The Best of a16z

A curated list of resources we’ve relied on to get smarter about modern AI, including generative AI, LLMs, and transformer models.

«a curated list of resources we’ve relied on to get smarter about modern AI.»

Transactional guarantees are needed outside the traditional model. Typically, modern solutions are workflow-centric or database-centric.

What to know about the new DeSci movement

In the future, it’s likely that the average person will not work for a company. Instead, people will earn income in non-traditional ways by taking actions such as playing games, learning new skills,…

«DAOs as open economies will power the X-to-earn trend, which will make work more flexible, fluid, and playful than the 9-5s we are accustomed to.»

Shared by 326, including ThomNagy, Benedict Evans, David Smooke, Mark Kaigwa, Yann “不停” Heurtaux @shalf@mastodon.social

DeFi’s two foundational qualities — permissionless-ness and transparency — translate to multiple, powerful use cases.

«decentralized finance aka “DeFi,” the ecosystem of blockchain-enabled products and services that replace traditional financial intermediaries with freely accessible, autonomous, and transparent software. »

“Financial operations” (FinOps) is an emerging software category with a massive opportunity to streamline, automate, and optimize how we move money, while giving the entire organization a real-time…

As the Generative AI Revolution in Games progresses, it will completely reshape UGC and expand the games market beyond what many thought was possible.

The next big social network, ecommerce empire, movie franchise, and super app? Games will lead the way.

We’re continuing to see tremendous innovation in marketplaces. The first generation of net companies saw a few big horizontal marketplace winners like eBay and Craigslist. But entrepreneurs are…

There might be no more beloved image of the American entrepreneurial spirit than that of neighborhood kids who open a sidewalk lemonade stand on a hot summer day. With a little bit of “capital” fro…

Some network effects (when a network gains more value to its users as more people participate in its platform) don’t show up in the usual metrics. Their hidden nature makes them hard to measure – but they can confer significant long-term competitive advantages. In an insightful article for A16Z.com, D’Arcy Coolican – an Andreessen Horowitz partner and a co-founder of the peer-to-peer lending platform Frank – shines a light on hidden networks, giving useful guidelines for identifying when they’re at work.

The most successful companies and products of the internet era have all been predicated on the concept of network effects, where the network becomes more valuable to users as more people use it. Th…

Non-fungible tokens offer fundamentally better economics for creators by removing rent-seeking, enabling granular pricing, and reducing customer acquisition costs.

«On Substack, 1,000 newsletter subscribers paying $10/month nets over $100K/year to the writer.»

From "I've never seen anything like this before" to "is this like ICOs all over again" to "it's just a jpg I don't get it" to "but what about the energy use!" -- this special deep-dive episode from…

«NFT stands for “non-fungible token”, which is just a term used to describe a unique digital asset, whose ownership is tracked on a blockchain.»

Increasingly, building a successful startup involves not only building a product that people can’t get enough of, but also building an engaged, loyal community around that product. Today, most…

Benchmarks for B2B companies, based on a16z data and investing team expertise.

Network effects can be found powering almost every major technology company, from messaging apps and workplace collaboration tools, like Slack and Zoom, to marketplaces, like Airbnb and Instacart to…

Web1 (roughly 1990-2005) was about open protocols that were decentralized and community-governed. Most of the value accrued to the edges of the network — users and builders. Web2 (roughly 2005-2020)…

«We are now at the beginning of the web3 era, which combines the decentralized, community-governed ethos of web1 with the advanced, modern functionality of web2.»

To stave off national stagnation in a post-COVID world, technologists need to build companies that tackle America's biggest problems head-on.

Generative AI will have a massive impact in the software industry and beyond. The goal of this post is to map out the market dynamics and business models.

«So far, we’ve had a hard time finding structural defensibility anywhere in the stack, outside of traditional moats for incumbents.»

Every Western institution was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, despite many prior warnings. This monumental failure of institutional effectiveness will reverberate for the rest of the decade,…

In many design, product management, engineering, or even venture capital interviews and pitches, you’ll be assessed on a dimension called “product thinking,” sometimes also called “product sense.” If…

«The simplest way to define product thinking is that it is the skill of knowing what makes a product useful — and loved — by people»

Technical literacy is key to career success, even for non-engineers. Learn how to master the tools of your trade and build a solid tech foundation.

«MAKE A PLAN Learning “guitar” is hard, but learning a song on guitar is a lot easier.»

How to decide the guiding metrics for every type of business, based on a survey of employees at over 40 of today's most successful growth-stage companies.

«By maintaining a laser focus on a single metric for too long, teams risk short-term thinking, missing new opportunities, and sacrificing the user experience.»

This post is all about network effects and critical mass. But it’s also about applying those concepts as important mental models in business, so I will share a short story about a business decision I…