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Bitcoin has not been easy for Wall Street and other traditional financial centers to wrap their collective heads around, let alone take seriously. But that has changed recently, argue authors Michael Casey and Paul Vigna in their book The Age of Cryptocurrency -- How Bitcoin and Digital Currency are Challenging the Global Economic Order. 

The two Wall Street Journal writers join the a16z Podcast to talk about how far bitcoin has seeped into the Wall Street worldview, and more broadly, into the fabric of the global economy. Casey and Vigna describe the five "stages" of bitcoin conversion from disdain to obsession, and why, with the failings of our financial system still painfully fresh, the bitcoin blockchain could be a tool to help rebuild trust, governance, and faith in the power of currency post-recession.

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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 Five Stages of Bitcoin -- Disdain, Dismissal, Curiosity, Oh F**k!, and Acceptance

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

Last week at the Milken Institute conference, Ben Horowitz, cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, sat down with Re/code's Kara Swisher.


A Conversation With @bhorowitz and @karaswisher

Distributed computing frameworks like Hadoop and Spark have enabled processing of "big data" sets -- but that's not enough for modeling surprise/rare "black swan" or complex events. Just think of scenarios in disaster planning (earthquakes, terrorist attacks, financial system collapse); biology (including disease); urban planning (cities, transportation, energy power grids); military defense ... and other complex systems where unknown behaviors and properties can emerge. 

They can't be modeled based on (by definition impossible) limited data. And parallelization for this is hard. But what if companies and governments *could* answer these seemingly impossible questions -- through simulations? Especially ones where we can directly merge in knowledge and cues from the real world (sensors, sensors everywhere)? CEO of Improbable Herman Narula and Stanford University professor-in-residence at a16z Vijay Pande discuss this and more with Chris Dixon in this episode of the a16z Podcast. And as Herman says, "the cool stuff only happens at scale".

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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.

The Cool Stuff Only Happens at Scale

Is the Apple Watch breaking new technological ground, or just another accessory for your iPhone? a16z’s Benedict Evans and Board Partner Steven Sinofsky describe their experience with the Apple Watch one month after strapping the elegant piece of electronics to their wrists. So how is it? It’s not the one thing you will own that will fill this void in your life like the iPhone did, Evans says.  And working out what is useful and pleasurable about the Apple Watch takes time, he says. Even so, Evans finds himself getting there. For example, being prodded by the watch’s map app to turn left or right while walking to your destination “is like a super-power,” he says. Sinofsky too is finding his Apple Watch more alluring than he had anticipated. What will really make the Apple Watch  a piece of kit that people won’t want to part with is the evolution of the apps -- building novel things just for the watch that don’t mimic what we do on smartphones or any other existing piece of technology. “We’re in the phase right now (with the Apple Watch) where people are trying to figure out how to do the old things in a new way,” Sinofsky says. “And really, you need to do new things in a new way.”

a16z Podcast: Apple Watch -- Looking for New Things Done in New Ways

"This time is different." But it's always different! So what's going on now in the public markets? Why does this even matter? For one thing, tech markets have grown significantly. And one big reason is internet and mobile. It's like a multiplier for the market size and opportunity.

In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Andreessen Horowitz managing partner Scott Kupor, mobile analyst Benedict Evans, and corp dev research partner Morgan Bender break down <a href="http://a16z.com/2015/06/15/u-s-tech-funding-whats-going-on/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a slide deck</a> we recently shared, including answers to what all these so-called “unicorns” are, how it affects venture capital and the funding landscape, and how we define a "quasi-IPO."

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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 Rise of the Quasi-IPO

a16z’s Chris Dixon and Mike Hearn talked about all things bitcoin on the a16z Podcast a couple months ago, including an issue that has bitcoin developers on edge these days: the question of how best to scale the bitcoin blockchain before capacity runs out. Hearn and others offered a solution (Bitcoin XT) -- in the parlance, a “hard fork” -- and quite frankly, not everyone in the bitcoin community is in favor of this approach yet. Which we heard about from various online quarters!

So in the interest of airing diverse opinions and other options for solving bitcoin’s scaling problem, we invited two more experts from the bitcoin world, Adam Back and Alex Morcos, to share their views on the topic. A well-known applied cryptographer whose longtime focus has been digital currency, Back invented hashcash, a proof-of-work system used in bitcoin mining. He’s also the cofounder of Blockstream (which, full disclosure, may also have interests in the outcomes of this debate). Morcos is the founder of Chaincode Labs, based in New York City, and was a co-founder of quantitative trading company Hudson River Trading.

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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: Hard Forks, Hard Choices for Bitcoin

Legendary investor Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett's financial partner and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway) invokes a set of interdisciplinary "mental models" involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management to keep emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment. In a new book focused on lessons learned from Munger, Tren Griffin (who works at Microsoft and has long focused on lessons learned from many investors) shares insights on decision making and the psychology of human judgment -- especially as it applies to investing and risk.

But Griffin believes that these lessons can be applied to all of us in our daily lives, not just by investors. (He also argues that investing may be one of the last liberal arts). So how then do we channel our inner Munger? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, we discuss how to think about thinking; why the best investors and business leaders spend more time on what they DON’T know; and how the best way to be smart is to ... not be stupid.

a16z Podcast: The Best Way To Be Smart ... Is To Not Be Stupid

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 -- and if it isn’t, what has a shot at replacing it?

In this segment of the a16z Podcast [and one of our first podcasts 'by request'], Chris Dixon (who led our BuzzFeed investment and has previously shared his thoughts on the topic) and Benedict Evans (who has also been an independent content site producer himself and has shared some of his thoughts on the topic) discuss the future of advertising; why micropayments have been mostly a non-starter until now; the chicken-egg issue; and which alternative forms of advertising -- native ads, for example -- are showing promise. Finally, why quality media outlets will do extremely well once the industry comes out on the other side of this wrenching transitional period.

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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: Advertising vs. Micropayments in the Age of Ad Blockers

Quantum computing. The dream of the 1980s is alive in 2015. But this time is different, for a number of reasons. What are the applications, beyond cryptography? And, what’s the point of it all — are the benefits of quantum computing truly going to be a difference of kind vs. of degree? And if so, how will it change what we already know about computers, from languages to coding to UIs to everything?

While it’s counterintuitive for us to imagine something so infinitesimally small, Ilyas Khan of Cambridge Quantum Computing helps us make the quantum leap in our minds … in this special edition of the a16z Podcast, brought to you from London.

a16z Podcast: Quantum Leap

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 London.

In this special episode of the a16z Podcast brought to you on the ground from London, Shanahan -- along with journalist-turned-entrepreneur Azeem Azhar (who also curates The Exponential View newsletter on AI and more) and The Economist Deputy Editor Tom Standage (the author of several tech history books) -- we discuss the past, present, and future of A.I. ... as well as how it fits (or doesn't fit) with machine learning and deep learning.

But where are we now in the A.I. evolution? What players do we think will lead, if not win, the current race? And how should we think about issues such as ethics and automation of jobs without descending into obvious extremes? All this and more, including a surprise easter egg in Ex Machina shared by Shanahan, whose work influenced the movie.

a16z Podcast: Artificial Intelligence and the 'Space of Possible Minds'

The future is knowable… sort of. Philip Tetlock tells us what makes some people better at predicting the future than others.

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Predicting The Future

Rob Rhinehart, like most startup entrepreneurs, was strapped for cash and time as developed his ideas and ultimately a company. What stood out to Rhinehart in that all-consuming and ongoing process was the contrast between all the things in his life that technology had made more convenient and cheaper -- basically everything powered by smartphones -- and what he felt was a process still trapped in our agrarian past: sitting down for a meal.

Out of that observation came Soylent -- nutrition in powder or ready-to-drink form, that substituted for Rhinehart the lousy ramen or frozen corn-dog meals he was subsisting on.

Better, faster, cheaper -- Soylent has all the trademarks of good tech -- but are we really going to start drinking our meals? Rhinehart joins this segment of the pod along with a16z’s Chris Dixon, who led the firm’s investment in Soylent, to talk about where Soylent might fit into our lives ... and what it means for the future of food as well as earth's resources.

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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 Future of Food

Farmers are among the best hackers in the business. They can fix anything, and are endlessly tweaking their approach to a business that is up against the strongest force on the planet: nature.

As adopters of technology, the agriculture industry is both forward-thinking and, at the same time, hard to convince to make a change. For good reason -- you can’t A/B-test an almond orchard. You get one shot a year to grow a crop and make a profit. So whatever technology makes its way into the fields had better work.

U.C. Santa Barbara computer science professor Chandra Krintz, Granular CEO and co-founder Sid Gorham, and Fruition Sciences co-founder Thibaut Scholasch join this segment of the a16z Podcast to discuss technologies working down on the farm. Including how sensors monitoring soil elements, water flow in plants, and fertilizer schedules are yielding fruitful data. Given the high stakes -- a planet in the midst of climate change -- what we can all learn from how technology is accepted and implemented in the agriculture industry?

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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: Data Down on the Farm

There’s a very high probability that you, the person reading this, are a human being. But what separates you, the discerning listener of Innovation Hub, from WALL-E or Johnny Five? This week, we’re going to explore what makes us different from machines, what makes us uniquely human.

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11.28.15 Uniquely Human

The best cooks know cooking a meal is all about having a plan (and a back-up plan if things go south); get the cooking out of the way, and then you can enjoy your family and friends -- the most important part. But now try doing it for thousands. 

How can one company be the de facto sous chef for so many? Turns out there's a lot of data science behind it, in everything from procurement to forecasts to logistics: what to cook, what people will like, what ingredients are required, what to produce at scale. In this segment of the a16z Podcast, Gobble's Ooshma Garg suggests that every modern food company is really a tech company (or should be). Is there a science to taste?

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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 Data Science of Food and Taste

India and China. The two most populous countries on the planet are also two of the most tantalizing markets for companies of all size, from startups to conglomerates. But those markets are also intensely, densely competitive: There's a lot of capital, a lot of players, and a whole lot of people.

So do local players really have the home-court advantage here? Can they compete with the global players who have unparalleled execution ability and scale? And how does timing and structuring of companies entering those markets matter?

Andreessen Horowitz partners Connie Chan and Anu Hariharan discuss these topics and more -- everything from logistics and infrastructure to design and talent -- on this episode of the a16z Podcast. As well as how domains like e-commerce, payments, and ride-sharing are playing out against the incredibly layered sociocultural backdrop of these two countries.

a16z Podcast: The Tiger and the Dragon -- On Tech and Startups in India and China

Science is making it easier and easier to change who what – or our kids – look like. How far will the trend go?

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The (Near) Future of “Designer Babies”

The robots are coming. But before they do, we’ll need to give them our morals. Queena Kim reports on why “moral philosophy” will mean big business in the tech world.

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I, Moral Robot

Our virtual reality-enabled future is arriving, but it’s hard to know -- as it is with every new technology platform -- how quickly we’ll all make the transition to VR and what it will ultimately look like. For example, beyond gaming and entertainment what applications does it seem like VR is best suited for, and will we all be wearing full VR-enabled body suits some day? When will the Matrix become real?

a16z’s virtual reality-obsessed Kyle Russell and Sakunthala Pandit are joined by perceptual and computational neuroscience expert Beau Cronin, to offer their informed opinions on the present state and future of VR. They give the rationale for travel, shopping, and education getting the VR treatment, and why software developers would kill for a VR-enabled dev environment. So strap your “face toy” on and dive into virtual reality.

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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.

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Alexander Mikhailenko