The Best of a16z
20+ most popular a16z articles, as voted by our community.
a16z on China
When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
This post is all about WeChat, but it’s also about more than just WeChat. While seemingly just a messaging app, WeChat is actually more of a portal, a platform, and even a mobile operating system…
Four Key Product Principles from WeChat’s Creator
Throughout China, Allen Zhang is known as the "father of WeChat". Zhang’s public persona has much the same cultural importance and weight as the American legacy of Steve Jobs. He is renowned in Chi…
a16z on Fintech
Decentralized Finance: What It Is, Why It Matters
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. »
Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company
Fintech startups are providing complex banking infrastructure "as a service." That means every company can now benefit from financial services.
a16z on Game Development
The Generative AI Revolution will Enable Anyone to Create Games
As the Generative AI Revolution in Games progresses, it will completely reshape UGC and expand the games market beyond what many thought was possible.
State of Play: Six Trends Revolutionizing Games
The next big social network, ecommerce empire, movie franchise, and super app? Games will lead the way.
a16z on Marketplaces
Online Marketplaces
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…
Where the Opportunities Are in Regulated Marketplaces: Managed Marketplaces
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…
a16z on Network Effects
Hidden Networks: Network Effects That Don’t Look Like Network Effects
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 Dynamics of Network Effects
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…
a16z on Saas
To Start Building a Community, Master These Two Concepts
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…
Introducing a16z's Guide to Growth Metrics
Benchmarks for B2B companies, based on a16z data and investing team expertise.
a16z on Startups
Kickstarting Network Effects
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…
Why Web3 Matters
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.»
a16z on Technology
How to Excel in Tech Without Learning to Code
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.»
NFTs and a Thousand True Fans
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.»
a16z on Venture Capital
Building American Dynamism
To stave off national stagnation in a post-COVID world, technologists need to build companies that tackle America's biggest problems head-on.
Who Owns the Generative AI Platform?
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.»
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It's time to build
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,…
«we have the internet; why haven’t we built systems to match every young learner with an older tutor to dramatically improve student success»
Why AI Will Save the World
There's a full-blown moral panic about AI right now. But the real risk is losing the race to global AI technological superiority.
«Historically, every new technology that matters, from electric lighting to automobiles to radio to the Internet, has sparked a moral panic»
AI Canon | Andreessen Horowitz
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.»
The Power of Product Thinking
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»
Choosing Your North Star Metric
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.»
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a16z on Social Audio
Social Strikes Back - Andreessen Horowitz
An innovative new wave of social networks has arrived—from audio-first apps to social gaming to the countless consumer apps built with social in their DNA.