Tech

Ideas & References

a16z

ToListen 15 – 12/01/2014

Podcasts from Andressen Horowitz on a variety of interesting topics.

a16z Podcasts

A segment of my 3 hour set that was recorded live during the 2013 Ostgut Ton resident's night at Berghain.

Ben Klock - Berghain 10th Aug 2013

What do venture capitalists actually do all day? And what is the path that leads to a career investing in startups? Hummer Winblad’s Ann Winblad, Cowboy Ventures' Aileen Lee, Aspect Ventures' Theresia Gouw, Intel Capital veteran and UPWARD founder Lisa Lambert, and Andreessen Horowitz’s Margit Wennmachers discuss VC trends, the importance of technical chops, and how to build the next generation of entrepreneurs and investors. And finally, in front of an appreciative crowd attending the UPWARD event at a16z, Ann Winblad reveals the secret to truly kicking ass.

a16z Podcast: Demystifying Venture Capital

Morris Chang, founding chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, reflects on his journey of bringing revolutionary changes to his industry, in conversation with Stanford President John Hennessy. Chang also touches on discovering new business models, his thoughts on leadership, and the importance of gratitude in one's career.

Morris Chang - An Emphasis on Excellence

Phantom Vibrate - The Remixes OUT NOW 

iTunes → smarturl.it/JGb-iTunes
Bleep  → smarturl.it/JGb-bleep 

No Excuse (Yung Gud Mix)
from Phantom Vibrate Remixes EP
Release Date May 30th 2014 | Catalogue Number: LM021B

1 No Excuse (Fort Romeau Mix)
2 No Excuse (Yung Gud Mix)
3 No Excuse (Kit Grill Mix)
4 Night Tracking (Area Forty One Mix)

© LuckyMe Records 2014


Phantom Vibrate Remixes

iTunes

No Excuse (Yung Gud ☹ Remix)

Managing enterprise networks with thousands of users and endpoints has been hard enough. Now that large enterprise networks routinely include hundreds of thousands of nodes it’s amazingly difficult and time-consuming (we’re talking days often)  to get definitive answers to seemingly simple questions like, how many PCs do I have running? Never mind, how many PCs do I have that could be at risk of the Heartbleed virus? Tanium, the most recent company to join the a16z portfolio, offers a systems management and security tool that allows administrators to ask virtually any question about the configuration, performance, and complexion of an enterprise network and get an answer in seconds. Tanium CTO and Co-founder Orion Hindawi and a16z Board Partner Steven Sinofsky discuss the origins of Tanium; the invention of  the “linear peer-to-peer communications” architecture that turbo-charges the Tanium solution; and with Internet of Things coming online fast, the prospect of networks quickly going to millions and billions of nodes. 

a16z Podcast: When Large Scale Gets Really Massive -- Managing Today’s Enterprise Networks

Have we as a culture become expert at globalizing industries, but are we failing when it comes to truly world-changing technological breakthroughs? Is competition bad for business?  Should you bother with creating the “nth” social network (the answer is no)? Chris Dixon and Blake Masters dig into these themes, plus “power laws” and the importance of secrets from Peter Thiel's new book with Masters, “Zero to One.”  Dixon tries to pry a secret from Masters, but they aren’t called “secrets” for nothing.

a16z Podcast: Secrets, Power Laws, and Technology – The Ideas of  “Zero to One”

Nir Eyal and Product Hunt's Ryan Hoover, the authors of "Hooked, How to Build Habit-Forming Products," discuss the theory and practice of the book as the publish date of a new edition approaches. Nir lays out the four steps integral to any habit-forming product -- trigger, action, reward, investment -- and Ryan describes how those same steps apply to the fast-growing Product Hunt.

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The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
 
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/.

Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

a16z Podcast: Trigger, Action, Reward, Investment -- Four Steps for Habit-Forming Products

Software, and the billions of transistors that power it, has brought about massive change to all kinds of industries, but none more so than the news business. Today, distribution doesn’t come from the back of trucks, but from Facebook, Twitter and all across the social web. Relationships with readers and viewers have become a two-way conversation. It’s not news that the traditional business model of news has come under extreme pressure, but there is growing evidence that the reach of media outlets -- and in many ways the opportunity -- has never been greater. In today’s unending news cycle, the latest story, video or graphic is only a tap away from a potential audience of billions around the world. Andreessen Horowitz’s Margit Wennmachers leads a conversation about the road ahead for good journalism and the business of news with Claire Cain Miller from the New York Times, Alexis Madrigal from The Atlantic, and CNET’s Connie Guglielmo.

a16z Podcast: Reinventing Media

The modern, average 12-year-old Madden NFL videogame player has actually visualized more plays than ‪any past real-life NFL Hall-of-Famer. And now, for the first time, we're seeing those videogame tactics show up on the field too. There's a "technological and analytical arms race" going on in sports, and it's producing the world's best athletes in history.

How are they working smarter, using science and technology to enhance the way they train and perform, when it's not enough to put in 10,000 hours? How should athletes sleep? (Note: you can try this at home, too). And what does “performance by the aggregation of marginal gains” have to do with winning? 

Author of the new book Faster, Higher, Stronger Wired's Mark McClusky -- interviewed by a16z General Partner (and enthusiastic basketball player) Jeff Jordan -- bridge the worlds of "jocks" and "nerds" in this wide-ranging conversation about sports, performance technology, nature vs. nurture, and the tricky nuances of why some enhancement technologies are legal vs. illegal or better vs. worse than others.

a16z Podcast: Sports, Tech, and What We Can All Learn from the Latest Performance Science

What happens when the importance of access to things trumps the value of owning those same things? The end of ownership. From computer hardware, to houses, trucks, cars, and more, the notion of ownership is changing as software enables the matching of people and organizations that have things and those that need them. Joining a16z’s Balaji Srinivasan to pick apart this trend are Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder and chief product officer; John Stanfield co-founder and CEO of Local Motion; and Ben Uretsky, co-founder and CEO of DigitalOcean.

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The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
 
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/.

Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

a16z Podcast: The End of Ownership

My Nu Leng live from our 5th Birthday in London!

Get tickets for UKF NYE: http://nye.ukf.com/

On November 10 2014 UKF history was made... Our fifth birthday, it was our first London event in almost two years and it went beyond all expectations as 15 of the most exciting names in electronic music tore great holes in Building Six's two dancefloors. We recorded some of these sets to relive those moments and they sound incredible. Whether you came down to London and partied with us or not, these need checking out... They're represent everything we're loving about new electronic music right now. Enjoy!

My Nu Leng  @ UKF 5th Birthday at Building Six

Tracklist: http://www.factmag.com/2014/12/01/fact-mix-473-mr-mitch/

Mr. Mitch loves drama.

Not in person, of course: the Gobstopper Records founder and part of the quartet behind crucial grime night Boxed is pretty soft-spoken, with the odd tweet about Appletons Rum about as outrageous as he gets. But musically, he's full of the stuff, and his debut album Parallel Memories, released today on Planet Mu, is spectacular in its sadness.

For all the talk of a grime resurgence this last 18 months, to tie Mitch in with a revival sells him short. His Gobstopper label was an outpost for high-quality grime records (Deset, Moony) in the so-called doldrums of 2009-2011, and Bloom's 'Quartz', released on the label in 2012, was a crucial reference point for the dismantled grime of producers like Rabit and Mumdance.

As grime has regained its traction, Mitch has continued to look left as others look right, creating quiet anthems with his 'Peace Dubs' - a series of melancholic edits made in reaction to last Summer's war dubs. With Parallel Memories, he develops this style across 12 mournful originals, reflecting - sometimes wordlessly, sometimes with memorable vocal samples - on love and loss. Writing in FACT today, Angus Finlayson calls Parallel Memories' tracks "artful, delicate things, rarely saying more or less than they need to."

DJing, Mitch is more than capable of killing a club - see his appearances on Boxed's Rinse show, or his segment of the Boxed Boiler Room for proof - but his FACT mix runs in parallel (ahem) with his album, tapping contemporary producers (Rabit, Strict Face, Tom E Vercetti) and classic grime (Mizz Beats' 'Saw It Coming' instrumental, Ruff Sqwad's Rapid, and a Cashmere Cat and Ariana Grande collaboration that's effectively a 'Ghetto Kyote' tribute piece) for some of their saddest moments.


FACT Mix 473 - Mr. Mitch (Dec '14)

The security landscape is changing. Can companies fight back against an increasingly well-armed and sophisticated set of bad players? “I think it is the beginning of a wakeup call,” former deputy secretary of defense Ashton Carter says. “That said, I think there are a lot of people at the top that don’t know what to do.” Carter (who is is expected to be formally nominated as the next Secretary of Defense) joins a16z board partner John Jack and Yahoo security chief Alex Stamos for a wide-ranging discussion about the state of security. 

a16z Podcast: Security’s Wakeup Call

VCs wouldn't fund Salesforce ("that obviously won't work") when Marc Benioff began. With the cloud a growing part of practically every company, government, organization, and people's lives, a lot's changed since 1999.  But what's next? Do enterprise CEOs get (mobile) religion? [Answer: not yet. Benioff thinks there's a ton of opportunity ahead there.] What's happening with international growth, when countries want their own clouds and 90% of enterprise software is bought in just 7 countries?

a16z Podcast: Where the Growth in Cloud and Enterprise Software Really Is (with Marc Benioff)

Storage as a set of technologies in the datacenter has a conservative reputation when it comes to innovation. Reliability, capacity, speed, and cost -- those have long been the only levers to pull in storage technology. Until Paula Long had the idea to add intelligence to enterprise-grade storage. Long, the CEO and founder of DataGravity joins a16z's Peter Levine for a discussion about storage. Why (and how) intelligence is a fit for storage technology, and how this smarter approach to handling data fits in with the datacenter of the future.

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The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.
 
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/.

Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information.

a16z Podcast: Dumb Storage Gets Smart

Apple absolutely crushed its most recent quarter, and unquestionably owns the high-end of the smartphone market, says a16z’s Benedict Evans. So where does Android fit in the ecosystem going forward? Where is the leverage for Google? Not to mention for Facebook, Amazon, and handset-makers like Samsung?

Get used to this market complexion for the foreseeable future, Evans argues, with Apple owning the high-end; forked Android-powered devices flourishing at the low-end; and a battle to sell Google-approved Android gadgets in the middle. Until, of course, everything changes yet again.

a16z Podcast: Mobile is Eating the World (and Apple is Gobbling Fastest)

The a16z Podcast discusses tech and culture trends, news, and the future -- especially as ‘software eats the world’. It features industry experts, business leaders, and other interesting thinkers and voices from around the world. This podcast is produced by Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. Multiple episodes are released every week; visit a16z.com for more details and to sign up for our newsletters and other content as well!