-stage, high-growth companies as the sweet spot. | |
| Essential Founder Traits: Courage and Curiosity | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Don draws on his own tenure at major tech companies to ask how to evaluate startup founders. Marc explains that successful founders defy demographic stereotypes, citing courage under rejection and deep curiosity as core traits. | |
| Common Pitfalls of First-Time and Serial Founders | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | Don inquires about common mistakes made by portfolio entrepreneurs. Marc delineates the traps of first-time founders who try to reinvent basic business operations from first principles versus serial founders who lack creative art. | |
| Approaching Career Transitions and Going Back to Kindergarten | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Don asks about key characteristics for successful career transitions. Marc relays Jeff Bezos's concept of 'going back to kindergarten' to describe the necessary humility, reading habits, and curiosity required when switching fields. | |
| Cross-Disciplinary Learning and the History of Carried Interest | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Don shares an anecdote about Ben Silbermann's voracious reading habits, prompting Marc to discuss cross-disciplinary learning. Marc illustrates this by explaining how carried interest originated with 12th-century whaling crews. | |
| Q&A: Ethical Decision-Making and Disruptive Technologies | 1 | 5 | 2 | 0 | An audience member asks how venture capitalists handle technologies that challenge ethical and legal norms. Marc challenges the premise by comparing car fatality statistics to terrorism and recounting historical opposition to automobiles. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Andreessen: a16z deliberately adopts the exact opposite of Warren Buffett's investment strategy
“He's kind of somebody that, his philosophy is somebody that a lot of people index against, and we kind of index against it by trying to do the exact opposite.”
Andreessen: a16z aims to back startups that disrupt IBM's enterprise dominance
“And I view our company's challenge and opportunity is to prove that untrue.”
Andreessen: Business schools primarily teach how to manage stable businesses
“And predominantly what's taught in business school is how to run a stable business, right?”
Andreessen: Operating tech companies as stable businesses is disastrous
“And that tech companies, when they run that way, it's generally disastrous.”
Andreessen: Tech leaders fix crises with new breakthrough products, not corporate turnarounds
“So Jeff Bezos never does a turnaround at Amazon. Mark Zuckerberg never does a turnaround at Facebook. If the company gets in trouble, the answer is, what's the next big new breakthrough product?”
Andreessen: A startup's main advantage over big companies is speed
“At best, the thing that a startup can do that a big company can't is they can just be fast.”
Andreessen: Mid-stage high-growth startups offer the optimal career sweet spot
“With your backgrounds, I would encourage a lot of you to kind of think in those terms, because the advantage of that is you don't have to take the raw startup risk that it may not pan out at all, but you also don't have to be employee number 147,638.”
Andreessen: Dave Duffield founded Workday at age 68 as seventh startup
“That was founded by a famous legendary Valley entrepreneur named Dave Duffield, who had just turned 68, and it was his seventh startup, and has gone on to become a giant success”
Andreessen: a16z rejects founders who quickly evaluate multiple startup ideas
“One of the ways to convince us not to fund a startup is for people to come in and basically say, I wanted to start a company, and I had 14 ideas, and I think this is the best idea, and then I did two months of work on it, and I'm ready to go. And like, we'd ra…”
Andreessen: Startups must build scale to overcome busy, entrenched customers
“What the startup founders don't understand is how big the world is and how busy people are and all the existing investments people have made and all the existing time people are spending on things, you know, so in a world of seven billion people, if you really…”
Andreessen: Technical expertise does not translate to knowing how to run companies
“They'll be like, well, the customers shouldn't need to be sold to, because they should just buy the best product, and then you have this long explanation as to why that doesn't happen, and so we try to say, you know, you don't, just because you're like a maste…”
Andreessen: Serial founders often prioritize starting a company over finding a great idea
“The struggle on the other side, the serial entrepreneur, what often happens is it becomes basically all science, no art. Often the desire to start another company kind of overwhelms the process of coming up with a really great idea.”
Andreessen: Jeff Bezos was an early investor in Andreessen Horowitz
“We actually went and pitched one of our early investors, Jeff Bezos, and he actually asked us, do you guys really want to go back to kindergarten?”
Andreessen: a16z borrowed its operating model from talent agencies and advertising
“Like a lot of the ideas we have in our firm, we borrowed from other industries, and so we pulled ideas over from what had happened in the entertainment talent agency business, or in the advertising industry, or in other kinds of investment.”
Andreessen: Carried Interest Originated With 12th-Century Whalers
“And it actually turns out the origin of the term carried interest actually is from whalers in the 12th century is where it first originated.”
Andreessen: Silicon Valley Struggles With Organizational Culture Just Like Traditional Companies
“I don't think the Valley has it figured out. I think it's very spotty, and I think it's because it's just, it's all people issues, and I think, frankly, it's all the same people issues you see in any organization, and I think our companies probably struggle wi…”
Andreessen: a16z partners can approve investments even if everyone else objects
“One of the things we have in our firm is we have an ethical veto. And so the way our firm works is we actually don't need unanimity. We don't vote on investments. The person sponsoring the investment can pull the trigger, even if everybody else is opposed to t…”
Andreessen: Self-driving cars will reduce traffic fatalities close to zero
“If the self-driving car works the way that it does, you could take that number very close to zero. Self-driving cars really should never get into accidents, because they just know so much more about what's happening around them, and by the way, they don't get …”
Andreessen: Uber and Lyft are crystal clear safer alternatives to traditional taxis
“We think it's crystal clear that Uber and Lyft are going to be a much safer way to do transportation. Than taxis, which have All kinds of historical issues that we just got used to.”
Andreessen: Academic research papers are underexploited sources of knowledge
“Research papers I tend to find are underexploited, because there's a lot, you know, for interesting topics, there tends to be a lot of academic research that's actually been done that, that historically people just haven't had access to, but now it's all on th…”