Andreessen Horowitz GP Chris Dixon tells Shane Parrish that virtual reality represents the next definitive wave in the history of computing.
Disclosure
Dixon: a16z funds operating teams with management fees rather than partner salaries
“The traditional structure is basically that VC funds charge fees and then most of those fees go to the partner salaries. We don't, instead we put our fees towards these operating teams. So for our competitors to copy us, they'd have to kind of dramatically cha…”
Assertion Supported
Dixon: Top-performing VC firms have higher loss rates than lesser firms
“There's a lot of data in the VC industry that actually, interestingly enough, the best firms actually have a higher loss rate, meaning they lose money more frequently than the less.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Dixon: By 2025 remote conversations will probably occur in VR
“I think, you know, in 10 years, we'd be probably having this conversation in virtual reality, and we'd be, you know, looking at each other across the room, and it would feel like we're in the same room.”
Insight
Dixon: Basic highway autonomous driving is easy; edge cases are the challenge
“So like self-driving cars are another good example where if somebody tells you, oh, I saw a self-driving car, and it was able to drive on the highway during daylight, that's actually not very impressive, and that's actually something that almost anyone can bui…”
Assertion Contradicted
Dixon: a16z employs over 100 non-investor operational staff
“We have over a hundred employees who are not investors at our firm, whose sole job it is to help companies do things like recruit employees you know build their, you know, their customers base.”
Assertion Supported
Dixon: Traditional public mutual funds are driving late-stage private venture rounds
“It's actually what you, what is happening is firms that are, that historically had been public investors. So for example, Fidelity T. Rowe Price, like a whole Wellington, all of these kind of well-known public market investors. Have now moved to invest in priv…”