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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 →

Disclosure
Dixon: Most a16z crypto portfolio companies are domiciled in the US
“Most of our companies are domiciled in the United States. We always recommend that.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 48:37 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Contradicted
Dixon: a16z invested in all 15 Coinbase funding rounds pre-IPO
“So Coinbase, as an example, I was on the board and we invested in but they did 15 rounds of financing before they went public and we invested in every single one of them.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 49:44 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: a16z expects founder perseverance, not guaranteed success
“We don't expect them to win or be successful, but we expect them to try really hard. A pet peeve would be entrepreneurs who just don't keep that covenant. Hey, I'm going to quit my startup and go take this cushy job. When we invest, that's kind of the only thi…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 50:04 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: True tech community is grassroots peer affinity, matching early PC culture
“To me, a community is not when you look up to a leader like Steve Jobs. It's when you bump into somebody at a bar, and they're interested in that topic, and you actually feel an affinity. And that's how the PC felt back then, and that's how crypto feels today.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 51:29 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Disclosure
Dixon: Only one or two other firms would have backed Oculus then
“I led our investment in Oculus, which was a large check and a hardware company and one or two other firms on earth at the time. Would have both the financial resources and the will to do that kind of investing.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 53:07 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: People with tech skills dramatically overestimate startup risk
“Generally people who might be listening to this, who are interested in technology, if you have tech skills and you're in this world, they dramatically overestimate the risk of starting a company.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 53:35 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: The majority of startups face founder tension and issues
“And I've now seen enough startups to tell you that in certainly the majority of cases, there's a founder issue. It's a very, very stressful experience starting a company and almost inevitably at some point there's tension between the founders and it can arise …”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 11:05 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Insight
Dixon: Persistence is one of the strongest predictors of startup success
“One of the best predictors of startup success. It'd be great if you knew it ahead of time. It's very hard to know ahead of time, but one of the highest correlates or something is persistence.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 20:04 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Insight
Dixon: New major computing platforms emerge in cycles every 10 to 15 years
“If you look at the last, I guess, 70 years of computing, going back to, you know, World War II and the advent of modern computers, there's been these waves every 10 to 15 years of new computers. So mainframes, mini computers, PCs, the internet, mobile phones, …”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 23:01 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Assertion Supported
Dixon: Microsoft did not miss mobile phones and had good devices in the 2000s
“People say windows, Microsoft missed mobile phones. They didn't miss mobile phones at all. They had mobile phones in the late nineties. They had very good ones in the early 2000.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 27:14 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dixon: At least 95% of global software is open source
“95% of the software in the world, if not more, is open source software.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 29:12 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dixon: Roughly 10% of top computer science talent is building blockchain apps
“And if you just sort of head count the very smart people that come to us that are in Silicon Valley, that are coming out of top computer science programs, et cetera, Something on the order of 10% of them I would say are building blockchain applications.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 48:12 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Insight
Dixon: Media consumption should be treated like a diet with books as protein
“I have this idea unpublished blog posts. I call media keto. The idea is think of media consumption, kind of like you do with food. And I think of social networks, like reading Twitter and things as like sugar. Reading the news, I consider sugar. I don't read t…”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 1:00:32 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Insight
Dixon: Breakthrough ideas come from side hobbies, not structured productive work
“I think a lot of very important things come from those side interests and hobbies. And a lot of what we kind of consider productive work is important, but oftentimes can fall prey to short-termism, I guess. And kind of group think and other things.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 1:02:23 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Insight
Dixon: Investors mistakenly impute logic onto noisy, random market moves
“Imputing logic onto things that are probably noisy and random. My impression of a lot of investing is everything from, if you could watch CNBC and they say the market moved today because of X, Y, and Z, and in fact, it was probably moved because whatever some …”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 1:05:46 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dixon: Coinbase Maintained a Four-Year Cash Runway Early On
“Coinbase did this well early on. They always ran things at a four-year runway, and if you look at it, that was very, very smart.”
Chris Dixon Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 59:25 Chris Dixon - Empty Rooms: Web3 After the Fall (EP.380)
Disclosure
Dixon: a16z Crypto funds have 10 to 15-year lifecycles
“Our funds are 10 to 15 year funds.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 16:50 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: Composability is the compound interest of software development
“I like to say composability is the software as compounding interest is the finance. It has that same amazing thing. When you do compounded interest, you're like, whoa, that really matters a lot. This is obviously well known to your listeners, but in software, …”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 28:41 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Supported
Dixon: Uniswap surpassed $1 trillion in trading volume
“Uniswap, which is what's called a decentralized exchange, just passed a trillion dollars in trading volume”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 30:34 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Disclosure
Dixon: a16z Has Invested in Roughly 15 Top Game Studios
“We've probably made 15 investments in what I would call world-class game developers.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 34:19 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Insight
Dixon: Surviving startup troughs requires grit and cross-disciplinary knowledge
“You get through that trough, you have to have two characteristics. You have to really just be all in. You have to have grit and you have to be willing to put up with that and be kind of miserable and all your friends say, what are you doing and why are you was…”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 44:11 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Partly supported
Dixon: a16z backed Dapper Labs across six rounds before Top Shot
“Dapper Labs is a company that makes this popular product called Top Shot. But before Top Shot, they did, I think it was six rounds of financing and invested in all of them.”
Chris Dixon Jun 27, 2022 ▶ 49:51 Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
Assertion Contradicted
Dixon: Symantec was the world's largest subscription business around 2007
“I think at the time, Symantec was the biggest subscription business in the world. Like, it had a hundred and something million subscribers, which back then was The record.”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 15:08 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)
Insight
Dixon: Computing platforms compound exponentially via an app-platform feedback flywheel
“Computers specifically have this feedback loop. When they hit this golden period of product market fit, they have this flywheel where the applications Get rapidly better. And that in turn creates economics incentives for the platform to get better, which in tu…”
Chris Dixon Jan 11, 2021 ▶ 25:58 Chris Dixon – The Future of Blockchain at a16z (Capital Allocators, EP.172)

Show 3statements(3 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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