This is an interesting piece and definitely fits with my perception of a16z.<p>Their podcasts are really good and cover a wide range of tech subjects at a medium-high level for those not familiar. Content is usually aggressively future looking and often brutally honest and this article makes me think that is all by design now. Also look at their portfolio[0], makes you realize how big of a hand they have in the startup pie.<p>Didn't realize they funded Coinbase. Explains a lot of their crypto-content. I've seen a lot of skepticism on HN about crypto, but the a16z podcasts have convinced me it will be a critical component of finance and the web going forward.<p>[0] <a href="https://a16z.com/portfolio/" rel="nofollow">https://a16z.com/portfolio/</a>
reading the article is really how i always felt about the a16z podcast. it feels so 'advertise-ish' the few times I listened to it. Like some sort of manufactured low key sales pitch on the companies they invest in.<p>Anyway I think the general takeaway from the article is the degree to which VC culture has become media/influencer/entertainment dominated. I really had to laugh when I read his "build" article and the next thing I read was that he pumped countless of dollars into clubhouse, a digital nightclub. So much for building real stuff. I feel like at this point if you put all the VC people together they couldn't build a bus station.<p>Never been the biggest fan of Elon personally but in contrast to all the valley types he and his companies to me represent what technologists should actually do, build companies that actually manufacture things.
I've realized in the last few years that VC is fundamentally marketing. Getting pitched by the best founders and getting the biggest LPs is all about how well a VC can position themselves as a thought leader. That's why most of the day job of a VC is basically content marketing: blogging, writing surveys of the tech landscape, appearing on startup pitch competitions, getting quoted in the media.
This was an interesting piece.<p>I must say though that I don't love the a16z podcasts. The couple that I listened to were fairly bland. They need more personality/charisma etc. I find the TWIST podcast by Jason Calacanis much more interesting mainly because of his engagement/personality/authenticity etc.<p>I actually think I could do better with a bit a practice. @wennmachers ... hit me if you want to chat! (I figured I "go direct" here! :-)
Since the media likes to roll this way, I'll post the part Eric buried at the end:<p>"I talked to Wennmachers for over an hour for this story on the condition that I wouldn’t quote her. She asked me to write that she strenuously disagreed with many of this story’s characterizations and facts."
I wonder if there's any bad blood between YC and a16z now based on the Zenefits story? I mean this article basically said Parker was thrown under the bus. This suggests that a16z is not founder friendly.<p>As much as the collective "we" rails against cancel culture it seems to me he was cancelled. I mean a regulatory fine would be expected... and others have done worse.
Whole VC industry is set up on pushing one simple lie: that you need VCs to create a successful company. Everything else is marketing endeavours to try to sell this convincingly.<p>It's all the capitalists realising that to make software you don't need no factories anymore, which means much lower initial investment. So the marketing machine had to start and created this bizarre ecosystem of hyper growth, fuelled in kinda' pyramid fashion (all the money that is pumped into startups is spent on services provided by other startups they've financed).<p>The whole system attracts money hungry teenagers, which can be convinced that ethics are an obstacle to be overcome, and we end up with what we have today.
"That same year, John Carreyrou revealed that Theranos had "struggled with its blood testing technology." Theranos had mostly raised money outside of Silicon Valley. But some venture capitalists tied their reputations to defending the company anyway. Marc Andreessen, who tweeted prolifically at the time, appeared to develop an affinity for blocking people who tweeted negatively about Theranos."