From file cabinets to typewriters, spreadsheets and word processing the tools we use for work change not only what we do, but the culture of our workplace. Steven Sinofsky, a veteran of building software tools for productivity, discusses the latest revolution in technology-enabled tools with Benedict Evans. Why today’s cloud-based tools change the role of managers, and why the perfect tool will never exist (nor would you want it to). 

a16z Podcast: Engineering a Revolution at Work

Can technology companies show up and disrupt television with an onslaught of new gizmos and services, or is content still the controlling factor? What will it take in terms of money, business model and time to upend the TV model that has stubbornly persisted for decades? Will the old platforms and players dominate, or is now the time for new players to take charge? Andreessen Horowitz’s Benedict Evans and Zal Bilimoria discuss the future of television.

a16z Podcast: The Future Of Television

If your income can flow from any place on the globe, and you can earn your money on the Internet, the question for individuals and startup teams alike increasingly is: where do I go? In the tech industry the answer more often than not has been Silicon Valley. For many people and companies that is still true, says Sten Tamkivi, CEO and co-founder of Teleport.org, but it’s not a simple binary answer any more. “It’s more a question of when, and how often do you spend time in Silicon Valley?” he says. And of course, why?

Quality, cost, and opportunity, those are the key elements to consider when deciding where in the world you want to be when you are starting a career -- and starting a company. In this segment of the pod, Tamkivi relates his own experience as an executive at Skype, and how he thought about its global workforce and what made it work so well. He also describes what he’s learned from starting his own far-flung company Teleport.org, which is in the business of helping people decide where in the world the best place for their career and company is. 

a16z Podcast: Software and Overcoming the Randomness of Birthplace

with Nicole Forsgren (@nicolefv), Jez Humble (@jezhumble) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90)

From the old claim that "IT doesn't matter" and question of whether tech truly drives organizational performance, we've been consumed with figuring out how to measure -- and predict -- the output and outcomes, the performance and productivity of software. It's not useful to talk about what happens in one isolated team or successful company; we need to be able to make it happen at any company -- of any size, industry vertical, or architecture/tech stack. But can we break the false dichotomy of performance vs. speed; is it possible to have it all? 

This episode of the a16z Podcast boldly goes where no man has gone before -- trying to answer those elusive questions -- by drawing on one of the largest, large-scale studies of software and organizational performance out there, as presented in the new book, Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps -- Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim. Forsgren (co-founder and CEO at DevOps Research and Assessment - DORA; PhD in Management Information Systems; formerly at IBM) and Humble (co-founder and CTO at DORA; formerly at 18F; and co-author of The DevOps Handbook, Lean Enterprise, and Continuous Delivery) share the latest findings about what drives performance in companies of all kinds.

But what is DevOps, really? And beyond the definitions and history, where does DevOps fit into the broader history and landscape of other tech movements (such as lean manufacturing, agile development, lean startups, microservices)? Finally, what kinds of companies are truly receptive to change, beyond so-called organizational "maturity" scores? And for pete's sake, can we figure out how to measure software productivity already?? All this and more in this episode!

a16z Podcast: Feedback Loops -- Company Culture, Change, and DevOps

Song for an album expected to come out some time from December to February.

Two Year Summer

Bobby Kotick is the CEO of Activision Blizzard (a merger he engineered); it's one of only two video gaming companies in the Fortune 500, and the largest game network in the world. The company is responsible for some of the most iconic entertainment franchises, including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft -- as well as its own professional esports league.

So in this episode of the a16z Podcast, Marc Andreessen interviews Kotick on everything from the evolution of video games in the 1980s to gaming trends more broadly. What changes as gaming goes from "just for nerds" to "just for kids" and spreads more broadly into entertainment and cultural phenomena (esports, Fortnite, Pokemon Go, etc.)... both online and offline?

The conversation originally took place at our annual innovation a16z Summit in November 2018 -- which features a16z speakers and invited experts from various organizations discussing innovation at companies small and large. You can also see other podcasts and videos from this event here: https://a16z.com/tag/summit-2018/

a16z Podcast: Gaming Goes Mainstream

with @kevinchou @cdixon and @smc90

The combination of cloud, social, and mobile took gaming beyond a small base of just console- and PC-gamers to a massive player base. But the underlying business model -- the concept of "free-to-play", built on top of games-as-a-service -- may have been the real innovation that led us to the global gaming phenomenons we have today.

Unfortunately, observes gaming veteran Kevin Chou -- who's seen it all when it comes to tech platform shifts and gaming as a longtime gamer, founding CEO of Kabam, and now founder and CEO of Forte -- there is "a dark side" to free-to-play: Game developers have to balance the gamers who aren't paying with those who are, and especially those who are paying a helluva lot more (the whales) in order to make money and keep the game going. This balance becomes incredibly challenging over time; it is, quite frankly, a lopsided economy. The players will leave: The incentives between game publishers and players are simply not aligned.

Yet what if we could re-align those incentives -- really, the economic relationships -- between game publishers/developers; players and guilds and clans; those who create on top of games (like on Roblox and Minecraft); those who trade and otherwise transact both inside and outside games (it's already happening in secondary markets and gold farms). We could do this in a more balanced way, thanks to blockchain technology and cryptoeconomic business models -- leading to thriving gaming economies with better monetization and deeper engagement, as well as new forms of collaboration, community, and creativity.

But smart contracts, cryptoeconomies, security, etc. is hard for gamers who just want to focus on designing the best game, so how do we get here? Chou shares his thoughts in this episode of the a16z Podcast with Sonal Chokshi and general partner Chris Dixon. In gaming (and in fact, with other tech trends too), innovation happens when there's a combination of new devices, new technology platforms, and new delivery mechanisms... but it's the business-model innovations, argues Dixon, that tend to create the most startup opportunities.

image: battle scene from Eve Online

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a16z Podcast: New Business Models for Gaming

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!

a16z Podcast: Feedback Loops -- Company Culture, Change, and DevOps

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