values & leadership. Everything rises and falls on that

startup talks

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

In this episode we were joined by Josephine Goube, Director of Partnerships & Communications at Migreat. She discussed her background, how she became involved in making immigration easier for companies, discussing Entrepreneur Visa options available to set up a business in the UK.

Listed as one the top 35 women in Business in Britain in 2015 by Management Today, Joséphine currently heads Migreat, the fastest-growing global platform for migrants to get access to information and immigration support. She previously worked at TechStars London and Rainmaking, co-founded the London School of Economics Business Incubator & graduated from the New Entrepreneurs Foundation.

Josephine Goube, Director of Partnerships & Communications at Migreat

In this episode we were joined by Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton. He discussed his background, his experience raising investment for blinkx, growing the business, his latest experience as an investor at Balderton, and some of the lessons he’d tell his younger self.

Suranga joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2014. He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer. He founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then lead the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation - joining as an engineer in the Cambridge R&D team and ultimately serving as the company's US CTO in San Francisco.

Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton

In this episode we were joined by Marc Zornes, Founder at Winnow. He discussed his background, his involvement in the food industry, and his latest experience as founder at Winnow.

Marc Zornes started his career at a large wholesale grocers, and food and sustainability have been his two passions ever since. Recently he started Winnow because he saw a massive opportunity in solving the problem of food waste and he's a strong believer that technology can help us change the way we make food. Before Winnow he co-authored the Global Institute report “Resource Revolution: Meeting the World’s Energy, Materials, Food, and Water Needs.’ whilst working as a consultant at McKinsey.

Marc Zornes, Founder at Winnow

Bill is a managing partner at Connect Ventures. He has 10 years working in venture capital and startups, having worked as an investment manager at Amadeus Capital and in a variety of operational roles at several California based startups.  He is on the boards of Citymapper, Knyttan, Marvel, RetentionGrid, Secretsales, and TOTEMS. 

In this Seedcamp Academy podcast, we talk about Bill’s history and draw on his experience of participating in many board meetings. What are their true purpose? When and how should you be setting up your ideal board? And what are some of the best practices for founders to get the most of them.

Bill Earner, Managing Partner at Connect Ventures

In this episode we were joined by Will Critchlow, Founder and CEO of Distilled. He discussed his background, his experience as a founder, and the fundamentals of search, social and content for a startup company.

Will Critchlow founded Distilled in 2005 with Duncan Morris. Distilled provides online marketing services from offices in London, New York and Seattle, hosts the SearchLove conference series in the US and UK and produces the popular online training platform DistilledU. His academic background is mathematics with a degree from the University of Cambridge (St. John’s College) including a graduate thesis on auction theory. Previous jobs included programmer, strategy consultant in the telecoms industry and floor sweeper.

Will Critchlow, Founder and CEO of Distilled

In this episode of the a16z Podcast sharing more founder stories, Ben Horowitz interviews a16z partner Lars Dalgaard about SuccessFactors, one of the earlier software-as-a-service companies. (It was founded on 2001, IPO'd in 2008, and was acquired by SAP in 2012).

SuccessFactors focused on software for "human capital management" in the enterprise. But what are the success factors in talent, scaling companies, and most importantly, scaling culture? Lars and Ben cover everything from what motivates (the best) founders, the difficulties of entrepreneurship, and team building and building culture. Especially if you have values -- not just an HR offsite exercise -- that mean something, like "no assholes!" .... but then how do you balance a value like that with the desire to succeed (for example, if you have a 10Xer who is an asshole)?? All that and more in this episode. 

a16z Podcast: Scaling Companies and Culture

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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The views expressed here are those of the individual a16z personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. 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. 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.

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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: Scaling Companies and Culture

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