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original episode notes and transcript here:
https://future.a16z.com/podcasts/malaria-vaccine-tech-science-news/
Longtime podcast showrunner (2014-2022), primary host, and editor Sonal Chokshi shares three best-of episodes as she shifts gears and the show goes on hiatus until relaunched with a new host.
As with all of the episodes on this show about tech & science trends in the news, and where they are on the long arc of innovation -- this one is actually a story of human ingenuity over 100 years in the making, with the ultimate breakthrough in a malaria vaccine just last year that we discuss here. (And while we were one of the very first to cover the coronavirus pandemic back in Jan 2020, and several episodes all about vaccines, this is an unusual one: fighting a parasite vs a virus, what that means, how, and why it matters.)
It is also one of Chokshi's signature “2x explainers”, where we quickly cover the headlines and tech trends, but also offer evergreen explainers, analysis, frameworks, and more to understand those trends -- whether it was TikTok’s algorithm, GPT-3, the opioid crisis, or the anatomy of a hack.
Thank you to you all for listening, sharing, engaging and coming along with us on this journey! Thank you as well to our brilliant audio editors, expert guests, and several others. The team will be putting this feed on hiatus temporarily, and in the meantime, you can follow my other work here at a16z as well as other projects on Twitter @smc90. Stay tuned for more! -
Welcome to 16 Minutes, our podcast where we discuss tech trends in the news and their impact on the long arc of innovation. Today’s topic is crypto regulation, and specifically, two recent federal government hearings in the news that were focused on crypto and therefore the related trend of web3. In contrast to the model of web2 — typified by very broadly used but also very centralized platforms run by corporations — web3 refers to the idea of a new internet enabled by crypto that is owned by builders and users.
The first hearing that took place was at the House Committee on Financial Services, featuring six crypto company CEOs and resulting in a five-hour session that prompted headlines like “Congress Gets a Crash Course on Cryptocurrency.”
Then, just last week, the U.S. Senate’s Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee held its own hearing, this time focused on stablecoins, which are privately issued cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a stable asset such as the U.S. dollar, and are used in decentralized financial services.
We’ve covered crypto regulatory issues on 16 Minutes before with a16z experts, including an episode with former federal prosecutor Katie Haun and former New York Stock Exchange regulatory chief Anthony Albanese. That discussion, which you can find in this feed under episode #50, was about a proposal by the Treasury Department’s financial crimes enforcement arm that included provisions for digital asset reporting.
(As a reminder, none of the following should be taken as investment advice, please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information.)
All of these hearings are also connected to the broader question of innovation, and keeping the U.S. competitive on a global stage.
So with that context, our guest today is a16z global head of policy Tomicah Tillemann, who before joining a16z served as senior advisor to two secretaries of state. He reports on the hearings and their significance, and gives a quick pulse-check on where we are with crypto regulation right now.
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Welcome to 16 Minutes, our show on the a16z podcast network where we talk about tech trends that are dominating news headlines, industry buzz, and where we are on the long arc of innovation.
Today’s episode actually features a look back at the GameStop saga — the stock market drama that some headlines described as a “David-and-Goliath battle” that quote “upended Wall Street.”
For quick basic context, here’s what happened: A group of Reddit users mass-purchased and drove up prices of stock in the video game retailer GameStop, forcing short sellers including hedge funds and institutional investors to back out in a short squeeze, pushing prices even higher. But beyond the news, this also portended other, broader trends including redefining the power of retail investors, the phenomenon of meme stocks, and more.
So in this episode — which is from a conversation that originally took place live on Clubhouse (and which, by the way, can also be found on the a16z Live feed) — a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen talks to Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, which was a key player in GameStop as both a market maker and investor. You’ll also hear a16z general partner and fintech expert Alex Rampell join later in the conversation.
Griffin also just purchased (in a Sotheby’s auction a little over two weeks ago) one of the original copies of the U.S. Constitution, an auction in which a decentralized autonomous organization called ConstitutionDAO also bid on buying it. Marc and Ken touch briefly on this at the very end.
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Welcome to 16 Minutes, our show where we talk about tech trends in the news. We have two segments today:
1) The announcement recently that Valve Software, which operates the massive gaming platform Steam, added a rule against games that use blockchain technologies or that allow users to exchange cryptocurrencies or NFTs – this rule appeared on its “What you shouldn’t publish on Steam” onboarding list for developers. We go beyond the players to the trends at play here, putting the news in context — as is the premise of this show — because it not only immediately impacts gaming developers and gamers using the platform, but has implications for gaming business models and the arc of innovation in gaming as part of the web3 movement. Our expert guests are a16z partner Jonathan Lai and a16z partner Eddy Lazzarin.
2) The FDA’s announcement last month that it authorized marketing of the “first artificial intelligence (AI)-based software designed to identify an area of interest on the prostate biopsy image with the highest likelihood of harboring cancer so it can be reviewed further by the pathologist if the area of concern has not been identified on initial review.” The FDA reviewed the technology from Paige Prostate through its De Novo regulatory pathway. We have three expert guests: Eli Van Allen, associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; a16z bio general partner Vineeta Agarwala; and a16z bio partner Jay Rughani. -
In today’s episode we have two short segments, both on bioscience topics:
[0:00] Moderna has started clinical trials for a flu vaccine, called mRNA-1010, that is based on the same mRNA technology that Moderna and Pfizer used for their COVID vaccines, and that several other companies including Sanofi and Glaxo all are actively working on for the influenza use case. Our experts are general partners Vineeta Agarwala and Jorge Conde of the a16z bio team, who have joined us on many of our vaccine-related episodes, which you can find at a16z.com/vaccines. They discuss what comes next for the clinical trials of this mRNA-based flu vaccines, why companies aren't planning to use the faster and more-targeted mRNA technology for COVID's Delta variant, and how mRNA vaccines will change not only our approach to flu shots but to other respiratory viruses.
[9:53] Google’s DeepMind AlphaFold, in partnership with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, is publicly sharing its entire protein structure database -- with predicted protein structure models for ~20,000 proteins expressed by the human genome -- meaning that all its data will be freely and openly available to the scientific community. (We previously discussed DeepMind's AlphaFold protein-folding AI on this show in episode #48.) General partner Vijay Pande of the a16z bio team helps us answer the question: Why does it matter that a huge database of very accurate predicted protein structures is now freely available? -
Given recent news of drug company settlements, calls to action, policy moves, and more, this episode is a rerun of one of our very early explainers (episode #4 of 16 Minutes, 2019) on the opioid crisis.
Bio experts and a16z general partners Jorge Conde and Vijay Pande discuss on 16 Minutes (our shortform show where we discuss the headlines, tease apart what's hype' what's real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation) with host Sonal Chokshi:
how opioids work;the questions around who's to blame;and other directions for managing pain.Where could tech come in, even with the broader social, cultural, and structural context involved here?
original episode:
https://a16z.com/2019/08/04/16mins-news-opioid-crisis-dea-database/ -
Welcome to 16 Minutes, the a16z show where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype and what’s real, and the long arc of innovation.
In today's episode we’re talking about the latest developments and trends in cybercrime – including the trends of ransomware, and, attacks on physical infrastructure.
First (0:00 - 6:07), we have the recent attack on the meat processing plant JBS, the largest meat processor in the world; just last week it had to temporarily shut down some operations in the U.S., Canada, and Australia due to an attack on its servers, with the hackers demanding payment from the company.
These types of “ransomware" attacks are increasing – recently hackers hit the Colonial Pipeline, the largest refined oil pipeline in the U.S., and disrupted fuel distribution on the East Coast. In that attack, hackers demanded and received millions in ransom, though the Justice Department announced on Monday it had recovered much of that ransom, paid in bitcoin. Hackers have also recently hit health care organizations, school systems, and even ferry services.
In the second segment (6:08 - 12:13), we’ll briefly talk about the breach of home and enterprise wireless network management technology provider Ubiquiti. Security researcher Brian Krebs reported allegations from a whistleblower, and more recently, lawsuits have been filed. Here we’ll focus on the questions it raises for security.
Both segments feature a16z operating partner for security (and former Box CSO) Joel de la Garza. Martin Casado, a16z general partner and co-founder of networking company Nicira, joins us for the second segment.
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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. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.
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 for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) 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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Given recent buzz and ongoing debates around the Endless Frontiers Act -- which some have described as “the most important piece of legislation no one's heard of” -- this episode is a rerun of an episode from last year, recorded after said act was initially unveiled.
The short discussion covers the broader topic and theme of funding science and innovation, and R&D in general -- not just in government agencies, but corporations, and the overall landscape there as well. Notably, the name of the Endless Frontiers act was inspired by the famous memo, “Science, the Endless Frontier”, which was a report to the then U.S.-President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in July 1945 -- and that led to the creation of the independent government agency the National Science Foundation (NSF).
For quick context (without covering current discussions/ updates in the news right now) -- the bipartisan proposal had proposed giving NSF over $100B over 5 years in funding. It had also proposed rebranding the National Science Foundation into the National "Science and Technology" Foundation, which a16z general partner Martin Casado (who has worked the full spectrum from academia to research lab to startup to big company) discusses with Sonal Chokshi in this episode. You can also find their conversation with former Stanford president John Hennessy and Marc Andreessen on the changing relationship between academia and industry at a16z.com/researchtostartup.
original episode:
https://a16z.com/2020/07/09/16mins-nsf-funding-science-corporate-innovation-remote-work-new-normal-future/
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Playing out against the backdrop of a global pandemic (including recent massive surges in regions around the world) is the news that came out a week ago that a candidate "malaria vaccine becomes first to achieve WHO-specified 75% efficacy goal”. While the findings are still in preprint with The Lancet, the resulting buzz and phrases quoted included everything from “unprecedented”, “groundbreaking work”, and “very exciting” to “high expectations”, “highly effective”, and “a hugely significant extra weapon”... A "weapon" in the war against malaria that is -- a disease that is estimated to cause over 400,000 deaths each year globally, and predominantly in children under the age of five.
So in this special 2x explainer episode of 16 Minutes (also running on the a16z Podcast), we -- Rajeev Venkayya of Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a16z bio general partner Jorge Conde, and Sonal Chokshi -- dig into what's hype/ what's real about this news, beyond the headlines and beyond the buzz. What does the data tell us, what does the current study phase mean, and what's left to get to widespread, real-world use? How does this candidate vaccine (R21 from Jenner Institute/ Oxford University) compare to the other malaria vaccine (RTS,S from GlaxoSmithKline)? How do, and don't, advances in and around COVID vaccines play here? And why has it been so hard to develop vaccines for this particular disease?
Because we also cover (as is the premise of the show) where we are on the long arc of innovation... and this is an innovation story that's been nearly a century in the making.
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In this week’s episode of 16 Minutes, our show where we cover tech trends in the news — and also cover themes from company developer and innovation events! — we focus on the latest coming out of Apple’s event this week. The company announced a bunch of things, ranging from new device colors and form factors to podcast services, but in this episode we asked regular guest Steven Sinofsky (an a16z board partner and former Microsoft Windows president who has appeared on past event episodes including covering CES and Apple’s M1 chip) to weigh in. He shares what he thinks all these moves say about the evergreen “consumer vs. professional” question, to what the company’s new devices (namely tablets, personal computers, and TVs) tell us about the long arc of innovation.
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We have two brief segments in today’s episode: News and analysis of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine pause, and the widespread hack of Microsoft Exchange Servers across the country (and the dramatic and unusual steps the FBI took in response).
Johnson & Johnson: Federal health officials last week revealed that six women who received the vaccine had developed rare and severe blood clots in their brain, in one case fatally. Even more recently, a panel of expert advisors to the Centers for Disease Control determined that they needed more time to assess the risk of the drug, which was approved by the FDA under Emergency Use Authorization, or EUA.
Our experts are General Partner Jorge Conde, who previously appeared on a episode on J&J efficacy rates, and General Partner Vineeta Agarwala, who is also a practicing clinician at Stanford Hospital, and recently joined us on "16 Minutes" with Dr. Bob Wachter of UCSF to analyze the vaccine rollout in the U.S. They address the clinical facts about the six J&J cases (and contrast it to the social media conversations and headlines), the incidence rate, and what the J&J vaccine shares with the Astra Zeneca vaccine, which has been halted or limited in Europe and elsewhere over similar blood clot concerns.
FBI and Microsoft Exchange Servers: The Department of Justice recently announced that the FBI, after getting court authorization, had removed malicious code from hundreds of computers running on-premises versions of Microsoft Exchange Server software used to provide email services. In March, Microsoft had announced the initial hack and released detection tools and patches to help owners of the compromised computers, but the latest government announcement revealed that the FBI had taken the step of removing the malicious code, in this case web shells that enable remote administration, from computers that had not mitigated the risk. Microsoft has associated the hackers with state-sponsored actors in China.
Our expert is a16z's Joel de la Garza, who explains what’s behind this unusual action and figure out where it fits into larger trends of enterprise security and even national security.
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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. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.
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 for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) 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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This deep-dive -- one of our occasional 2-4X explainer episodes on 16 Minutes; (past such episodes have covered everything from Section 230 and Tiktok to GPT-3 and the opioid crisis) -- teases apart what's hype/ what's real -- and the what, where, how, why, who, and other questions top of mind around all things NFTs:
what NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are -- as well as the properties of crypto that enable them, just to set some big-picture context;what forms they take, and what is and ISN’T an NFT -- including where “social tokens” and the creator economy do and don’t come in;common myths and misconceptions -- from ‘just a jpg’ to the frequent question of energy use & NFTs;how they work -- as well as the broader ecosystem around NFTs, and different players;various applications, now and next -- touching briefly on how to think about NFTs, whether you’re an artist/ creator, developer, or institution.Editor in chief Sonal Chokshi interviews friends of a16z crypto Linda Xie, co-founder of Scalar Capital and former Product Manager at Coinbase; and Jesse Walden, founder at Variant Fund and former co-founder of Mediachain Labs (which was acquired by Spotify, where he was then an R&D lead).
Posted on both the a16z Podcast show and 16 Minutes, this episode is for everyone!
transcript available at: https://a16z.com/2021/03/27/nfts-explainer-faqs-hype-reality-innovation-crypto-creator-economy
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. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.
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 for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) 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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Today on our news analysis show 16 Minutes — since this show is all about teasing apart what’s hype/ what’s real and where we are on the long arc of innovation — we're taking a quick pulse-check with the experts on just where we are with the COVID vaccine rollout in the U.S.
Our experts today are Dr. Bob Wachter, the Chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF — he has come to additional prominence during the pandemic as a regular public resource, providing daily updates & reports on Twitter throughout the crisis. He’s also currently guest-hosting the “In the Bubble” podcast. We also have Dr. Vineeta Agarwala, a general partner in a16z bio who is also a practicing clinician at Stanford Hospital.
You can catch our ongoing coverage of all things vaccines at a16z.com/vaccines.
But in this episode we cover where we really are right now with the vaccine rollout — is it working or not, given all the buzz and mixed messages we’ve been hearing on social and in the media? We cover everything from distribution, in practice (that is, from the clinical/ on-the-ground perspective); to other dynamics (such as new strains), to demand for the vaccines (including vaccine hesitancy, and it's not just about anti-vaxxers); to the data (which is where we start). On Friday the CDC reported that about 77 million people in the U.S. have currently received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, with about 42 million who have been fully vaccinated.
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In today's episode of our news analysis show 16 Minutes, our topic is the ongoing buzz and the mixed news around the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was the third vaccine for COVID approved under Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA just a few weeks ago. Johnson & Johnson reported it as “the first single shot vaccine” and as having 85% efficacy in preventing severe disease across regions studied; meanwhile, STAT headlines reported 66% efficacy overall and 72% in the U.S. in preventing moderate to severe disease, calling it “a weapon but not a knockout punch.” And then we have various experts saying everything from “disappointing” to pointing out the dangers of comparing this vaccine to other vaccines such as Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, both of which we’ve talked about on this show. You can find all our ongoing vaccines coverage at a16z.com/vaccines.
In this episode — since 16 Minutes is about teasing apart what’s hype/ what’s real in the news and where we are on the long arc of innovation — we asked the a16z bio team for their frameworks.
Joining us are General Partner Jorge Conde, who has been in all our vaccine episodes and previously led strategy and product for a pharmaceuticals company, and bio editorial partner Lauren Richardson, who was previously an editor at PLOS Biology and hosts our sister show Journal Club on Bio Eats World. She also holds a Ph.D in pharmacology.
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In this week’s episode of 16 Minutes, our show where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype/ what’s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation, the topic is semiconductors – specifically, the ongoing global shortage that began last summer and has intensified in recent weeks. So much so, that the U.S. president signed an executive order just last week to address concerns around the shortage, calling for reviews of supply chains for critical sectors of the economy.
Our expert is a16z Operating Partner Frank Chen, who led our research arm and has also joined past episodes about semiconductors on this show including one with Steven Sinofsky and Sonal in which they analyzed the ARM and Envidia news.
Frank joins a16z's Zoran Basich to cover the bigger picture of the chip shortage including geopolitics, the pandemic, and several other factors — all in almost exactly 16 minutes!
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In this week’s episode of 16 Minutes — where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype/ what’s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation — the topic is NFTs ("non-fungible tokens"); specifically, the news that Christie’s has become the first major auction house to offer a purely digital artwork tied to an NFT or “non-fungible token."We’ll go more into NFTs (as well as whether this is really a big deal or not) in this episode, but here’s the news context:The work of art being auctioned is a digital collage by the digital artist Beeple; it’s called Everydays: The First 5,000 Days.The Christie’s auction begins today and runs through March 11.It's news because Christie's, a 250-year-old auction house, is an established presence in the traditional art marketplace, and it’s the first time NFTs (which have been much-buzzed-about in the crypto world for several months) are being formally embraced by the traditional art world.For quick context, NFTs are digital tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, which allow art and other digital assets and collectibles to be verified as unique, hence the term non-fungible (as compared to other, more fungible tokens). They reflect the properties of crypto and blockchains more broadly, such as the ability to track provenance and attribute funds to creators via smart contracts. (For more discussion of NFTs and related themes, check out our previous podcasts Crypto for Creators: From Art Galleries to 'Tokenized' Collectibles and The New Fan Club: Creators, Fans, and the Power of Markets (& Crypto).Zoran Basich of a16z talked to NFT expert Kayvon Tehranian, CEO and founder of Foundation Labs, a marketplace for digital art and collectibles, to help us dig into the Christie's news and broader trend — all in less than 16 Minutes!***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. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.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 for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) 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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We have two brief segments — taking up less than 16 Minutes! — in this week’s episode of "16 Minutes," where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype/what’s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation. Both segments touch on trends in gaming/ online worlds and entertainment — both now and "next."
First, Steam China: Steam — the cloud library and marketplace for buying, selling, and storing games that was launched by Valve in 2003 and is now the largest distribution platform for PC gaming — just released an official Chinese version.
Next, Meta Human Creator: Epic Games’ 3D graphics platform Unreal Engine revealed an early peek at a new content creation tool that aims to make creating digital humans easier.
So what does this all mean? We talked to a16z partner Jonathan Lai, a former product manager at Riot Games, who joins 16 Minutes co-host Zoran Basich for both segments to share a quick take on these news items and the trends overall. -
Amazon just announced this week that its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos "will transition to the role of Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021 and [CEO of Amazon Web Services] Andy Jassy will become Chief Executive Officer at that time". So in this episode of 16 Minutes -- our show where we talk about tech trends in the headlines, what's hype/ what's real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation -- we talk not just about this news, but what it signals regarding cloud computing as well as CEO transitions in general.
How does/ doesn’t it fit into other patterns of tech succession -- like recent moves at Netflix (where Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was named co-CEO alongside Reed Hastings); Microsoft (Satya Nadella); Intel (Pat Geisinger); Cisco and more? Is Amazon -- with its ability to straddle both enterprise and consumer so strongly -- an outlier, and perhaps more of a conglomerate? And are there certain inflection points or phases for when companies of all sizes should think about succession planning/ such leadership transitions? Sonal Chokshi and Zoran Basich chat with a16z general partner Martin Casado -- who was previously cofounder and CTO at Nicira (which was acquired by VMware, where he became GM of the Networking and Security Business Unit) -- so Casado knows a thing or two about such transitions... not to mention his own past debates and discussions of whether or not to bring on an external CEO.
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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. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.
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 for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) 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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In this special “3x”-long episode of our (otherwise shortform) news analysis show 16 Minutes -- past such 2-3X explainer episodes have covered section 230, Tiktok, GPT-3, the opioid crisis, more -- we cover the SolarWinds hack, one of the largest (if not the largest!) publicly known hacks of all time... and the ripple effects are only now starting to be revealed. Just this week, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency shared (as reported in the Wall Street Journal) that approximately 30% of both private-sector and government victims linked to the hack had no direct connection to SolarWinds. So who was compromised, do they even know, can they even know?!
Because this hack is a supply-chain compromise involving various third-party software and services all connected together in a "chain of chains", the knock-on effects of it will be revealed (or not!) for years to come. So what do companies -- whether large enterprise, mid-sized startup, or small business -- do? What actually happened, and when does the timeline really begin? While first publicly revealed in December 2020 -- we first covered the news in episode #49 here when it first broke, and there have been countless headlines since (about early known government agency victims, company investigations, other tool investigations, debates over who and how and so on) -- the hack actually began not just a few months but years earlier, involving early tests, legit domains, and a very long game.
We help cut through the headline fatigue of it all, tease apart what's hype/ what's real, and do an "anatomy of a hack" step-by-step teardown -- the who, what, where, when, how; from the chess moves to technical details -- in an in-depth yet accessible way with Sonal Chokshi in conversation with a16z expert and former CSO Joel de la Garza and outside expert Steven Adair, founder and president of Volexity. The information security firm (which specializes in incident response, digital forensics/ memory analysis, network monitoring, and more) not only posted guidance for responding to such attacks, but also an analysis based on working three separate incidents involving the SolarWinds hackers. But how did they know it was the same group? And why was it not quite the perfect crime?
image: Heliophysics Systems Observatory spacecraft characterize, in the highest cadence, the constant stream of particles exploding from the sun affect Earth, the planets, and beyond via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / Flickr
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We've got segments on artificial intelligence and IPO innovation in today's episode of 16 Minutes, where we take a look at the news and what it means for the long arc of innovation.
In the first segment (0:00): Take the surrealistic images of Salvador Dali and cross them with Pixar's animated film Wall-E and you've got ... Dall-E! It's a new neural network that creates images based on text inputs, and the worlds of A.I. and machine learning recently got their first glimpse.
Last summer, research lab OpenAI released an API for the machine learning model GPT-3, which caused a stir with the way it could produce text that was hard to distinguish from human writing (16 Minutes showrunner Sonal Choksi and a16z Operating Partner Frank Chen discussed it in a recent 16 Minutes Podcast, "GPT-3: Beyond the Hype," breaking down what it does and doesn't mean for startups, incumbents, and the idea of "AI as a service").
Now OpenAI has unveiled Dall-E, which processes language to create new images (not new text, as GPT-3 does). Dall-E does this using a neural network called CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training), which classifies a wide variety of images culled from the internet while "filling in the blanks" using zero-shot reasoning, enabling Dall-E to produce surprising images by inferring information it wasn't trained in.
We called on Frank again to explain where Dall-E (and the broader topic of machine learning) sits on the path toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), how Dall-E's transformer-type architecture is able to infer information, what its limitations might be, and what uses we might see as this technology develops. -- with Zoran Basich
In the second segment (12:58), we had a quick chat with a16z operating partner Scott Kupor about the recent decision by the SEC to allow the issuance of new shares via direct listings on the New York Stock Exchange. Previously direct listings were limited to the sale of existing shares. Recent first-day IPO "pops" have sparked much discussion about the fairness or unfairness of the process and whether the current path we have for companies going public is broken or just needs some tinkering around the edges.
Scott breaks down how the new rule will affect companies, as well as institutional and retail investors, and what this means in the long arc of IPO innovation. -- with Zoran Basich
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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. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein
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 for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) 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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