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Chris Dixon

Founder & Managing Partner, a16z crypto · 3 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounderauthor@cdixon ↗LinkedIn ↗cdixon.org ↗Wikipedia ↗

Chris Dixon founded and leads a16z crypto, managing multibillion-dollar dedicated funds and backing notable companies such as Coinbase and Oculus. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz in 2012, he co-founded startups SiteAdvisor and Hunch, and authored the 2024 book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet.

99statements → 40claims → 21claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 3.64/5average certainty → 2.4/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 13said about them ↓

7 supported 5 partly supported 9 contradicted 19 not checkable as stated how the 40 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

9 predictions · 31 assertions · 17 opinions · 32 insights · 9 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 40 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 21 are resolved, and 19 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Chris argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Dixon: Global NFT sales reached $8.6 billion in 2023
“There were 8.6 billion in NFT sales last year.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 32:11 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up
Dixon: Web3 payouts will pass Web2 payouts in next couple years
“I believe we'll see in the next couple of years, web three payouts past web two payouts.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 20:28 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
33% certainty 3
54% certainty 4
0% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Chris Dixon on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Chris Dixon said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Dixon: Internet Platforms Scale via "Come for Tool, Stay for Network"
“That's an old internet strategy that I call come for the tool, stay for the network.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 16:46 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Assertion Supported
Dixon: Global NFT sales reached $8.6 billion in 2023
“There were 8.6 billion in NFT sales last year.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 32:11 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Opinion
Dixon: Policymakers fighting stablecoins hurt US dollar adoption
“It's frustrating that some policymakers are trying to fight against stable coins when it seems pretty clear that, that popularizing the dollar should be in our interest.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 37:33 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Insight
Dixon: NFT Projects Evolve Bottom-Up Like Cities, Not Corporate Theme Parks
“The way I think about these NFT projects is the goal is to evolve them more like cities in a bottom up way. So you create these assets in these communities, and then people build applications around them, and it comes bottom up.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 43:11 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Assertion Contradicted
Dixon: Multi-vertical Silicon Valley VCs made basically no crypto investments in two years
“There's basically no Silicon Valley investment in the last two years from multi vertical VCs.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 57:35 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Insight
Dixon: Chasing consensus hype cycles in venture capital yields average outcomes
“If you just run around like kid soccer, average thesis will lead to average outcomes.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 58:23 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Insight
Dixon: Emerging Tech Startups Need at Least a Four-Year Runway
“I think any area where you're kind of an emerging technology area, you need to run things at that kind of four-year horizon, ideally, pretty minimum, because you're just dependent on the moods and sentiment of the broader world and exogenous factors that you c…”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 59:38 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Opinion
Dixon: Five to ten companies essentially control the internet
“You have five, maybe 10 companies that essentially control the internet. You still have open protocols like the web and email, but they've been diminished in their influence and power.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 9:21 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dixon: Non-crypto VCs see over 50% of founders pitching Web3
“When I talk to friends who aren't even into crypto and web three technology investors, they'll tell me something on the order of 50% or more of the entrepreneurs that come to them are doing web three.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 10:45 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Disclosure
Dixon: a16z recently invested in social networks offering creators 98% payouts
“We've invested in a bunch just recently where instead of the creators getting zero percent, they get 98%.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 13:54 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: Web3 token ownership eliminates heavy customer acquisition spending
“In blockchain web three, there's been very, very few cases of people spending significant money on customer acquisition. One of the exciting things of web three is that the users, because they have tokens, because they have ownership, they become evangelists f…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 15:40 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Opinion
Dixon: Twitter shutting down its developer ecosystem was a mistake
“Twitter decided to shut that down because they decided to pursue an advertising business model, which I think was a mistake, but that's what they did.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 21:35 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Opinion
Dixon: I would leave Twitter if I could take my followers with me
“If I had that same ability on Twitter, I'd switch off of Twitter. I'd switch C. Dixon on Twitter to something else because I don't like how they run that service. They have spam and a bunch of other things, and I'd like to switch and take my followers with me,…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 25:21 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dixon: Compound and on-chain DeFi protocols performed well through market volatility
“And Compound, by the way, contrary to a lot of the news you'll read today, Compound and all of the other on-chain DeFi protocols have performed quite well in this volatile market.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 29:31 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Dixon: Gaming Metaverse Economies Will Provide Livelihoods for Many People
“I think that trend will only increase and there'll be more and more people who earn a living digitally. And I think creating spaceships and EVE online and selling goods and creating worlds and doing all sorts of other creative activities, for example, in a gam…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 35:33 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dixon: Technical Infrastructure for Cross-Game Item Interoperability Exists Today
“I think the programming is there today. NFTs are pretty simple programming standard that's relatively easy to bring from one game to another.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 36:10 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Opinion
Dixon: Hollywood understands Web3 and NFTs while Silicon Valley dismisses them
“People at Google and Facebook, in my experience, just don't get this stuff. Web two entrepreneurs just scratching their heads and they say it's all scams and fraud. They just don't get it. People in Hollywood get it. It's not weird to them. They've been sellin…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 38:30 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Opinion
Dixon: 2022 crypto crash resembles 2008 macro shock, not crypto winters
“To me, this feels more like 2008 than the crypto downturns of 2014 and 18. The macro thing with inflation, interest rates, the next few months will tell maybe the inflation was transitory or maybe it will lead to problems in real estate and credit markets. And…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 45:17 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: Tech scaling laws are economically driven, not physical inevitabilities
“If you look at just generally at the history of technology, people mistakenly think of these things as laws of physics, like Moore's law. People talk about as if magically There's this inevitable march towards being able to pack more transistors on chips. I th…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 47:28 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Contradicted
Dixon: Tech and media are the United States' two main exports
“We basically have two exports in the U S right now. We have tech and media. Just look at the numbers. Those are the two killer products that we have.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 48:59 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: Startups should ride macro trends rather than creating them
“I'd say a very important lesson, and I think one I kind of learned the hard way on my second startup is don't try to create the trends as a startup, try to ride the trends.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 11:36 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Insight
Dixon: Angel investing is 98% about founders and 2% about the idea
“What I've come to believe in retrospect is that early stage angel investing is, you'll often hear that it's 80% about the people or something and 20% about the idea or something like that. I think it's like 98% I've now learned about the people and like two pe…”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 17:25 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Dixon: Payment blockchains will do for payments what WhatsApp did for messaging
“I would sort of say that they'll do for payments. What I think of as WhatsApp did for messaging.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 40:10 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Opinion
Dixon: Crypto is in 2004–2005 phase, years from an iPhone moment
“I think with respect to crypto blockchains, we are pre iPhone moment. Like we haven't had the breakthrough platform yet. I think we're somewhere, if you map it to mobile phones, let's say, I think we're probably 2004, 2005. I hope at least that we're like a ye…”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 43:38 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)

Show 24statements(51 left)

The other half of the tape: Chris Dixon's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 12 times in 11 episodes on Capital Allocators. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Ted Seides 7Sonal Chokshi 1Scott Kupor 1Leigh Drogen 1Joelle Kayden 1Ali Hamed 1

Statements about Chris Dixon, by other people (1)

Opinion
Drogen: Dixon and Wilson build winning crypto tech rather than predict it
“There are a couple of people out there like Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz, Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures that they're making these things. But anybody else, I don't think any of us knows which one is going to win long term.”
Leigh Drogen Jun 2, 2022 ▶ 29:42 Leigh Drogen – Quantamental Approach to Crypto at Starkiller Capital (Manager Meeting, EP.32)

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00438620182019202020212022episodesmentions
03620182019202020212022episodes it came up in
000.831.5620182019202020212022episodesmentions per episode
2022 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2021 7 mentions in 6 episodes 1 per episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (3)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380) Apr 15, 2024 45m
Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05) Jun 27, 2022 41m
Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172) Jan 11, 2021 53m
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