a16z Podcast

What is A.I. or artificial intelligence but the 'space of possible minds', argues Murray Shanahan, scientific advisor on the movie Ex Machina and Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College L…

Blockchain without bitcoin? It's a debate as old as the cryptocurrency itself (which, to be honest, isn't that old). Given that bitcoin is not just a digital bearer instrument/token but is a network,…

What began as a scientific approach to creating and managing startups has now become a worldwide movement for companies of all sizes -- and for creating (or rather rediscovering) entrepreneurs in all…

There's a "game" being played right now among lawmakers and tech companies around policy issues, and as tech touches everything, everyone has to play some version of it. Even if the game keeps changi…

Telepresence. It's an ugly, outdated word for an attractive and current/ emerging phenomenon where people can work from anywhere, anytime. It's technology for the way we work today.

But is it as easy…

"The most boring yet valuable podcast in a16z history" -- he (our guest Joe Grundfest) said it, not we!

That’s because in this episode of the a16z Podcast, Stanford law professor and former SEC commi…

It's easy to argue for "choosing possibility" when it comes to addressing diversity and inclusion in tech when certain people have access to networks and others don't. BoardList -- more of a talent m…

Disruption is such an overused buzzword. But the word itself does have meaning: As defined by the Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries, it is a "disturbance...that interrupts an event, activity, o…

Technology is a progression of new ideas and new platforms gobbling up the one that came before. In the world of computers we went from mainframes to mini computers to PCs. And then came the mobile p…

This special episode of the a16z Podcast is based on a Q&A from an early screening we hosted of OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network)'s "Belief", which just premiered and airs over seven consecutive nights. Th…

We just witnessed the largest acquisition in tech history, and before Dell made it happen, it would have been hard to imagine. Not so much that the two companies would come together, but that the muc…

The place where Apache Spark was born, UC Berkeley’s AMPLab has not just created a major open source software platform, it’s spun out more than its share of ground-breaking companies (full disclosure…

Getting denied another round of NSF funding in the early days of Mosaic turned out to be a huge catalyst to start a company around the fledgling web browser, says Marc Andreessen. That company was Ne…

There is a stream of the world's largest companies coming to Silicon Valley looking for innovation. But how do they find it, and then, how do they bring it back home? a16z's Elizabeth Weil joins this…

Mention Patrick Byrne, the founder and CEO of Overstock.com, and you’ll elicit a strong opinion. In 2004, one hedge fund manager labeled Byrne the most hated man on Wall Street -- a label he wears pr…

Podcasts and podcasting have been around a while, but seem to be going through a renaissance of sorts -- partly enabled by connected cars and other technologies. But how do we discover podcasts; is t…

Financial services are overdue for an overhaul. With a16z's newest general partner, Alex Rampell (who just officially started), this segment of the podcast explores the world of fintech... How softwa…

Apple included support for ad blocking in its recent iOS 9 update, and for many that prompted discussions around an age-old question: Is traditional advertising a viable business model for content --…

There is increasing interest among companies -- small and large -- in putting together technical advisory boards. It sounds pretty straightforward: get some senior technical experts to help with the …

The internet as it has evolved in the United States is perhaps the best example of “permissionless innovation” -- the idea that you can innovate without first waiting for permission or clearance. And…