Podcast appearances and mentions of Jeff Jordan

Have This MindPhilippians 2:1-11Rev. Jeff Jordan 9/1/2024

In the 84th episode of Product&Growth, we talked to Sameer Singh, Venture Partner at Speedinvest. Sameer's blog: https://breadcrumb.vc/ What we talked about: - Definition of network effects and companies who have them - How to define metrics for network effects products - FOMO in VC - Defensibility and economies of scale in AI - How to evaluate and measure network effects - How to scale network effects - Why investors should leave problem solving to founders Sameer's recommendations: 1. Josh Breinlinger - https://acrowdedspace.com/ 2. Bill Gurley - https://abovethecrowd.com/ 3. Jeff Jordan - https://a16z.com/author/jeff-jordan/ 4. Lenny - https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/ 5. James Currier's NFX Manual - https://www.nfx.com/post/network-effects-manual

Scripture Reference: Philippians 1:1-11 Because the Lord is at hand, and through the grace we have in Christ, we can see one another through a different lens than the worlds sees us. We can cultivate these three postures towards each other that our modeled for us here in Paul's introduction to his letter to the Philippians.

About Jeff Jordan:For over 30 years Jeff has been an integral part of the Direct Sales/Network Marketing Industry. Jeff has served as a successful distributor, corporate executive, and consultant. He has consulted with over 300 Direct Sales/MLM companies helping them grow their business into a successful enterprise. Jeff has written dozens of compensation plans designed with fairness to both distributors and companies.He started in the industry as an independent distributor and within a few short months had achieved top ranks. After a successful run as a top distributor, Jeff joined the top Network Marketing training company (Millionaires in Motion) as VP of Sales and later became Executive VP.Jeff went on to become a top consultant, specializing in sales, top distributor recruitment programs, as well as compensation plans and training programs.Now Jeff leads MLM-CC.com a unique Direct Sales/Network Marketing compensation design and Analytics Company as President. With their proprietary software, they are able to analyze a company's compensation plan and make recommendations to strengthen their plans.About Colton Anson:Colton Anson is an integral part of the Business Development Team for Uforek and is joining us today to share his experience of being a part of the compensation plan development.In this episode, Jennie Bellinger, Jeff Jordan, and Colton Anson discuss:Managing relationships and expectations with customers, team members, and potential recruits in the direct sales industryThe importance of compensation plans in driving desired behaviors and rewarding distributorsA unique binary compensation plan that addresses the disadvantages of traditional binary plansVarious bonuses and opportunities for individuals to earn income at different levels of commitmentThe launch of Uforek, a new network marketing company with a range of products and a unique compensation planKey Takeaways:Understanding the intricacies of a compensation plan can help distributors maximize their income potential and achieve success in their business.Uforek's modified binary compensation plan is designed to be more distributor-friendly, particularly for new members, by offering various bonuses and opportunities to earn money while building their binary.The compensation plan caters to individuals at different levels of commitment, from new members to serious business builders and leaders, allowing them to earn income according to their efforts.Uforek offers a range of products, including weight loss caramels, nootropics for cognitive performance, and CBD, which have been developed with the involvement of the speaker's father.The creators of Uforek have brought on experienced professionals, such as Jenny Bellinger, to help train and represent the company, thanks to the impressive team and products."They think [a comp plan is] all about numbers and charts, and it's really not. It's really about helping people get into a business and find success in that business.” — Jeff Jordan Connect with Jeff Jordan:Website: https://jeffjordandirectsales.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffjordanmlm/Connect with Colton Anson:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anson.colton?igsh=aDU5N2Eyc3RzM2JmCONNECT WITH JENNIE:Website: https://badassdirectsalesmastery.com/Email:  jennie@badassdirectsalesmastery.comFacebook personal page: https://facebook.com/jbellingerPLFacebook podcast page: http://facebook.com/BadassDirectSalesMasteryFacebook group for Badass Crew: https://facebook.com/groups/BadassDirectSalesMomsInstagram: https://instagram.com/BadassDirectSalesMasteryPersonal Instagram: https://instagram.com/jenniebellingerLinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/BadassDirectSalesMasteryShow Notes by Podcastologist: Hanz Jimuel AlvarezAudio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Jeff Jordan, three-time All-American at Jacksonville State University and current Director of Golf at Mountain Brook Country Club in Birmingham, AL, sits down with David, Mark, and Nick to talk his winding road into the sport of golf and that one time he became Chris DeMarco at Augusta...enjoy! Lens Plus: ⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel... Subscribe on Spotify: ⁠⁠https://anchor.fm/lensmedia/subscribe⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/talkorgohom... Tik Tok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@talkorgohome⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/ToGHPodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/TalkorGo⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEEn... Created by Nick Wilson and Brandon Farmer Produced by Nick Wilson Hosted by Nick Wilson, Clint Thompson, David Murphree, & Mark Sanders  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lensmedia/message

Sophia Amoruso is the founder and managing partner of Trust Fund, an early-stage venture fund focused exclusively (yet broadly) on investing in tech-enabled products that help people start and build businesses. Trust fund's investors include Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Ev Williams, Naomi Gleit, Andrew Chen, Jeff Jordan, Jesse Draper, Rob Hayes, and Phil Hellmuth. Some of their portfolios include Public, Liquid Death, and MoonPay, among others. She is also the founder of Nasty Gal, Girlboss and a New York Times Bestselling author.    You can learn more about:  How to Brand Your Business How to Invest in Top Startups Lessons from Being an Entrepreneur to Venture Capitalist ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG ===================== Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company.

February 11, 2004 PM ~ Help for the Task ~ Rev. Jeff Jordan

In 2022 and 2023, US IPOs hit decade lows after the record high of 2021. Now, in 2024, will the IPO window reopen?In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Jeff Jordan, former CEO of OpenTable, and J.D. Moriarty, the former Head Managing Director and Head of Equity Capital Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.Joined by Sonal Choksi, the pair takes you behind the scenes to unravel the complexities surrounding IPOs, including pricing, allocations, and the elusive "pop." They also discuss OpenTable's IPO, which occurred immediately following the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and weigh in on the question: Can you time an IPO in an unpredictable year? Resources:Find Jeff on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeff_jordanFind J.D on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdmoriartyFind Sonal on Twitter: https://twitter.com/smc90 Stay Updated: Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zSubscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithioPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

A reminder for new readers. That Was The Week collects the best writing on critical issues in tech, startups, and venture capital. I selected the articles because they are of interest. The selections often include things I entirely disagree with. But they express common opinions, or they provoke me to think. The articles are only snippets. Click on the headline to go to the original. I express my point of view in the editorial and the weekly video below.Thanks To This Week's Contributors: @TEDchris, @LilyWhitsitt, @RocketToLulu, @saeedtaji, @geneteare, @EricNewcomer, @jeffbeckervc, @jasonlk, @elonmusk, @benshapiro, @StevenLevy, @apple, @bheater, @bmw, @Growcoot, @illscience, @venturetwins, @omooretweets, @conniechanContents* Editorial: Civility and Civilization* Essays of the Week* US Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024* Lower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 * Unicorns & Inevitabilities* Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager Survey* Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023* Video of the Week* The Mac at 40* AI of the Week* BMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plant* Google's New AI Video Generator Looks Incredible* OpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surge* The Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” Workflows* Andreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AI* OpenAI Is a (Relative) Steal* News Of the Week* Ted fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speaker* Tesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' Group* TikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content Options* Instagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'* Tiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising Challenges* Worldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experience* Startup of the Week* Loyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M Round* X of the Week* Elon Musk visits Auschwitz with Ben ShapiroEditorialThere is a lot to digest in this week's newsletter. Gené Teare's two essays on Seed investing head up the Essays of the Week, along with Jeff Becker talking about unicorns and inevitabilities, Eric Newcomer on who are the top investors and Jason Lemkin on the reasons 2024 might be harder for Venture Capital than 2023.But my attention was distracted from venture capital by a Guardian article announcing (triumphantly, I might add) that several TED fellows had resigned from the organization due to an invite to Bill Ackman to speak at this year's TED event in Vancouver.“Lucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusion”It seems Ackman is not alone. They also object to Bari Weiss being invited. The leavers are also not alone; up to 30 others have signed a “solidarity” letter.The accusations echo much of the discussion around the medieval assassination of Jews on 7 October and Israel's efforts to defeat Hamas in the aftermath. Because these speakers are against anti-Semitism and so supportive of Israel's war against Hamas, they are accused of the ridiculous claim of supporting “Genocide” against Palestinians.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.It probably will not surprise readers of this newsletter that I applaud TED curators Chris Anderson and Lily James Olds for not backing down on the invitations. Whatever one believes about the current conflict in Israel, it is clear that banning opponents of anti-Semitism because of their stance is not a solution to anything. I believe the cause of fighting anti-Semitism should be close to the heart of any progressive person. It is not anti-Palestinian to support Jews against being slaughtered in the street, to oppose anti-Semitism, or to condemn Hamas as anti-Jewish murderers. Supporting Jews against slaughter by Hamas is not incompatible with supporting Palestinians. The Guardian reported that Ackman responded to the resignations with a statement:“I stand unapologetically with Israel and against antisemitism and terrorism, while strongly supporting the Palestinian people. Attempts to cancel speech and eliminate the free and respectful exchange of ideas among people with differing views are driving much of the divisiveness that plagues our nation. Truth, wisdom and ultimately peace are the result of the free exchange of ideas and debate, precisely what Ted is all about. It is sad that this is not more widely understood,”Unsurprisingly, one of the resigners, Farouky, told the Guardian he did not regard the issue as freedom of speech. It clearly IS about freedom of speech. Speech only needs protecting when opinions are wide apart and strongly held.For example, here are my views on the actual issues:These are trying times. Over 25,000 deaths in Gaza are hard to comprehend. And I certainly cannot. But I can understand that Jews have to defend themselves. And I can understand that progressive thinkers MUST stand up to anti-Semitism, whatever form it takes.In case there is doubt about my support for Muslim victims of racism, my book Under Seige is about the attacks on Muslims in the UK between 1961 and 1981. It starts with recognizing that racism targets differences and that Jews and Muslims are both targets. Indeed, the very ghettoes that Pakistani and Bengali immigrants were being attacked in had earlier, in the 1930s, been inhabited by Jewish settlers fleeing pogroms. I am not Jewish, and I am not Muslim. But I will always be on both of their sides when they are attacked for their ethnic and racial origin.In Israel, Jews were killed for being Jews. Palestinians are being killed because Hamas is hiding in their cities and buildings. I do not consider Israel's response to be racist against Palestinians. I consider it reasonable in the context of 7 October. I consider that Hamas has done this to Palestinians and probably wanted that outcome. I am sad that Hamas has done this for the Palestinian victims. But I do not doubt that Hamas is to blame.My views may anger you. But do you want me banned or silenced?My title this week is Civility and Civilization. The TED events bring both to the fore. Like those I write here, opinions are there to be disagreed with, debated, and interrogated. Civilized behavior requires dialogue and civility within the dialogue. I certainly understand opinions I disagree with, and far from banning them or walking away so that I do not have to hear them, I want to hear them. We all should.This is a different editorial than usual. I hope the humanity of refusing to forget 7 October and the determination to preserve the view that fighting anti-Semitism is a non-negotiable minimum requirement of civilization are grasped. By the same token, Islamaphobia must be fought. But in Israel, there is no Islamophobia at work. Jews are simply reacting to an atrocity. They are right to blame Hamas.Essays of the WeekUS Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024Gené Teare, January 24, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the first in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Check back tomorrow for Part 2.Despite a broad pullback in global startup investment over the past two years, investors say the U.S. seed funding environment was the most vibrant compared to other funding stages during the downturn.In fact, U.S. seed funding in 2022 grew by close to 10% in terms of dollars invested, in contrast to a downturn at all other funding stages. In 2023, U.S. seed funding fell 31% — a significant proportion — but still less than other funding stages year over year, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows. (It's also worth noting that those other stages had already experienced year-over-year declines in 2022.)In the current startup funding market, “we're seeing a lot more great talent excited about starting things,” said Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies and is therefore close to the seed ecosystem.Other investors share that enthusiasm. “Valuations are coming down, more talent is available in the market,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures. “A lot of these companies at seed and Series A are going to scale into what will likely be the next bull market.”Seed trends over the decadeSeed as an asset class, not surprisingly, has grown in the U.S. over the past decade. In 2014 less than $5 billion was invested at seed. At the market peak in 2022, seed investment was more than $16 billion, although it fell to $11.5 billion in 2023.Despite the downturn, seed funding in 2023 was still $2 billion to $3 billion higher in the U.S. than in the pre-pandemic years of 2019 and 2020.Higher bar, pricier rounds, better valuedBut in a tougher market, seed investors are being more selective about which companies they fund.“We're being far more disciplined and patient knowing how hard it is for these companies to get to Series A and beyond,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “Our bar for conviction is higher than it had been in the heyday where everything was getting funded.”In the slower funding environment, the firm has been investing later at the seed stage, “gravitating toward ‘seed plus' or ‘A minus' — pick your favorite term for it — because I feel like I get to see more risk mitigated. I get to see more data,” she said.Freestyle seeks to have ownership of around 12% to 15% in the companies it backs. “The reason is because of our model,” Lefcourt said. “We are low-volume, high-conviction investors.”And because the firm invests in companies that are pre-Series A, “our reality has been that our valuations have actually been higher in this market, which is not what we would have predicted.“But the data we've seen is, we're not alone in that,” she said.…MoreLower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 Gené Teare, January 25, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the second in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Read Part 1, which looked at seed funding trends over the past decade and the median time period between seed and Series A funding, here.Seed funding to startups has grown into its own asset class over the past decade, with round sizes trending larger, and a bigger pool of investors backing these nascent startups. But in the aftermath of 2021's venture funding heyday and subsequent pullback, investors say that while seed funding has held up better than other startup investment stages, these very young startups will see lower valuations and must now clear a much higher bar to get backing.More companies raised seed funding above $1 million in 2021. Those companies — which raised during a record-smashing year for venture funding — are saddled with valuations that could be too high for this current market — even at seed. Many of those startups have been forced to cut costs to extend their runways, and face a tougher sales environment.“You could then be sacrificing growth, which is one of the main levers that Series A investors are looking for,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures.2021 after effectsIn 2021 it was “grow, grow, grow, grow,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “It's embarrassing to look back on, but that was the game being played.”Investors got sloppy during the boom times, she said. “I think a lot of VCs were thrilled to back you, and then say, ‘we'll figure it out.' ”“The reality is that almost anything that was done then — call it 2021 — was the wrong price,” she said.This led to down rounds, even at seed, though those are generally not viewed negatively like they were in the past, she said.In fact, “when our companies get their down rounds done, it's a sign of it's a good business. It just had the wrong price on it,” she said.While the bar is higher to raise funding these days, “I think it's so much better for a company who gets to start in this environment,” Lefcourt said.Down rounds can actually be a sign of conviction, she said. “None of us would do all the heavy lifting to not only give the company more capital, but recap it, which takes a lot. It's a heavy lift — none of us would do that if we weren't super jazzed about the company. The lazier approach, the easier approach, is to just put it on the note, keep it flat, and be done,” she said.Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies, is hearing of “more ‘pay-to-play' these days and it's starting to get ugly.” This happens when new investors wipe out the prior investors, and anyone seeking equity needs to pony up into the new funding round.Median and averages climbNonetheless, “seed round valuations haven't dropped a ton from even the peak,” according to Forum Ventures' Cardamone. But, “the bar to raise a seed [round] is a lot higher.”“Most first-time founders especially, and the vast majority of founders generally — they have to get significant traction to be able to raise that same round they used to be able to raise. And a lot fewer of those rounds are happening,” he said.“A priced seed round of $3 million at $15 million [pre-money] is still happening, but you might have to be at $500,000 ARR, to raise that round now. Whereas in 2021, it was the norm to raise that round pre-revenue,” he said.Series A fundings have gotten harder as “companies are going out and raising three seed rounds,” said Cardamone.Based on an analysis of Crunchbase data, median and average seed round sizes in the U.S. have climbed through the past decade.In 2023, median and average raises are not far from the peak of 2022, Crunchbase data shows, and were well above pre-pandemic levels. (However, this will shift downward somewhat as the long tail of seed fundings are retroactively added to the Crunchbase database.)Seed rounds got larger“If I have conviction, we may need them to have more money, cause we know it's going to take them longer to reach the milestones that are now higher,” said Lefcourt.Per an analysis of Crunchbase data, larger seed rounds — those $1 million and above — have increased through the decade.The amount of funding to seed-stage companies below $1 million hasn't budged much, and is a fraction of what it was earlier in the decade.Seed below $1 million in 2014 represented around 25% of all seed funding.That has come down as a proportion every year since then.And as of 2021 that proportion has dipped below 10% for the first time, ranging from 5% to 7% of all seed dollars invested in the U.S. since then.Earlier in the past decade, the number of seed deals in rounds below $1 million outpaced those rounds at $1 million and above significantly.But 2021 was once again a pivotal year. That's when $1 million and above seed rounds outpaced smaller seed for the first time.In 2023, they are neck and neck in count. (That might shift as the long tail of seed rounds are added to the Crunchbase database long after they close.)What this all shows is that seed has become an increasingly significant and elongated phase in a company's early life cycle, where companies are raising multiple million-dollar seed rounds. And as of late, more companies than ever before are wading in the seed pool.What does this mean for the seed funding market in 2024?…MoreUnicorns & InevitabilitiesUp and to the right, or not so much?JEFF BECKER, JAN 22, 2024TLDR: Go read Aileen Lee's update to the Unicorn Club… and a few inevitabilities.Did anyone catch Aileen Lee & Allegra Simon's Welcome Back to the Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later?If not, go read it. That's your MMM.If you did read it, you can't help but wonder if the tech sector isn't going to resemble the public markets over time. Ups and downs, but consistently up and to the right over a long enough period.After all, we are creating leverage in ways we've never seen before.And for unicorns, that meant 14X growth over a 10-year period.Could you imagine another 14 or even 10X from here? That would be stratospheric, from ~500 to ~5,000 unicorns? What if the exit sizes did too? $5B, $10B, $50B?Crazy to think, but hardly impossible. After all, we've already seen near-centicorns like Uber's IPO at $75B in 2019.The interesting part about that thought exercise though is not the crazy zero interest rate IPO's, but the fact that entry valuations didn't and don't move nearly as fast as top end outcomes because of the time horizon to realizing them.For example, Airbnb raised $20K from Y Combinator for 6%, then they took another $600K for 20% in their seed.That was 2009. The idea of an IPO for $47B just 11 years later in 2020 probably wasn't even a consideration. Paul Graham and the YC team would've had to believe Airbnb's IPO could compete with AT&T, General Motors, and Visa.Insane.Fast forward, that $333,333 valuation at YC has moved to $1.78m (125K for 7%), and they'll stack another 2.6% ownership on average from their $375K MFN with the average YC company raising seed at a $14.4m cap instead of Airbnb's $3m.That's a ~5X increase in valuation at pre-seed & seed for a 47X increase in IPO size if you were modeling $1B outcomes into your VC fund model in 2009.I'm not saying that will continue. There are counterforces of course.* Margins are way too high. The fact that software margins have persisted at 80% or more is just craziness. Companies will start to use price more aggressively to compete for market share as cheap AI tools enter the market and try to unseat them. This compression will change the value of discounted cash flow models.* Pricing models need to change. One way to reduce sticker price and maintain some semblance of healthy long-term margins is to pay a smaller implementation fee, but incur ongoing services & upgrade costs. This is a more traditional pricing model, and creative economics that leverage this kind of thinking run rampant in the titans of tech. It's a game of deeper roots, higher switching costs, and long-term contracts. With API calls and data usage more prevalent, we'll also see more pay-per-use models, the same way we buy copiers. We'll also see more pay-for-performance models with attributable ROI, akin to Amazon's ACoS model or Rakuten's affiliate marketing model. Customers will prefer it too, placing a higher emphasis customer value. This will also drive margins to condense.* AI, AI, AI. AI will cut OpEx costs dramatically. SDR teams, gone. Copywriters at agencies, you don't need as many. Data scientists? Just run a query against your data lakes. The list goes on. Costs of running these companies is going to get shellacked. Good for margins for sure, but also a compelling opportunity for newcomers to undercut and unseat incumbents too.* More hardware. With software margins condensing, hardware margins will start to feel more attractive too, the maintenance and upgrade fees will resemble what we see in SaaS, and the software that powers these machines will be incredible. Skynet for autonomous off-road vehicles, absolutely.* Less dilution, earlier exits, and stratification. We already see it in the S&P 500 with the top end accounting for an outsized share of total value. With that kind of cash on balance sheets, bigger companies will just buy the smaller ones. Think about how Broadcom rolls up companies. If you've built the business more efficiently, you've also raised less, incurred less dilution, and that $100m exit when you still own 50% is looking pretty prett-ty good compared to the same outcome 5-10 grueling years later to own 5% of $1B.* Massive founder salaries, less emphasis on growth. If you've built a company that's profitable from day one, and you have complete control of your board, what's your incentive to keep the pedal down on growth, or stay on the VC treadmill? World domination? Why not pay yourself 10X, stop fundraising, and continue to tighten the core business until someone acquires you? It's better for the founding team and employees for sure, and it's probably better for customers in most instances too.These are just some of things I think we'll see over the next five years until we approach ZIRPy-dirpy times again and massive growth becomes irresistible.But there are also a whole slew of things I think are inevitabilities that will benefit from these dynamics because we will not only have new technologies, with more attractive pricing, but we will be tackling new opportunities that were created by the prior evolutions across adjacent industries.For example…* Cost of energy is going to zero with nuclear fusion* Longevity is starting to work; check out Loyal for Dogs* Batteries & cameras continue to improve; medical devices, for one, will be more personal & affordable* Disintermediation of big ad networks with new global distribution channels; check out Benjamin* Massive cost reductions driven by AI* Software will be built by software* An aging population is retiring (10,000 per day); wealth transfer & SMB's with no exit paths* Climate change* …and so on and so on and so onThe list is long. Much longer than this. If you want the rest, just reply or comment so that I know, and I'll go deeper next week.Net of all of it, I think we're going to see a tale of two cities. Stronger, more profitable businesses, with smaller, but better founder founder exits in the near term, and a continued growth both in number of total unicorns, and what that top-end outcomes look like in the longer-term.And like I said, go read Aileen's post.Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager SurveyI got my hands on a VC scorecard circulating among top founders & VCsERIC NEWCOMERJAN 25, 2024Before we get started, I want to be clear — this isn't the end-all, be-all list of the top venture capital firms or the most promising startups.But I got my hands on a survey of 91 people at 69 different venture capital firms conducted by a well-respected investor in venture capital firms.The survey results are spreading hand-to-hand in Silicon Valley. The results of the survey rank the most desirable venture capital firms and companies, according to VCs themselves. When I was out in San Francisco last week for The Information's 10th anniversary gala, sources kept bringing it up.My sources tell me that the survey was conducted by Ed Hutchinson, managing partner at Golden Bell Partners. Hutchinson is ignoring my emails.Which firms and companies would top VCs themselves put their money into? It's a question everyone wants to know the answer to.I've got my hands on their list of favorites:Firms* (1) Sequoia* (2) Founders Fund* (3) Union Square* (4) Elad Gil* (5) Benchmark…Much More (but only for subscribers)Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023by Jason Lemkin | Blog Posts, Fundraising, ScaleSo I thought the toughest times for venture would be behind us now.  In 2022, we were in free fall, with public market caps falling like a knife, and the IPO markets frozen.  And 2023 was the year of the Work Out in venture.  Bridge rounds slowed down, and VCs acknowledged a lot of portfolio companies just weren't going to make it.  It got real in 2023, and that realness got normalized.  The drama mostly was behind us.  And public SaaS stocks in many cases did really, really well in 2023.  So shouldn't 2024 at least be better for venture?So I thought.But the reality is I'm a bit more worried the venture drama in 2024 will be bigger than 2023.  Why?  Four core reasons:#1:  Now We Have to Deal With the Reality of the Stumbling Unicorns.The ones that are doing $100m+ ARR, still growing, but there just isn't going to be any more money coming.  This is going to burn up a ton of energy in VC funds.  Even tougher, the reality is while many VC funds marked down their unicorns to lower valuations in 2023, they often didn't mark them down enough.#2.  The Chase for AI Unicorns and Decacorns is All-consuming.  It's Still 2021 There.The one place where paper money seems easy to come by is Hot AI Startups.   And that's probably not you.  It's just consuming all the oxygen in venture, trying to get into the next Imaging AI startup worth $1B in 10 months.  In AI, 2021 never went away.  In AI, it's still 2021.#3.  A Lot of Seasoned VCs are Discouraged. This Doesn't Help Founders.A lot of VCs who have been around for a while are quietly discouraged.  They just don't see a great path to making a ton of money in venture these days.  We're in Year 3 of a venture downturn, and that weighs of most of us.  At a practical level, for founders, it makes it harder to lean it.#4.  More Valuation Markdowns Are Still to ComeRelated to the first point, but more markdowns are like mutliple rounds of layoffs.  They're just tough.  LPs lose confidence.  Coworkers lose confidence.  We should have gotten through a lot of this in 2023, but we didn't.  Personally, I've got several investments for example that I marked down. 70%-80% or more — that my co-investors didn't mark down at all.#5.  VCs Have Run out of ReservesVCs used what extra “reserve” capital they had for bridge rounds in 2022 and 2023.  Now it's gone.  That's adds to the stress as companies struggle.  You don't have a play anymore.The bottom line is there likely is at least another full year of working through the excesses of 2021.  That will weigh across venture.  No matter what some AI headlines suggest.Video of the WeekThe Mac at 40Apple Shares the Secret of Why the 40-Year-Old Mac Still RulesThe pioneering PC revolutionized how people interact with computers. As the Mac enters its fifth decade, Apple says it will continue to evolve.STEVEN LEVY, Jan 19, 2024 10:00 AMON JANUARY 24, Apple's Macintosh computer turns 40. Normally that number is an inexorable milestone of middle age. Indeed, in the last reported sales year, Macintosh sales dipped below $30 billion, more than a 25 percent drop from the previous year's $40 billion. But unlike an aging person, Macs now are slimmer, faster, and last much longer before having to recharge.My own relationship with the computer dates back to its beginnings, when I got a prelaunch peek some weeks before its January 1984 launch. I even wrote a book about the Mac—Insanely Great—in which I described it as “the computer that changed everything.” Unlike every other nonfiction subtitle, the hyperbole was justified. The Mac introduced the way all computers would one day work, and the break from controlling a machine with typed commands ushered us into an era that extends to our mobile interactions. It also heralded a focus on design that transformed our devices.That legacy has been long-lasting. For the first half of its existence, the Mac occupied only a slice of the market, even as it inspired so many rivals; now it's a substantial chunk of PC sales. Even within the Apple juggernaut, $30 billion isn't chicken feed! What's more, when people think of PCs these days, many will envision a Macintosh. More often than not, the open laptops populating coffee shops and tech company workstations beam out glowing Apples from their covers. Apple claims that its Macbook Air is the world's best-selling computer model. One 2019 survey reported that more than two-thirds of all college students prefer a Mac. And Apple has relentlessly improved the product, whether with the increasingly slim profile of the iMac or the 22-hour battery life of the Macbook Pro. Moreover, the Mac is still a thing. Chromebooks and Surface PCs come and go, but Apple's creation remains the pinnacle of PC-dom. “It's not a story of nostalgia, or history passing us by,” says Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in a rare on-the-record interview with five Apple executives involved in its Macintosh operation. “The fact we did this for 40 years is unbelievable.”…Much MoreAI of the WeekBMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plantBrian Heater @bheater / 3:00 AM PST•January 18, 2024Image Credits: FigureFigure today announced a “commercial agreement” that will bring its first humanoid robot to a BMW manufacturing facility in South Carolina. The Spartanburg plant is BMW's only in the United States. As of 2019, the 8 million-square-foot campus boasted the highest yield among the German manufacturer's factories anywhere in the world.BMW has not disclosed how many Figure 01 models it will deploy initially. Nor do we know precisely what jobs the robot will be tasked with when it starts work. Figure did, however, confirm with TechCrunch that it is beginning with an initial five tasks, which will be rolled out one at a time.While folks in the space have been cavalierly tossing out the term “general purpose” to describe these sorts of systems, it's important to temper expectations and point out that they will all arrive as single- or multi-purpose systems, growing their skillset over time. Figure CEO Brett Adcock likens the approach to an app store — something that Boston Dynamics currently offers with its Spot robot via SDK.Likely initial applications include standard manufacturing tasks such as box moving, pick and place and pallet unloading and loading — basically the sort of repetitive tasks for which factory owners claim to have difficulty retaining human workers. Adcock says that Figure expects to ship its first commercial robot within a year, an ambitious timeline even for a company that prides itself on quick turnaround times.The initial batch of applications will be largely determined by Figure's early partners like BMW. The system will, for instance, likely be working with sheet metal to start. Adcock adds that the company has signed up additional clients, but declined to disclose their names. It seems likely Figure will instead opt to announce each individually to keep the news cycle spinning in the intervening 12 months.Unlike some other humanoid designers (including Agility), Figure is focused on creating a dexterous, human like hand for manipulation. The thinking behind such an end effector is the same that's driving many toward the humanoid form factor in the first place: Namely, we've designed our workspaces with us in mind. Adcock alludes to Figure 01 being tasked with an initial set of jobs that require high dexterity.As for the importance of legs, the executive suggests that their importance for maneuvering during certain tasks is as — or more — important than things like walking up stairs and over uneven terrain, which tend to get most of the love during these conversations.…MoreGoogle's New AI Video Generator Looks IncredibleJAN 25, 2024MATT GROWCOOTGoogle has announced Lumiere: an AI video generator that looks to be one of the most advanced text-to-video models yet.The name Lumiere is seemingly a nod to the Lumiere brothers who are credited with putting on the first ever cinema showing in 1895. Just as motion picture was cutting-edge technology at the end of the 19th century, the Lumiere name is once more being associated with something new and original.The demo of Lumiere that Google put out focuses firmly on animals. The model can generate a scene using just text; much the same way AI image generators work, the user can dream up any scenario they would like to see a short video clip of.However, the user can also use an image as a prompt. Google provided multiple examples: including some that are real photos such as Joe Rosenthal's iconic Raising the Flag photo; “Soldiers raising the united states flag on a windy day” saw one of the 20th-centuries most recognizable photos suddently come to life as the soliders struggle with the flag that's being affected by gusts.Also in Lumiere is a “Video Stylization” setting which allows users to upload a source video and then ask the generative AI model for various element changes. For example, a person running may be suddenly turned into a toy made of colorful bricks.Another feature Google showed off is “Cinemagraphs”, where just a section of an image is animated while the rest stays still. “Video Inpainting” is included too which involves masking part of the image so that section can be changed to the user's desire.Space-Time Diffusion ModelLumiere is powered by “Space-Time U-Net architecture that generates the entire temporal duration of the video at once, through a single pass in the model.”This difficult-to-understand concept is apparently in contrast to existing video models which “synthesize distant keyframes followed by temporal super-resolution — an approach that inherently makes global temporal consistency difficult to achieve.”…Much MoreOpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surgeOpenAI CEO Sam Altman has opened discussions with global investors over the possibility of funding a network of artificial intelligence (AI) chip factories to keep pace with soaring demand.Altman is seeking around $8 billion to $10 billion worth of funds to set up several AI chip fabrication plants around the globe, an endeavor that will require synergy between leading chip manufacturers backed by investment giants.Altman is reportedly in talks with Japanese-based financial giant SoftBank Group (NASDAQ: SFTBF) and Abu Dhabi's G42 over funding plans, but details remain sparse. The discussions with G42 have been underway since 2023, with Altman describing a potential chip partnership as laying the foundation “for equitable advancements in generative AI across the globe.”Aside from SoftBank and G42, insiders say that Altman is still pursuing collaborations with other industry players to set up a network of chip fabrication plants. Although exact entities were not namechecked, industry experts are noting Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Samsung Electronics, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (NASDAQ: TSM) as potential partners.Altman's approach to raising funds hinges on concerns that the chip supply will not be able to meet global demands for AI offerings by 2030. The OpenAI's CEO argues that the ideal solution will be a collaborative effort to set up chip manufacturing plants rather than build in silos.OpenAI has had its fair share of chip scarcity, rolling back a number of its offerings over a steady chip supply. To meet the rising demand, the company is reportedly mulling several options, including the prospect of building its chips from scratch and joining ranks with Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) to explore an in-house solution.Given the costs associated with an in-house approach, OpenAI may pursue the acquisition of a chip manufacturer as a short-term solution or expand its collaboration with existing partners. However, a potential acquisition opens its own can of worms, including an inquiry by antitrust regulators.Governments are also involvedIn 2023, Altman urged the South Korean government to double their investments in AI chip manufacturing as a veritable strategy to play a leading role in the nascent ecosystem. Currently, South Korea ranks behind the U.S., China, and Japan in chip manufacturing, but a concerted government involvement could see the country climb up the charts.The OpenAI boss disclosed during his visit to South Korea that his firm will back local entities building chips for AI and other emerging technologies, with Samsung rumored to be in top position.“We are exploring how to increase our investment in Korean startups,” said Altman. “We are excited to meet as many as we can here today. I think this type of collaboration is essential to our work.”..MoreThe Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” WorkflowsAnish Acharya, Justine Moore, and Olivia MoorePosted January 25, 2024Few people love the software they use to get things done. And it's no surprise why. Whether it's a slide deck builder, a video editor, or a photo enhancer, today's work tools were conceived decades ago — and it shows! Even best-in-class products often feel either too inflexible and unsophisticated to do real work, or have steep, inaccessible learning curves (we're looking at you, Adobe InDesign). Generative AI offers founders an opportunity to completely reinvent workflows — and will spawn a new cohort of companies that are not just AI-augmented, but fully AI-native. These companies will start from scratch with the technology we have now, and build new products around the generation, editing, and composition capabilities that are uniquely possible due to AI. On the most surface level, we believe AI will help users do their existing work more efficiently. AI-native platforms will “up level” user interactions with software, allowing them to delegate lower skill tasks to an AI assistant and spend their time on higher-level thinking. This applies not only to traditional office workers, but to small business owners, freelancers, creators, and artists — who arguably have even more complex demands on their time. But AI will also help users unlock completely new skill sets, on both a technical and an aesthetic level. We've already seen this with products like Midjourney and ChatGPT's Code Interpreter. Everyone can now be a programmer, a producer, a designer, or a musician, shrinking the gap between creativity and craft. With access to professional-grade yet consumer-friendly products with AI-powered workflows, everyone can be a part of a new generation of “prosumers.”In this piece, we aim to highlight the features of today's — and tomorrow's — most successful Gen AI-native workflows, as well as hypothesize about how we see these products evolving.What Will GenAI Native Prosumer Products Look Like?All products with Gen AI-native workflows will share one crucial trait: translating cutting-edge models into an accessible, effective UI.Users of workflow tools typically don't care what infrastructure is behind a product; they care about how it helps them! While the technological leaps we've made with Generative AI are amazing, successful products will importantly still start from a deep understanding of the user and their pain points. What can be abstracted away with AI? Where are the key “decision points” that need approval, if any? And where are the highest points of leverage? There are a few key features we believe products in this category will have: * Generation tools that kill the “blank page” problem. The earliest and most obvious consumer AI use cases have come from translating a natural language prompt into a media output — e.g., image, video, and text generators. The same will be true in prosumer. These tools might help transform true “blank pages” (e.g., a text prompt to slide deck), or take incremental assets (e.g., a sketch or an outline) and turn them into a more fleshed-out product.Some companies will do this via a proprietary model, while others may mix or stitch together multiple models (open source, proprietary, or via API) behind the scenes. One example here is Vizcom's rendering tool. Users can input a text prompt, sketch, or 3D model, and instantly get a photorealistic rendering to further iterate on.Another example is Durable's website builder product, which the company says has been used to generate more than 6 million sites so far. Users input their company name, segment, and location, and Durable will spit out a site for them to customize. As LLMs get more powerful, we expect to see products like Durable pull real information about your business from elsewhere on the internet and social media — the history, team, reviews, logos, etc. — and generate an even more sophisticated output from just one generation. * Multimodal (and multimedia!) combinations. Many creative projects require more than one type of content. For example, you may want to combine an image with text, music with video, or an animation with a voiceover. As of now, there isn't one model that can generate all of these asset types. This creates an opportunity for workflow products which allow users to generate, refine, and stitch different content types in one place.…MoreAndreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AIBy Kate Clark, Erin Woo and Cory WeinbergJan 23, 2024, 7:22am PSTFor years, partners at Andreessen Horowitz proclaimed they would scour the startup world for the next big consumer marketplace like Airbnb or the next hit consumer app out of China, areas in which the firm had unique expertise. Now, it's shifting toward an area more en vogue across venture capital: consumer apps powered by artificial intelligence.Those changes are happening amid an overhaul of its consumer team. Connie Chan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who formerly led a team of consumer investors and was known for spotting internet trends coming from China, said she is leaving the firm.  She may raise her own fund, a person familiar with the matter said. Anish Acharya, a general partner at the firm who invested in enterprise-focused and financial technology businesses, now leads the consumer team, said people familiar with the change.Chan's move also follows a distancing by U.S. VC firms from investments in China tech, once a hotbed for U.S.  investors. In recent months, Chan has privately said it's becoming more difficult for her to work at Andreessen Horowitz because the partners have been increasingly disinterested in anything China related, another person said.The Takeaway• Fintech-focused GP Anish Acharya leading consumer deals• Consumer GP Connie Chan is leaving the firm• Consumer partner Anne Lee Skates left to start own fundThe changes are part of a broader personnel shakeup, including the decision by senior consumer investor and Airbnb board member Jeff Jordan to step back from making new investments last year. Of the four general partners that led the firm through a consumer deal blitz, none remain on the consumer team.Meanwhile, Anne Lee Skates, a consumer partner who worked on the firm's investment in live shopping app WhatNot, left in the fall to raise her own fund, according to two people familiar with the matter. Axios first reported that Chan was leaving the firm.The Andreessen Horowitz changes are emblematic of a broader VC industry gravitation toward AI and away from once-hot sectors like consumer marketplaces and financial technology, as a spike in interest rates undercut the growth aspirations of startups trying to elbow out incumbent social platforms and banking institutions.“We've gotten into this cycle now where, generally speaking, investors are less interested in consumer,” said Ben Lerer, managing partner at Lerer Hippeau. Known for its consumer investments in Warby Parker and Allbirds, the firm has invested 70% of its latest fund in enterprise companies, he said. “And AI feels like this very hopeful, very exciting, fresh thing.”Founders of some consumer startups have noticed the shift at Andreessen Horowitz. One founder of a consumer startup in the firm's portfolio said they had heard little from investment partners over the last year, a contrast to a steady drumbeat of emails the founder got in prior years from Andreessen staff who support portfolio companies with marketing and operations advice.Andreessen Horowitz's consumer investing team has been perhaps most well known for its focus on backing digital marketplaces, from peer-to-peer self-storage to real estate investment marketplaces, that could turn into the next Airbnb. Every year, it releases a ranking of top marketplace startups. “We are obsessed with marketplaces and have been since our inception,” Chan, who led investments in  social fashion startup Cider for the firm in 2021.But some of those startups backed by the firm, such as self-storage startup Neighbor, have struggled to take off in recent years. And like other venture firms, Andreessen Horowitz has also stepped back from investing in Chinese startups, an area of focus for Chan. She had championed the idea that the next wave of breakout U.S. consumer startups will model themselves after China's internet success stories, like all-in-one app WeChat.With $53 billion in assets under management, Andreessen Horowitz is one of the largest of traditional Silicon Valley firms and closely watched among other VC firms as a trend setter. And its track record of sniffing out hitmakers primed its partners to find the next trendy consumer app.The number of consumer deals Andreessen Horowitz has led dropped to 13 last year from 30 in 2021, a record for the firm, according to PitchBook data. It's possible the firm completed more consumer deals and that those investments haven't been announced. Its investments in AI companies have jumped to 23 from nine over the same years, including leading a $415 million investment in Mistral, the French developer of an open-source large language model.The firm has beefed up this team of investors primarily focused on enterprise, software infrastructure and AI startups. Led by Martin Casado, a close confidante to the firm's founders Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, it is raising its first standalone fund and has brought on two new general partners, Anjney Midha and Zane Lackey, since 2022, as well as a number of junior partners.As the infrastructure team gained power, the consumer team's profile shrank. The firm in 2023 combined its consumer and fintech teams and created a new group, called apps, led by general partner Alex Rampell, who previously co-founded installment lender Affirm, The Information reported last year. Under Rampell's leadership, the newly formed apps team will also soon launch a dedicated apps fund, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The consolidated team has been encouraged to pursue AI deals.Within Rampell's apps group, Acharya now leads the consumer sub-group. His portfolio of companies includes payroll company Deel and Silo, a provider of supply chain automation software. He's also an investor in Titan, a consumer investment application.Fueling the firm's shift away from consumer apps are likely disappointing returns. The startups that captivated consumers during the pandemic shutdowns have failed to retain their attention. Growth at companies the consumer team bet on, like Clubhouse, which Andreessen Horowitz backed three times in one year, and photo-sharing app BeReal, which it backed in 2021, has stalled.…MoreOpenAI Is a (Relative) StealBy Stephanie PalazzoloJan 22, 2024, 7:35am PSTOver the past year, we've seen billions in funding thrown at AI startups at eye-popping valuations. More important than the absolute valuation figures, though, is how they stack up to those startups' revenue numbers.In the chart above, we've tracked the valuations of eight AI startups that have recently raised funding, calculated against their projected revenue. On average, these companies raised money at a price that is 83 times their projected sales for the next twelve months. That's a big multiple by any measure, reflecting the rocket ship nature of these startups. But what makes the comparison noteworthy is that OpenAI has one of the lowest multiples, even though its business has the most traction.Venture capitalists tend to value early-stage startups at a premium based on their growth rates. OpenAI's business is far bigger and more mature—if we can use that word for a company growing as fast as OpenAI—than other generative AI companies. So, as fast as its revenue pace is growing—more than 20% in just two months most recently—newer firms are growing even faster.For instance, AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI doubled its annual recurring revenue from $3 million to $6 million from October to January. VCs were likely taking that expected growth into account at the time of investment, as the company would have garnered a much lower 75-times forward revenue multiple if it had raised at the same price just a few months later. Similarly, even though OpenAI rival Anthropic was likely generating around $200 million in annualized revenue at the end of last year (according to its October estimates), its projection that it would reach $850 million in annualized revenue by the end of this year surely made its mind-boggling valuation more palatable to investors.When you see the details of these AI startup funding rounds, it can sometimes feel like investors are throwing darts at nine-figure numbers on a wall. The chart suggests there's a method to the madness. Typically, startups selling to companies are valued based on the sector in which they operate. The lowest valuation multiples are accorded to startups offering industry-specific applications, while those offering more generalized applications draw a premium. The most highly valued firms are often infrastructure startups, which create the tools that developers use to build these apps. This order stems from how big the target market of these startups are, ranging from a specific industry (like healthcare or education) to all developers. We can see that general order reflected in burgeoning AI startups. For instance, Harvey, which sells an AI application for lawyers, has one of the lower multiples, while broader-reaching companies like Glean and VAST Data land higher multiples.It seems like investors aren't quite sure yet where model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic fall on this spectrum. Their costs are very different from a typical software startup due to how much computing power they need, and many investors are still worried that closed-source model developers may be overtaken by their cheaper, open-source counterparts.…MoreNews Of the WeekTed fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speakerLucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusionChris McGrealThe Ted organisation has been hit with resignations and criticisms after naming the controversial activist billionaire Bill Ackman, who was instrumental in forcing out Harvard's president over antisemitism allegations, among its main speakers at this year's conference.Four Ted fellows, led by the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz and the filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, resigned from the group on Wednesday, accusing it of taking an anti-Palestinian stand and aligning itself “with enablers and supporters of genocide” in Gaza.“2024 main stage speaker Bill Ackman has defended Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and has cynically weaponised antisemitism in his programme to purge American universities of Pro-Palestinian freedom of speech,” the pair wrote to Chris Anderson, who leads Ted, and Lily James Olds, director of the fellows programme.“We've become increasingly concerned about the fundamental values and moral compass of the organisation over the years, but with this year's speaker selection, it is clear Ted has crossed a red line.”The conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada, in April, under the banner The Brave and the Brilliant”. The theme of Ackman's talk has not been revealed but his selection was announced last week after he was accused of using his money and influence to help force Claudine Gay's resignation as Harvard's president following her disastrous appearance before Congress in December when she was questioned about on-campus antisemitism during the Israel-Gaza war.Ackman has taken stridently pro-Israel positions, including justifying the scale of the attacks on Gaza in which more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and the forced removal of about 2 million Palestinians from their homes. He has described criticism of Israel as antisemitism and called for the blacklisting from employment of American students who signed petitions denouncing the offensive in Gaza in the wake of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.Farouky and Walkowicz's resignation letter noted that other speakers announced by Ted include the journalist Bari Weiss, who they describe as having “a long, sordid, and well-documented history of anti-Palestinian speech”, but that there are no Palestinians in the line-up.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.After the resignation letter was published, two other fellows – the entrepreneur Ayah Bdeir and cosmologist Renée Hlozek – also quit. Nearly 30 others added their names “in solidarity” without leaving Ted.…MoreTesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' GroupBy Martin Peers, Jan 24, 2024, 5:00pm PSTStock market pundits may want to come up with a new name for the big tech stocks driving the overall market. The “magnificent seven” descriptor—referring to Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Tesla—no longer seems to make much sense. I'd like to suggest that's because none of the company CEOs look like cowboy gunslingers from the 1960 movie that made the phrase famous. It's hard to imagine Steve McQueen playing Tim Cook or Andy Jassy, for instance (although Yul Brynner admittedly could have filled the role of horseback-riding Jeff Bezos).The real reason the moniker no longer works, however, is that at least one member of the group, Tesla, has had anything but a magnificent 2024 so far, and its fourth-quarter earnings report, released Wednesday, only made things worse. Before Tesla reported earnings tonight, its stock had fallen 16% so far this year, and it tumbled another 3% after hours to around $200 a share. This isn't a reaction to CEO Elon Musk's antics, which include asking for a bunch more stock, although that surely doesn't help. The stock decline reflects the slowdown in sales suffered by Tesla, which observers attribute to increased competition and a loss of government incentives. Automotive revenues, which make up the bulk of Tesla's top line, grew just 1% in the fourth quarter—down from 18% in the first quarter.In its outlook for this year issued today, the company said its growth in the volume of car sales would be lower than in 2023, and noted that its team is working on its “next-generation vehicle.” Meantime, expenses have been skyrocketing, eroding its profit margin. But our less-than-rigorous takedown of the magnificent seven branding isn't just about Tesla. If you look at the year-to-date performance of big tech stocks, or even their 2023 performance, you can see that just two tech stocks have roared this year. One is Nvidia, which is in a class of its own: up 27% since Jan. 1, thanks to its stranglehold on the specialized chips used in artificial intelligence. The other is Meta Platforms, which is up nearly 13%, reflecting confidence in its ad business.  In comparison, Microsoft and Alphabet are each up around 8%, likely thanks to expectations that AI will lift their businesses, while Apple and Amazon lag behind with year-to-date stock price rises of less than 5% each. Instead of the magnificent seven, it might be more appropriate to refer to the group as Nvidia, Meta and the humble five.… MoreTikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content OptionsBy Andrew Hutchinson Content and Social Media ManagerThe next stage of TikTok is coming, with some users now seeing the option to upload 30 minute long videos in the app.As you can see in this example, shared by social media expert Matt Navarra, TikTok's currently testing the new 30 minute upload option in the beta version of the app.Which, if you've been paying attention, is not really any big surprise.TikTok has been steadily increasing its maximum post limit for years, with the platform originally starting at 15 seconds per clip, which was then extended to 60 seconds, then 3 minutes, then 5 minutes, before rising to 10 minutes in 2022.Last October, TikTok began experimenting with 15 minute uploads, so the trend towards longer clips isn't new.Though 30 minutes is likely the upper limit, based on the Chinese version of the app. Douyin, which is TikTok in China, expanded its upload limit to 30 minutes per clip in 2022, and it hasn't gone any further as yet.And presumably, Douyin has also seen good response to this longer time limit, which is why TikTok is now looking to implement the same, though it does seem like a long time to be watching a TikTok clip in-stream.Will users really warm to TV show length clips in the app?…MoreInstagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'Feature will work even on encrypted messages, suggesting platform plans to implement client-side scanningAlex Hern and Dan MilmoInstagram will begin scanning messages sent to and from under-18s to protect them from “inappropriate images”, Meta has announced.The feature, being kept under wraps until later this year, would work even on encrypted messages, a spokesperson said, suggesting the company intends to implement a so-called client-side scanning service for the first time.But the update will not meet controversial demands for inappropriate messages to be reported back to Instagram servers.Instead, only a user's personal device will ever know whether or not a message has been filtered out, leading to criticism of the promise as another example of the company “grading its own homework”.“We're planning to launch a new feature designed to help protect teens from seeing unwanted and potentially inappropriate images in their messages from people they're already connected to,” the company said in a blogpost, “and to discourage them from sending these types of images themselves. We'll have more to share on this feature, which will also work in encrypted chats, later this year.”…Much MoreTiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising ChallengesBy Francesca Friday and Maria HeeterJan 24, 2024, 4:46pm PSTSeveral Tiger Global Management employees focused on raising capital for the New York firm's venture funds have taken buyout offers, according to a person familiar with the matter. The departures of the staff, who worked with prospective investors, come as the firm has struggled to raise money for its latest venture capital fund after a collapse in startup valuations soured its paper returns for earlier funds.As of the second quarter of 2023, a $12.7 billion fund that Tiger started making investments from in October 2021 had a paper loss of 18%, calculated as an annualized return net of management fees, according to internal data distributed to investors in the fund. That's a slight improvement from six months earlier, when the 2021 fund showed a loss of 20%. The fund's performance is in the bottom quartile of funds started that year, the document said, and has also lagged the S&P 500's annualized net return in the same period.The Takeaway• Tiger employee buyouts are the latest example of VC cost-cutting• Tiger's $12.7 billion had lost 18% on paper as of June* Tiger could soon show a $350 million gain from OpenAI stakeAs of June 30, 2023, the $12.7 billion fund hadn't returned any cash to investors, which isn't unusual for such a young fund. But the paper losses are closely guarded secrets that reflect the kind of write-downs other venture firms have been making over the past two years as tech valuations have fallen.It isn't clear how big Tiger's investor relations team is, but the departures are the latest example of belt-tightening across the venture industry. Firms are raising smaller funds and striking fewer deals, reducing the need for sprawling support staff—including those who help firms raise money from pension funds and endowments...MoreWorldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experienceby Vivian NguyenThe next-gen device will feature various colors and shapes to enhance its visual appeal.Worldcoin, an iris biometric crypto project, is set to launch a new Orb that aims to offer a more user-friendly iris-scanning experience, said Alex Blania, CEO and co-founder of Tools for Humanity, the developer behind the project, in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch today.“The next Orb will roll out in the first half of this year and will feature alternative colors and form factors in an effort to look ‘much more friendly,'” Blania explained. “Overall, it is going to look way more tuned down and similar to an Apple product.”Blania acknowledges that the initial design of the Orb predated his time at the company. “The new orb is coming and the next iterations will look quite different,” he remarked during a fireside chat at a recent StrictlyVC event, signaling a departure from the current, more controversial design.The goal of Worldcoin, as described by Blania, is to reach billions of users as fast as possible.“The thesis is very simple. We race toward billions of users as fast as we possibly can,” said Blania.Founded by Blania, Sam Altman, and Max Novendstern, Tools for Humanity has raised around $250 million from prominent investors like a16z and Bain Capital Crypto, among others. The project is famous for its unique Orb device designed to scan people's irises and assign them a “World ID,” granting access to Worldcoin's application and a digital passport. Worldcoin's vision is to authenticate individual identities and prevent the creation of multiple accounts.The current design of the Orb has been a topic of much debate due to its intimidating look, similar to a prop from a sci-fi movie, according to Blania. The company has also faced criticism for its beta testing approaches in developing economies and concerns over privacy and data security.Despite some skepticism, the Orb has seen practical use. At the StrictlyVC event in downtown San Francisco, a Tools for Humanity employee reported that a “couple dozen” attendees scanned their iris to receive a World ID. There has also been “field testing” of the new Orb design.…MoreStartup of the WeekLoyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M RoundChris MetinkoJanuary 24, 2024Bilt Rewards, a loyalty rewards startup, raised a $200 million round led by General Catalyst at a $3.1 billion valuation — more than double the number after its last fundraising in 2022.The round also included participation from Eldridge Industries, Left Lane Capital, Camber Creek and Prosus Ventures.The New York-based startup allows consumers to earn rewards on the rent they pay. Bilt plans to use some of the proceeds to expand its network to include local dining, grocery stores, ridesharing and other retail purchases.“We're not just building a loyalty program; we're creating a community-centric ecosystem that benefits everyone from renters to local businesses,” said founder and CEO Ankur Jain.The company also appointed some big names to roles in the company. Bilt named Ken Chenault, former chairman and CEO of American Express, as its chairman, and Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, as an independent director.Big moneyThe company reported its annualized member spend is nearing $20 billion. It also became profitable on an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization basis last year.Those metrics must have impressed investors, as Bilt has seen its valuation shoot up after raising a $150 million Series B at a pre-money valuation of $1.4 billion in October 2022. Founded in 2021, the company has raised a total of $413 million, per Crunchbase.Last year was a slow go for loyalty startups. Such companies raised only $74 million, per Crunchbase data. However in 2022, loyalty startups raised more than a half-billion dollars thanks to big raises that included Bilt's Series B and Madison, Wisconsin-based Fetch's $240 million Series E.With this fundraise, things are looking up for loyalty startups again.X of the Week This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thatwastheweek.substack.com/subscribe

因为工作原因，我们很久之前就结识了曾在耐克任职的 Jeff。如今他创立了自己的品牌 Native Zero（�@NATIVE ZERO），专注设计制作原创的宠物用品。在本期节目中，超爱聊天的 Jeff 跟我们分享了他与爱犬 Jordan 相遇的故事，他在创业过程中救助过的各种猫猫狗狗的故事，以及为什么要花三年多的时间来开发原创的宠物用品？请听...00:00:21在 NIKE 工作，养的边牧叫 JORDAN00:10:00我和我的狗救助别的狗 00:18:09「报复性」养狗是为了弥补儿时遗憾00:19:59永远的疑问：它到底几岁啊？00:24:14因为小时候我对心理学感兴趣00:27:50它需要的不仅仅是你的食物、水和相机00:32:29我有个一骑摩托车遛狗的邻居00:34:46有的人养狗像买包一样00:35:45助养失败是「最好的失败」00:40:00五六年了，我还在给助养人写「月报」00:49:05用鞋底做宠物用品00:55:43产品公测的目标就是拼命把东西用坏01:00:03对狗狗行为的了解换来功能性的考究01:22:14流浪动物救不完，我的心好痛01:30:25上海有这么一群天使大妈…救助领养可联系公众号：@THE SOMEONE 动物救助所@SAR ShanghaiAnimalRescue———我们是 ULSUM，一家青年文化媒体。你正在收听的，是阿貌和卜龙两位「插话主播」带来的日常闲聊。每周日上午10点，我们有几档不同的栏目穿插更新。分享时尚消费与生活方式，吐槽吃过的亏和流过的泪。如果你也爱吃爱玩爱买东西，那就来听听看吧！

Sam Corcos is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Levels, the company helping you see how food affects your health with data from biosensors like continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). To date, Sam has raised over $89M for Levels from the likes of a16z (Jeff Jordan sits on his board), Founder Collective, Breyer Capital and Shrug Capital to name a few. Prior to Levels, Sam founded two prior companies, CarDash; a Y Combinator company that makes automotive repair and maintenance convenient. Before Cardash, Sam founded, Sightline Maps, an intuitive platform for 3D printing and visualizing topographical maps, marketed primarily towards the U.S. military. In Today's Episode with Sam Corcos: 1. The Founding Moment: What was the a-ha moment for Sam with the founding Levels? What were the big mistakes Sam made with prior companies that he did not take with him to Levels? What does Sam know now that he wishes he had known when he started Levels? 2. How to Fundraise Like a Pro: Why does Sam believe that founders should take as many meetings with VCs as possible? What are the biggest mistakes founders make when meeting investors? Should founders meet with associates in the fundraising process? What does Sam mean when he says, "you have to create theater" when pitching? 3. How to Extract the Most Value from Your Investors: What have been Sam's biggest lessons on how to put your investors to work? What is the right and most strategic way to ask investors for specific help? How can founders create a competitive environment where VCs are competing to help? Which investors have been the most helpful? Why are post-IPO operators the best angels to have as investors? How has the a16z platform team been such a needle mover? 4. How to Find Your Partner and Master Parenting: What does Sam mean when he says he had a "one pager" in what he wanted in a partner? What was in the one-pager? How did dates respond? What are the biggest mistakes people make when dating? What is Sam most nervous about on becoming a parent? How does Sam think having a child will impact his marriage?

Jeff + Jordan: Live From The Hangar 06/27/23It's officially summer, and we really needed to get “out of the office.” Grab a beer and join Jordan and Jeff, Live from The Hangar in Moon, PA. There's a bit of Penguins hockey talk contained in this episode, but ...not that much. As of this recording, the Bill Masterton Trophy hadn't yet been awarded. We now know it was awarded to the Penguins' own, Kris Letang. Félicitations, monsieur Letang! Also, the 23-24 regular season schedule has been released, and we are now aware of the date of the Pens' home opener: October 10th at PPG Paints Arena, where they'll face (Conor Bedard and) the Chicago Blackhawks.Thank you for listening!! Follow the podcast on Twitter: @penspodJeff Taylor: @penspod_JT //Jordan DeFigio: @fidgenewtonFree agency is here, and the draft is this week!!LETS GO PENS!!JEFF TAYLOR + JORDAN DEFIGIO

 Scripture Reference: John 14:15-31

Jeff Jordan is a slots guy through and through —he worked in slot operations for some of the highest-profile names in the industry, he teaches college-level courses on the subject at the University of Nevada, Reno, and now he's developed SlotCycle, a revolutionary new platform for operators to buy and sell slots and other casino equipment. Akin to eBay and other online marketplaces, the company has also expanded greatly since its launch to include procurement services and other offerings. Jordan spoke with GGB Managing Editor Jess Marquez from his Las Vegas office in May.

Jeff Jordan is a General Partner @ a16z where he serves on the boards of Airbnb, Incredible Health, Instacart, Lookout, and Pinterest, just to name a few. Before a16z, Jeff was CEO OpenTable, where he led the company during a period of hyper-growth and oversaw its IPO. Prior to OpenTable, Jeff was Senior VP and General Manager of eBay North America where he oversaw eBay's early growth into one of the Internet's leading commerce brands. In this role, he drove the successful acquisitions of PayPal and Half.com and went on to become President of PayPal, where he was responsible for establishing the company as the global standard for online payments.   In Today's Episode with Jeff Jordan We Discuss: 1.) From Taking Opentable Public to Being a GP @ a16z: What led to Jeff making the jump from CEO @ Opentable to becoming a GP at a16z? How does Jeff believe his operating career impacted how he thinks and acts as an investor today, both positively and negatively? What is his 1 biggest learning from eBay and then Opentable that has really shaped his mindset today as an investor? How did those experiences impact what he looks for in companies? 2.) The Two Core Features To Look For in Marketplaces: Fragmentation of supply side: Why does Jeff look for fragmented supply sides? Does this not take longer and is more expensive? How fragmented is fragmented enough? What are the most common reasons founders fail to acquire a fragmented supply side? Intelligent Lead Generation: What does Jeff really want to see in the way that new marketplaces acquire their customers? How does this change with the rise of TikTok and short-form video? What are some other really core features or traits that excite Jeff when he sees them in an early marketplace? What are some massive red flags for Jeff when he sees them early? 3.) How to Acquire and Retain the Demand Side of a Marketplace: Messaging and Brand: What are the biggest lessons Jeff has on how to craft the messaging of a marketplace to make it resonate with the target consumer? What are Jeff's biggest lessons from working with Brian Chesky on how they craft their messaging at Airbnb? What works? What does not work? Perfect Customer Cohorts: What does Jeff most want to see when examining prospective marketplace investment cohorts? What do the best have? What is the sign of a truly retained user in a marketplace? What is a good date duration to measure retention against? What are the biggest mistakes founders make presenting their cohorts? Lessons from Instacart: What are Jeff's biggest lessons from being on the Instacart board on cohorts? What makes good cohorts? How cohorts can seem bad but be good? 4.) Growth vs Profitability, CACs and LTV: Uber, OfferUp, Instacart, Deliveroo, respectfully, the level of profits these businesses are able to drive is questionable, why does Jeff believe marketplaces are good investments still? Many marketplaces start with poor unit economics, how does Jeff think about having the mental plasticity to project out to a time when unit economics could be better? Does Jeff pay attention to CACs at all? When are they important? When are they not? How can they be misleading? What is the best way for founders to present their CACs? 5.) It's Time to VC: Jeff Jordan: The Board Member What are the single biggest misalignments between VCs and their founders? How would Jeff describe his style of board membership today? How has it changed with time? What is the best way to deliver hard feedback as a board member? What are the biggest mistakes board members make? What does Jeff advise young board members today? What are the single best and worst changes that have happened at a16z in the last 24 months?

011223 Jeff Jordan Wall Street Journal Comments You Need To Hear by Kate Dalley

I had fun chatting with Aarthi and Sriram.We discuss what it takes to be successful in technology, what Sriram would say if Elon tapped him to be the next CEO of Twitter, why more married couples don't start businesses together, and how Aarthi hires and finds 10x engineers.Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan are the hosts of The Good Times Show. They have had leading roles in several technology companies from Meta to Twitter to Netflix and have been founders and investors. Sriram is currently a general partner at a16z crypto and Aarthi is an angel investor.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Timestamps(00:00:00) - Intro(00:01:19) - Married Couples Co-founding Businesses(00:09:53) - 10x Engineers(00:16:00) - 15 Minute Meetings(00:22:57) - a16z's Edge?(00:26:42) - Future of Twitter(00:30:58) - Is Big Tech Overstaffed?(00:38:37) - Next CEO of Twitter?(00:43:13) - Why Don't More Venture Capitalists Become Founders?(00:47:32) - Role of Boards(00:52:03) - Failing Upwards(00:56:00) - Underrated CEOs(01:02:18) - Founder Education(01:06:27) - What TV Show Would Sriram Make?(01:10:14) - Undervalued Founder ArchetypesTranscriptThis transcript was autogenerated and thus may contain errors.[00:00:00] Aarthi: it's refreshing to have Elon come in and say, we are gonna work really hard. We are gonna be really hardcore about how we build things.[00:00:05] Dwarkesh: Let's say Elon and says Tomorrow, Sriram, would you be down to be the [00:00:08] Sriram: CEO of Twitter Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But I am married to someone. We [00:00:12] Aarthi: used to do overnights at Microsoft. Like we'd just sleep under our desk,, until the janitor would just , poke us out of there , I really need to vacuum your cubicle. Like, get out of here. There's such joy in , Finding those moments where you work hard and you're feeling really good about it. [00:00:25] Sriram: You'd be amazed at how many times Aarthi and I would have a conversation where be, oh, this algorithm thing.I remember designing it, and now we are on the other side We want to invest in something , where we think the team and the company is going to win and if they do win, there's huge value to be unlocked. [00:00:40] Dwarkesh: Okay. Today I have the, uh, good pleasure to have Arty and Sriram on the podcast and I'm really excited about this.So you guys have your own show, the Arty Andre Good Time show. Um, you guys have had some of the top people in tech and entertainment on Elon Musk, mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Yang, and you guys are both former founders. Advisors, investors, uh, general partner at Anderson Horowitz, and you're an angel investor and an advisor now.Um, so yeah, there's so much to talk about. Um, obviously there's also the, uh, recent news about your, uh, your involvement on, uh, twitter.com. Yeah, yeah. Let's get started. [00:01:19] Married Couples Starting Businesses[00:01:19] Dwarkesh: My first question, you guys are married, of course. People talk about getting a co-founder as finding a spouse, and I'm curious why it's not the case that given this relationship why more married people don't form tech startups.Is, does that already happen, [00:01:35] Aarthi: or, um, I actually am now starting to see a fair bit of it. Uhhuh, . Um, I, I do agree that wasn't a norm before. Um, I think, uh, I, I think I remember asking, uh, pg p the same thing when I went through yc, and I think he kind of pointed to him and Jessica like, you know, YC was their startup , and so, you know, there were even pride.There are a lot of husband and wife, uh, companies. Over the last like decade or so. So I'm definitely seeing that more mainstream. But yeah, you're right, it hasn't been the norm before. Yeah, the, the good time show is our project. It's [00:02:09] Sriram: our startup. Very, I mean, there are some good historical examples. Cisco, for example, uh, came from, uh, uh, husband, wife as a few other examples.I think, you know, on, on the, in, on the pro side, uh, you know, being co-founders, uh, you need trust. You need to really know each other. Uh, you, you go through a lot of like heavy emotional burdens together. And there's probably, and if you, you're for the spouse, hopefully you probably have a lot of chemistry and understanding, and that should help.On the con side, I think one is you, you're prob you know, you, you're gonna show up at work, you know, and startups are really hard, really intense. And you come home and both of you are gonna the exact same wavelength, the exact same time, going through the exact same highs and lows as opposed to two people, two different jobs have maybe differing highs and lows.So that's really hard. Uh, the second part of it is, uh, in a lot of. Work situations, it may just be more challenging where people are like, well, like, you know, person X said this person Y said this, what do I do? Uh, and if you need to fire somebody or you know, something weird happens corporate in a corporate manner, that may also be really hard.Uh, but having said that, you know, uh, [00:03:13] Aarthi: you know, yeah, no, I think both of those are like kind of overblown , like, you know, I think the reason why, um, you know, you're generally, they say you need to have you, it's good to have co-founders is so that you can kind of like write the emotional wave in a complimentary fashion.Uh, and you know, if one person's like really depressed about something, the other person can like pull them out of it and have a more rational viewpoint. I feel like in marriages it works even better. So I feel like to your first point, They know each other really well. You're, you're, you are going to bring your work to home.There is no separation between work and home as far as a startup is concerned. So why not do it together? Oh, [00:03:51] Sriram: well, I think there's one problem, uh, which is, uh, we are kind of unique because we've been together for over 21 years now, and we start for, we've been before, uh, let's not. Wow. There's gonna be some fact checking 19 on this video.99. Close enough. Close enough, right? Like close enough. He wishes he was 21. Oh, right, right, right. Gosh, feels like 21. We have do some, um, [00:04:15] Aarthi: editing on this video. No, no, no. I think 20 years of virtually knowing, 19 years of in-person. [00:04:20] Sriram: There we go. Right. Uh, fact check accurate. Um, ex experts agree. But, um, you know, but when you first met, we, we originally, even before we dating, we were like, Hey, we wanna do a company together.And we bonded over technology, like our first conversation on Yahoo Messenger talking about all these founders and how we wanted to be like them. And we actually then worked together pretty briefly when you were in Microsoft. Uh, before we actually started dating. We were on these sort of talent teams and we kind of met each of the word context.I think a lot of. You know, one is they have never worked together. Um, and so being in work situations, everything from how you run a meeting to how you disagree, uh, you know, uh, is just going to be different. And I think that's gonna be a learning curve for a lot of couples who be like, Hey, it's one thing to have a strong, stable relationship at home.It'll be a different thing to, you know, be in a meeting and you're disagreeing art's meetings very differently from I do. She obsesses over metrics. I'm like, ah, it's close enough. It's fine. , uh, it's close enough. It's fine. as e uh, here already. But, uh, so I do think there's a learning curve, a couples who is like, oh, working together is different than, you know, raising your family and being together.I mean, obviously gives you a strong foundation, but it's not the same thing. Have you guys [00:05:25] Dwarkesh: considered starting a company or a venture together at some point? [00:05:28] Aarthi: Yeah. Um, we've, uh, we've always wanted to do a project together. I don't know if it's a, a startup or a company or a venture. You have done a project together,Yeah, exactly. I think, uh, almost to today. Two years ago we started the Good Time Show, um, and we started at, uh, live Audio on Clubhouse. And, you know, we recently moved it onto video on YouTube. And, um, it's, it's been really fun because now I get to see like, it, it's neither of our full-time jobs, uh, but we spend enough, um, just cycles thinking through what we wanna do with it and what, uh, how to have good conversations and how to make it useful for our audience.So that's our [00:06:06] Sriram: project together. Yep. And we treat it like a, with the intellectual heft of a startup, which is, uh, we look at the metrics, uh, and we are like, oh, this is a good week. The metrics are up into the right and, you know, how do we, you know, what is working for our audience? You know, what do we do to get great guests?What do we do to [00:06:21] Aarthi: get, yeah, we just did our first, uh, in-person meetup, uh, for listeners of the podcast in Chennai. It was great. We had like over a hundred people who showed up. And it was also like, you know, typical startup style, like meet your customers and we could like go talk to these people in person and figure out like what do they like about it?Which episodes do they really enjoy? And it's one thing to see YouTube comments, it's another to like actually in person engage with people. So I think, you know, we started it purely accidentally. We didn't really expect it to be like the show that we are, we are in right now, but we really happy. It's, it's kind of turned out the way it has.[00:06:59] Sriram: Absolutely. And, and it also kind of helps me scratch an edge, which is, uh, you know, building something, you know, keeps you close to the ground. So being able to actually do the thing yourself as opposed to maybe tell someone else, telling you how to do the, so for example, it, it being video editing or audio or how thumbnails, thumbnails or, uh, just the mechanics of, you know, uh, how to build anything.So, uh, I, I dot think it's important. Roll up your sleeves metaphorically and get your hands dirty and know things. And this really helped us understand the world of creators and content. Uh, and it's fun and [00:07:31] Aarthi: go talk to other creators. Uh, like I think when we started out this thing on YouTube, I think I remember Shram just reached out to like so many creators being like, I wanna understand how it works for you.Like, what do you do? And these are people who like, who are so accomplished, who are so successful, and they do this for a living. And we clearly don. And so, uh, just to go learn from these experts. It's, it's kind of nice, like to be a student again and to just learn, uh, a new industry all over again and figure out how to actually be a creator on this platform.Well, you know [00:08:01] Dwarkesh: what's really interesting is both of you have been, uh, executives and led product in social media companies. Yeah. And so you are, you designed the products, these creators, their music, and now on the other end, you guys are building [00:08:12] Sriram: the, oh, I have a great phrase for it, right? Like, somebody, every once in a while somebody would be like, Hey, you know what, uh, you folks are on the leadership team of some of these companies.Why don't you have hundreds of millions of followers? Right? And I would go, Hey, look, it's not like every economist is a billionaire, , uh, uh, you know, it doesn't work that way. Uh, but during that is a parallel, which, which is, uh, you'd be amazed at how many times Aarthi and I would have a conversation where be, oh, this algorithm thing.I remember designing it, or I was in the meeting when this thing happened, and now we are on the other side, which is like, Hey, you might be the economist who told somebody to implement a fiscal policy. And now we are like, oh, okay, how do I actually go do this and create values and how? Anyway, how do we do exactly.Create an audience and go build something interesting. So there is definitely some irony to it, uh, where, uh, but I think hopefully it does give us some level of insight where, uh, we have seen, you know, enough of like what actually works on social media, which is how do you build a connection with your audience?Uh, how do you build, uh, content? How do you actually do it on a regular, uh, teams? I think [00:09:07] Aarthi: the biggest difference is we don't see the algorithm as a bra, as a black box. I think we kind of see it as like when the, with the metrics, we are able to, one, have empathy for the teams building this. And two, I think, uh, we kind of know there's no big magic bullet.Like I think a lot of this is about showing up, being really consistent, um, you know, being able to like put out some really interesting content that people actually want to, and you know, I think a lot of people forget about that part of it and kind of focus. If you did this one thing, your distribution goes up a lot and here's this like, other like secret hack and you know Sure.Like those are like really short term stuff, but really in the long term, the magic is to just like keep at it. Yeah. And, uh, put out really, really good content. [00:09:48] Sriram: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's good to hear. . [00:09:53] 10x Engineers[00:09:53] Dwarkesh: Um, so you've both, um, led teams that have, you know, dozens or even hundreds of people.Um, how easy is it for you to tell who the 10 X engineers are? Is it something that you as managers and executives can tell easily or [00:10:06] Sriram: no? Uh, absolutely. I think you can tell this very easily or repeat of time and it doesn't, I think a couple of ways. One is, uh, Uh, before, let's say before you work with someone, um, 10 x people just don't suddenly start becoming 10 x.They usually have a history of becoming 10 x, uh, of, you know, being really good at what they do. And you can, you know, the cliche line is you can sort of connect the dots. Uh, you start seeing achievements pile up and achievements could be anything. It could be a bunch of projects. It could be a bunch of GitHub code commits.It could be some amazing writing on ck, but whatever it is, like somebody just doesn't show up and become a 10 x person, they probably have a track record of already doing it. The second part of it is, I've seen this is multiple people, uh, who are not named so that they don't get hired from the companies actually want them to be in, or I can then hire them in the future is, uh, you know, they will make incredibly rapid progress very quickly.So, uh, I have a couple of examples and almost independently, I know it's independently, so I have a couple of. Um, and I actually, and name both, right? Like, so one is, uh, this guy named, uh, Vijay Raji, uh, who, uh, was probably one of Facebook's best engineers. He's now the CEO of a company called Stats. And, um, he was probably my first exposure to the real TenX engineer.And I remembered this because, uh, you know, at the time I was. Kind of in my twenties, I had just joined Facebook. I was working on ads, and he basically built a large part of Facebook's ad system over the weekend. And what he would do is he would just go, and then he con he [00:11:24] Aarthi: continued to do that with Facebook marketplace.Yeah. Like he's done this like over and over and over [00:11:28] Sriram: again. . Yeah. And, and it's not that, you know, there's one burst of genius. It's just this consistent stream of every day that's a code checkin stuff is working. New demo somebody, he sent out a new bill or something working. And so before like a week or two, you just like a, you know, you running against Usain Bolt and he's kind of running laps around you.He's so far ahead of everyone else and you're like, oh, this guy is definitely ahead. Uh, the second story I have is, uh, of, uh, John Carmack, uh, you know, who's legend and I never worked with him in, uh, directly with, you know, hopefully someday I can fix. But, uh, somebody told me a story about him. Which is, uh, that the person told me story was like, I never thought a individual could replace the output of a hundred percent team until I saw John.And there's a great story where, um, you know, and so John was the most senior level at Facebook and from a hr, you know, employment insecurity perspective for an individual contributor, and it at, at that level, at Facebook, uh, for folks who kind of work in these big tech companies, it is the most, the highest tier of accomplishment in getting a year in a performance review is something called xcs Expectations, or, sorry, redefines, right?Which basically means like, you have redefined what it means for somebody to perform in this level, right? Like, it's like somebody, you know, like somebody on a four minute mile, I'll be running a two minute mile or whatever, right? You're like, oh, and, and it is incredibly hard sometimes. You doing, and this guy John gets it three years in a row, right?And so there's this leadership team of all the, you know, the really most important people on Facebook. And they're like, well, we should really promote John, right? Like, because he's done this three years in a row, he's changing the industry. Three years in a row and then they realized, oh wait, there is no level to promote him to Nick be CEOWell, maybe I don't think he wanted to. And so, uh, the story I heard, and I dunno, it's true, but I like to believe it's true, is they invented a level which still now only John Carmack has gotten. Right. And, um, and I think, you know, it's his level of productivity, uh, his, uh, intellect, uh, and the consistency over time and mu and you know, if you talk to anybody, Facebook work with him, he's like, oh, he replaced hundred people, teams all by themselves and maybe was better than a hundred percent team just because he had a consistency of vision, clarity, and activity.So those are [00:13:32] Aarthi: the two stories I've also noticed. I think, uh, actually sheam, I think our first kind of exposure to 10 x engineer was actually Barry born, uh, from Microsoft. So Barry, um, uh, basically wrote pretty much all the emulation engines and emulation systems that we all use, uh, and uh, just prolific, uh, and I think in addition to what Fred had said with like qualities and tenets, Um, the, I've generally seen these folks to also be like low ego and kind of almost have this like responsibility to, um, mentor coach other people.Uh, and Barry kind of like took us under his wing and he would do these like Tuesday lunches with us, where we would just ask like, you know, we were like fresh out of college and we just ask these like really dumb questions on, you know, um, scaling things and how do you build stuff. And I was working on, uh, run times and loaders and compilers and stuff.And so he would just take the time to just answer our questions and just be there and be really like, nice about it. I remember when you moved to Redmond, he would just like spend a weekend just like, oh yeah. Driving you about and just doing things like that, but very low ego and within their teams and their art, they're just considered to be legends.Yes. Like, you know, everybody would be like, oh, Barry Bond. Yeah, of course. [00:14:47] Sriram: Yeah. It, I can't emphasize enough the consistency part of it. Um, you know, with Barry. Or I gotta briefly work with Dave Cutler, who's kind of the father of modern operating systems, uh, is every day you're on this email li list at the time, which would show you check-ins as they happen.They would have something every single day, um, every day, and it'll be tangible and meaty and you know, and you just get a sense that this person is not the same as everybody else. Um, by the, this couple of people I can actually point to who haven't worked with, uh, but I follow on YouTube or streaming. Uh, one is, uh, Andrea Ling who builds Serenity Os we had a great episode with him.Oh, the other is George Hart's, uh, geo Hart. And I urge people, if you haven't, I haven't worked with either of them, uh, but if I urge which to kinda watch their streams, right? Because, uh, you go like, well, how does the anti killing build a web browser on an operating system? Which he builds by himself in such a sharp period of time and he watches stream and he's not doing some magical new, you know, bit flipping sorting algorithm anybody has, nobody has seen before.He's just doing everything you would do, but. Five bits of speed. I, yep, exactly. [00:15:48] Dwarkesh: I I'm a big fan of the George Hot Streams and Yeah, that's exactly what, you know, it's like yeah, you, he's also curling requests and he is also, you know, you know, spinning up an experiment in a Jupyter Notebook, but yeah, just doing it [00:15:58] Aarthi: away way faster, way efficiently.Yeah. [00:16:00] 15 Minute Meetings[00:16:00] Dwarkesh: Yeah. That's really interesting. Um, so ar Arthur, I'm, you've gone through Y Combinator and famously they have that 15 minute interview Yes. Where they try to grok what your business is and what your potential is. Yeah, yeah. But just generally, it seems like in Silicon Valley you guys have, make a lot of decisions in terms of investing or other kinds of things.You, in very short calls, you know. Yeah. . Yeah. And how much can you really, what is it that you're learning in these 15 minute calls when you're deciding, should I invest in this person? What is their potential? What is happening in that 15 minutes? [00:16:31] Aarthi: Um, I can speak about YC from the other side, from like, uh, being a founder pitching, right.I think, yes, there is a 15 minute interview, but before that, there is a whole YC application process. And, uh, I think even for the, for YC as, uh, this bunch of the set of investors, I'm sure they're looking for specific signals, but for me as a founder, the application process was so useful, um, because it really makes you think about what you're building.Why are you building this? Are you the right person to be building this? Who are the other people you should be hiring? And so, I mean, there are like few questions or like, one of my favorite questions is, um, how have you hacked a non-computer system to your advantage? Yeah. . And it kind of really makes you think about, huh, and you kind of noticed that many good founders have that pattern of like hacking other systems to their advantage.Um, and so to me, I think more than the interview itself, the process of like filling out the application form, doing that little video, all of that gives you better, um, it gives you the, the entire scope of your company in your head because it's really hard when you have this idea and you're kind of like noodling about with it and talking to a few people.You don't really know if this is a thing. To just like crystallize the whole vision in your head. I think, uh, that's on point. Yes. Um, the 15 minute interview for me, honestly, it was like kind of controversial because, uh, I went in that morning, I did the whole, you know, I, I had basically stayed at the previous night, uh, building out this website and, uh, that morning I showed up and I had my laptop open.I'm like really eager to like tell them what you're building and I keep getting cut off and I realize much later that that's kind of my design. Yeah. And you just like cut off all the time. Be like, why would anybody use this? And you start to answer and be like, oh, but I, I don't agree with that. And there's just like, and it, it's like part of it is like, makes you upset, but part of it is also like, it makes you think how to compress all that information in a really short amount of time and tell them.Um, and so that interview happens, I feel really bummed out because I kind of had this website I wanted to show them. So while walking out the door, I remember just showing Gary, Dan, um, the website and he like kind of like. Scrolls it a little bit, and he is like, this is really beautifully done. And I was like, thank you.I've been wanting to show you this for 15 minutes. Um, and I, I mentioned it to Gary recently and he laughed about it. And then, uh, I didn't get selected in that timeframe. They gave me a call and they said, come back again in the evening and we are going to do round two because we are not sure. Yeah. And so the second interview there was PG and Jessica and they both were sitting there and they were just grueling me.It was a slightly longer interview and PG was like, I don't think this is gonna work. And I'm like, how can you say that? I think this market's really big. And I'm just like getting really upset because I've been waiting this whole day to like get to this point. And he's just being like cynical and negative.And then at some point he starts smiling at Jessica and I'm like, oh, okay. They're just like baiting me to figure it out. And so that was my process. And I, by the evening, I remember Shera was working at. I remember driving down from Mountain View to Facebook and Sheam took me to the Sweet Stop. Oh yeah.Which is like their, you know, Facebook has this like, fancy, uh, sweet store, like the ice cream store. I [00:19:37] Sriram: think they had a lot more perks over the years, but that was very fancy back then. [00:19:40] Aarthi: So I had like two scoops of ice cream in each hand in, and, uh, the phone rang and I was like, oh, hold onto this. And I grabbed it and I, and you know, I think it was Michael Sibu or I don't know who, but somebody called me and said, you're through.So that was kind of my process. So even though there was only 15 minutes, mine was actually much longer after. But even before the, the application process was like much more detailed. So it sounds [00:20:01] Dwarkesh: like the 15 minutes it's really there. Like, can they rattle you? Can they, can they [00:20:06] Aarthi: you and how do you react?Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I also think they look for how sex you can be in explaining what the problem is. They do talk to hundreds of companies. It is a lot. And so I think, can you compress a lot of it and convince, if you can convince these folks here in three months or four months time, how are you going to do demo day and convince a whole room full of investors?[00:20:27] Sriram: Yeah. Yeah. For, I think it's a bit different for us, uh, on the VC side, uh, because two things. One, number one is, uh, the day, you know, so much of it is having a prepared mind before you go into the meeting. And, for example, if you're meeting a. very early. Are we investing before having met every single other person who's working in this space, who has ideas in the space.So you generally know what's going on, you know, what the kind of technologies are or go to market approaches are. You've probably done a bunch of homework already. It's usually, uh, it does happen where you meet somebody totally cold and uh, you really want to invest, but most often you've probably done some homework at least in this space, if not the actual company.Um, and so when you're in the meeting, I think you're trying to judge a couple of things. And these are obviously kind of stolen from Christ Dixon and others. Um, one is their ability to kind of go walk you through their idea, ma. And so very simply, um, you know, the idea MAs is, uh, and I think say the biology of Christen came with this, the idea that, hey, um, uh, How you got to the idea for your company really matters because you went and explored all the data ends, all the possibilities.You're managing around for years and years, and you've kind of come to the actual solution. And the way you can tell whether somebody's gone through the idea Mac, is when you ask 'em questions and they tell you about like five different things they've tried, did not work. And it, it's really hard to fake it.I mean, we, you maybe fake it for like one or two questions, but if you talk about like how we tried X, Y, and Z and they have like an opinion what of the opinions, if they've thought about it, you're like, okay, this person really studied the idea, ma. And that's very powerful. Uh, the second part of it is, uh, you know, Alex sample.Uh, uh, one of my partner says this, Yes, some this thing called the Manifestation Framework, which sounds like a self-help book on Amazon, but it's not, uh, uh uh, you know, but what if is, is like, you know, so many, so much of early stage startup founders is about the ability to manifest things. Uh, manifest capital, manifest the first hire, uh, manifest, uh, the first BD partnership.And, um, usually, you know, if you can't, if you don't have a Cigna sign of doing that, it's really hard to then after raising money, go and close this amazing hotshot engineer or salesperson or close this big partnership. And so in the meeting, right? If you can't convince us, right? And these are people, our day job is to give you money, right?Like, if I spent a year without giving anybody money, I'll probably get fired. If you can't, uh, if you can't convince us to give you money, right? If you wanna find probably a hard time to close this amazing engineer and get that person to come over from Facebook or close this amazing partnership against a competitor.And so that's kind of a judge of that. So it is never about the actual 60 Minutes where you're like, we, we are making up of a large part of makeup of mind is. That one or two conversations, but there's so much which goes in before and after that. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of [00:22:57] What is a16z's edge?[00:22:57] Dwarkesh: venture capital, um, I, I'm curious, so interest and Horowitz, and I guess why Combinator too?Um, but I mean, any other person who's investing in startups, they were started at a time when there were much less capital in the space, and today of course, there's been so much more capital pour into space. So how do these firms, like how does A 16 C continue to have edge? What is this edge? How can I sustain it [00:23:20] Sriram: given the fact that so much more capital is entered into the space?We show up on podcasts like the Lunar Society, , and so if you are watching this and you have a startup idea, Uh, come to us, right? Uh, no. Come, come to the Lunar society. . Well, yes. I mean, maybe so Trust me, you go in pat, you're gonna have a find, uh, a Thk pat right there. Uh, actually I, you think I joked, but there's a bit of truth.But no, I've had [00:23:40] Dwarkesh: like lu this [00:23:40] Aarthi: suddenly became very different [00:23:43] Sriram: conversation. I have had people, this is a totally ludicrous [00:23:46] Dwarkesh: idea, but I've had people like, give me that idea. And it's like, it sounds crazy to me because like, I don't know what, it's, what a company's gonna be successful, right? So, but I hasn't [00:23:55] Aarthi: become an investor.[00:23:57] Sriram: I honestly don't know. But it is something like what you're talking about Lu Society Fund one coming up, right? You heard it here first? Uh, uh, well, I think first of all, you know, I think there's something about the firm, uh, um, in terms of how it's set up philosophically and how it's set up, uh, kind of organizationally, uh, and our approach philosoph.The firm is an optimist, uh, uh, more than anything else. At the core of it, we are optimist. We are optimist about the future. We are optimist about the impact of founders on their, on the liberty to kind of impact that future. Uh, we are optimist at heart, right? Like I, I tell people like, you can't work at a six and z if you're not an optimist.That's at the heart of everything that we do. Um, and very tied to that is the idea that, you know, um, software is eating the world. It is, it's true. 10 years ago when Mark wrote that, peace is as true now, and we just see more and more of it, right? Like every week, you know, look at the week we are recording this.You know, everyone's been talking about chat, G p T, and like all the industries that can get shaped by chat, G P T. So our, our feature, our, our idea is that software is gonna go more and more. So, one way to look at this is, yes, a lot more capitalists enter the world, but there should be a lot more, right?Like, because these companies are gonna go bigger. They're gonna have bigger impacts on, uh, human lives and, and the world at large. So that's, uh, you know, uh, one school of thought, the other school of thought, uh, which I think you were asking about, say valuations, uh, et cetera. Is, uh, you know, um, again, one of my other partners, Jeff Jordan, uh, uh, always likes to tell people like, we don't go discount shopping, right?Our, the way we think about it is we want to, when we're investing in a market, We want to really map out the market, right? Uh, so for example, I work on crypto, uh, and, uh, you know, we, you know, if, if you are building something interesting in crypto and we haven't seen you, we haven't talked to you, that's a fail, that's a mess, right?We ideally want to see every single interesting founder company idea. And a category can be very loose. Crypto is really big. We usually segmented something else. Or if you look at enterprise infrastructure, you can take them into like, you know, AI or different layers and so on. But once you map out a category, you want to know everything.You wanna know every interesting person, every interesting founder you wanna be abreast of every technology change, every go to market hack, every single thing. You wanna know everything, right? And then, uh, the idea is that, uh, we would love to invest in, you know, the what is hopefully becomes the market.Set category, uh, or you know, somebody who's maybe close to the, the market leader. And our belief is that these categories will grow and, you know, they will capture huge value. Um, and as a whole, software is still can used to be undervalued by, uh, a, you know, the world. So, um, we, so, which is why, again, going back to what Jeff would say, he's like, we are not in the business of oh, we are getting a great deal, right?We, we are like, we want to invest in something which, where we think the team and the company and their approach is going to win in this space, and we want to help them win. And we think if they do win, there's a huge value to be unlocked. Yeah, I see. I see. Um, [00:26:42] Future of Twitter[00:26:42] Dwarkesh: let's talk about Twitter. [00:26:44] Sriram: Uh, . I need a drink. I need a drink.[00:26:48] Dwarkesh: um, Tell me, what is the future of Twitter? What is the app gonna look like in five years? You've, um, I mean obviously you've been involved with the Musk Venture recently, but, um, you've, you've had a senior position there. You were an executive there before a few years ago, and you've also been an executive at, uh, you've both been at Meta.So what [00:27:06] Sriram: is the future of Twitter? It's gonna be entertaining. Uh, uh, what is it El say the most entertaining outcome is the most, [00:27:12] Aarthi: uh, uh, like, best outcome is the most, uh, most likely outcome is the most entertaining outcome. [00:27:16] Sriram: Exactly right. So I think it's gonna be the most entertaining outcome. Um, I, I mean, I, I, I think a few things, uh, first of all, uh, ideally care about Twitter.Yeah. Uh, and all of my involvement, uh, you know, over the years, uh, uh, professionally, you know, uh, has, it's kind of. A lagging indicator to the value I got from the service person. I have met hundreds of people, uh, through Twitter. Uh, hundreds of people have reached out to me. Thousands. Exactly. Uh, and you know, I met Mark Andresen through Twitter.Uh, I met like, you know, uh, people are not very good friends of mine. We met through Twitter. We met at Twitter, right. There we go. Right. Uh, just [00:27:50] Aarthi: like incredible outsized impact. Yeah. Um, and I think it's really hard to understate that because, uh, right now it's kind of easy to get lost in the whole, you know, Elon, the previous management bio, like all of that.Outside of all of that, I think the thing I like to care about is, uh, focus on is the product and the product experience. And I think even with the product experience that we have today, which hasn't like, dramatically changed from for years now, um, it's still offering such outsized value for. If you can actually innovate and build really good product on top, I think it can, it can just be really, really good for humanity overall.And I don't even mean this in like a cheesy way. I really think Twitter as a tool could be just really, really effective and enormously good for everyone. Oh yeah. [00:28:35] Sriram: Twitter is I think, sort of methodically upstream of everything that happens in culture in uh, so many different ways. Like, um, you know, there was this, okay, I kinda eli some of the details, uh, but like a few years ago I remember there was this, uh, sort of this somewhat salacious, controversial story which happened in entertainment and uh, and I wasn't paying attention to, except that something caught my eye, which was that, uh, every story had the same two tweets.And these are not tweets from any famous person. It was just some, like, some, um, you know, somebody had some followers, but not a lot of, a lot of followers. And I. Why is this being quoted in every single story? Because it's not from the, you know, the person who was actually in the story or themselves. And it turned out that, uh, what had happened was, uh, you know, somebody wrote in the street, it had gone viral, um, it started trending on Twitter, um, and a bunch of people saw it.They started writing news stories about it. And by that afternoon it was now, you know, gone from a meme to now reality. And like in a lot of people entertainment say, kind of go respond to that. And I've seen this again and again, again, right? Uh, sports, politics, culture, et cetera. So Twitter is memetically upstream of so much of life.Uh, you know, one of my friends had said like, Twitter is more important than the real world. Uh, which I don't, I don't know about that, but, uh, you know, I do think it's, um, it has huge sort of, uh, culture shaping value. Yeah. I thing I think about Twitter is so much of. The network is very Lindy. So one of the things I'm sure from now is like five years from now, you know, what does that mean?Well that, uh, is that something which has kind of stood the test of time to some extent? And, um, and, uh, well the Lindy effect generally means, I don't think it's using this context with ideas like things which, with withstood the test of time tend to also with some test of time in the future, right? Like, like if we talked to Naim is like, well, people have lifting heavy weights and doing red wine for 2000 years, so let's continue doing that.It's probably a good thing. Um, but, but, but that's Twitter today. What is the future of Twitter? Well, uh, well, I think so one is, I think that's gonna continue to be true, right? 10 years from now, five years from now, it's still gonna be the metic battleground. It's still gonna be the place where ideas are shared, et cetera.Um, you know, I'm very. Unabashedly a a big fan of what Elon, uh, as a person, as a founder and what he's doing at Twitter. And my hope is that, you know, he can kind of canoe that and, you know, he's, you know, and I can't actually predict what he's gonna go Bill, he's kind of talked about it. Maybe that means bringing in other product ideas.Uh, I think he's talked about payments. He's talked about like having like longer form video. Uh, who knows, right? But I do know, like five years from now, it is still gonna be the place of like active conversation where people fight, yell, discuss, and maybe sometimes altogether. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the Twitter, [00:30:58] Is Big Tech Overstaffed?[00:30:58] Dwarkesh: um, conversation has raised a lot of, a lot of questions about how over or understaffed, uh, these big tech companies are, and in particular, um, how many people you can get rid of and the thing basically functions or how fragile are these code bases?And having worked at many of these big tech companies, how, how big is the bus factor, would you guess? Like what, what percentage of people could I fire at the random big tech [00:31:22] Sriram: company? Why? I think, uh, [00:31:23] Aarthi: yeah, I think. That's one way to look at it. I think the way I see it is there are a few factors that go into this, right?Like pre covid, post covid, like through covid everybody became remote, remote teams. As you scaled, it was kind of also hard to figure out what was really going on in different parts of the organization. And I think a lot of inefficiencies were overcome by just hiring more people. It's like, oh, you know what, like that team, yeah, that project's like lagging, let's just like add 10 more people.And that's kind of like it became the norm. Yeah. And I think a lot of these teams just got bigger and bigger and bigger. I think the other part of it was also, um, you lot of how performance ratings and culture of like, moving ahead in your career path. And a lot of these companies were dependent on how big your team was and uh, and so every six months or year long cycle or whatever is your performance review cycle, people would be like, this person instead of looking at what has this person shipped or what has like the impact that this person's got had, uh, the team's done.It became more of like, well this person's got a hundred percent arc or 200% arc and next year they're gonna have a 10% increase and that's gonna be like this much. And you know, that was the conversation. And so a lot of the success and promo cycles and all of those conversations were tied around like number of headcount that this person would get under them as such, which I think is like a terrible way to think about how you're moving up the ladder.Um, you should really, like, even at a big company, you should really be thinking about the impact that you've had and customers you've reached and all of that stuff. And I think at some point people kind of like lost that, uh, and pick the more simpler metric, which just headcount and it's easy. Yeah. And to just scale that kind of thing.So I think now with Elon doing this where he is like cutting costs, and I think Elon's doing this for different set of reasons. You know, Twitter's been losing money and I think it's like driving efficiency. Like this is like no different. Anybody else who like comes in, takes over a business and looks at it and says, wait, we are losing money every day.We have to do something about this. Like, it's not about like, you know, cutting fat for the sake of it or anything. It's like this, this business is not gonna be viable if we keep it going the way it is. Yeah. And just pure economics. And so when he came in and did that, I'm now seeing this, and I'm sure Sheam is too at like at eight 16 Z and like his companies, uh, but even outside, and I see this with like my angel investment portfolio of companies, um, and just founders I talk to where people are like, wait, Elon can do that with Twitter.I really need to do that with my company. And it's given them the permission to be more aggressive and to kind of get back into the basics of why are we building what we are building? These are our customers, this is our revenue. Why do we have these many employees? What do they all do? And not from a place of like being cynical, but from a place of.I want people to be efficient in doing what they do and how do we [00:34:06] Sriram: make that happen? Yeah. I, I stole this, I think somebody said this on Twitter and I officially, he said, Elon has shifted the overturn window of, uh, the playbook for running a company. Um, which is, I think if you look at Twitter, uh, you know, and by the way, I would say, you know, you know the sort of, the warning that shows up, which is don't try this at home before, which is like, so don't try some of these unless you're er and maybe try your own version of these.But, you know, number one is the idea that you, you can become better not through growth, but by cutting things. You can become better, by demanding more out of yourself and the people who work for you. Uh, you, you can become better by hiring a, you know, a higher bar, sitting a higher bar for the talent that you bring into the company and, uh, that you reach into the company.I think at the heart of it, by the way, uh, you know, it's one of the things I've kinda observed from Elon. His relentless focus on substance, which is every condition is gonna be like, you know, the, the meme about what have you gotten done this week is, it kinda makes sense to everything else, which is like, okay, what are we building?What is the thing? Who's the actual person doing the work? As opposed to the some manager two levels a about aggregating, you know, the reports and then telling you what's being done. There is a relentless focus on substance. And my theory is, by the way, I think maybe some of it comes from Iran's background in, uh, space and Tesla, where at the end of the day, you are bound by the physics of the real world, right?If you get something wrong, right, you can, the rockets won't take off or won't land. That'd be a kalo, right? Like what, what's a, the phrase that they use, uh, rapid unplanned disassembly is the word. Right? Which is like better than saying it went kaboom. Uh, but, you know, so the constraints are if, if, you know, if you get something wrong at a social media company, people can tell if you get something really wrong at space with the Tesla.People can tap, right? Like very dramatically so and so, and I think, so there was a relentless focus on substance, right? Uh, being correct, um, you know, what is actually being done. And I think that's external Twitter too. And I think a lot of other founders I've talked to, uh, uh, in, sometimes in private, I look at this and go, oh, there is no different playbook that they have always I instituted or they were used to when they were growing up.We saw this when we were growing up. They're definitely seen some other cultures around the world where we can now actually do this because we've seen somebody else do this. And they don't have to do the exact same thing, you know, Elon is doing. Uh, they don't have to, uh, but they can do their variations of demanding more of themselves, demanding more of the people that work for them.Um, focusing on substance, focusing on speed. Uh, I think our all core element. [00:36:24] Aarthi: I also think over the last few years, uh, this may be controversial, I don't know why it is, but it somehow is that you can no longer talk about hard work as like a recipe for success. And you know, like growing up for us. When people say that, or like our parents say that, we just like kind of roll our eyes and be like, yeah, sure.Like, we work hard, like we get it. Yeah. But I think over the last couple of years, it just became not cool to say that if you work hard, then you can, there is a shot at like finding success. And I think it's kind of refreshing almost, uh, to have Elon come in and say, we are gonna work really hard. We are gonna be really hardcore about how we build things.And it's, it's very simple. Like you have to put in the hours. There is no kind of shortcut to it. And I think it's, it's nice to bring it all tight, all back to the basics. And, uh, I like that, like, I like the fact that we are now talking about it again and it's, it's sad that now talking about working really hard or having beds in your office, we used to do that at MicrosoftYeah. Uh, is now like suddenly really controversial. And so, um, I'm, I'm all for this. Like, you know, it's not for everyone, but if you are that type of person who really enjoys working hard, really enjoys shipping things and building really good things, Then I think you might find a fit in this culture. And I think that's a good thing.Yeah. I, [00:37:39] Sriram: I think there's nothing remarkable that has been built without people just working really hard. It doesn't happen for years and years, but I think for strong, some short-term burst of some really passionate, motivated, smart people working some really, you know, and hard doesn't mean time. It can mean so many different dimensions, but I don't think anything great gets built without that.So, uh, yeah, it's interesting. We [00:37:59] Aarthi: used to like do overnights at Microsoft. Like we'd just like sleep under our desk, um, until the janitor would just like, poke us out of there like, I really need to vacuum your cubicle. Like, get out of here. And so we would just like find another bed or something and just like, go crash on some couch.But it was, those were like some of our fun days, like, and we look back at it and you're like, we sh we built a lot. I think at some point sh I think when I walked over to his cubicle, he was like looking at Windows Source code and we're like, we are looking at Windows source code. This is the best thing ever.I think, I think there's such joy in like, Finding those moments where you like work hard and you're feeling really good about it. [00:38:36] Sriram: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so you [00:38:37] Next CEO of Twitter?[00:38:37] Dwarkesh: get working hard and bringing talent into the company, uh, let's say Elon and says Tomorrow, you know what, uh, Riam, I'm, uh, I've got these other three companies that I've gotta run and I need some help running this company.And he says, Sriram would you be down to be the next, [00:38:51] Sriram: uh, next CEO of Twitter Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But I am married to someone. No, uh uh, no, uh uh, you know, you know when, uh, I don't think I was, the answer is absolutely not. And you know this exactly. Fun story. Um, uh, I don't think it says in public before. So when you, when I was in the process, you know, talking to and nor words and, you know, it's, it's not like a, uh, it's not like a very linear process.It's kind of a relationship that kind of develops over time. And I met Mark Andreen, uh, multiple times over the years. They've been having this discussion of like, Hey, do you want to come do venture or do you want to, if you wanna do venture, do you wanna come do with us? And um, and, and one of the things Mark would always tell me is, uh, something like, we would love to have you, but you have to scratch the edge of being an operator first.Um, because there are a lot of, there are a lot of ways VCs fail, uh, operator at VCs fail. Um, and I can get, get into some of them if you're interested, but one of the common ways that they fail is they're like, oh, I really want to go back to, um, building companies. And, uh, and now thing is like antis more than most interest, like really respects entrepreneurship, fraud's the hard of what we do.But he will, like, you have to get that out of a system. You have to be like, okay, I'm done with that word. I want to now do this. Uh, before you know, uh, you want to come over, right? And if you say so, let's have this conversation, but if not, we will wait for you. Right. And a woman telling me this all the time, and at some point of time I decided, uh, that, uh, you know, I just love this modoc.Um, you know, there are many things kind of different about being an operator versus a BC uh, and you kind of actually kind of really train myself in what is actually a new profession. But one of the things is like, you know, you kind of have to be more of a coach and more open to like, working with very different kinds of people without having direct agency.And it's always a very different mode of operation, right? And you have to be like, well, I'm not the person doing the thing. I'm not the person getting the glory. I'm here to fund, obviously, but really help support coach be, uh, a lending hand, be a supporting shoulder, whatever the, uh, the metaphor is, or for somebody else doing the thing.And so you kind of have to have the shift in your brain. And I think sometimes when VCs don't work out, the few operator on VCs don't work out. There are few reasons. Uh, number one reason I would say is when an operator, and I, I hate the word operator by the way, right? It just means you have a regular job.Uh, you know, uh, and, uh, but the number one reason is like when you have a regular job, you know, you're an engineer, you're, you're a product manager, you're a marketer, whatever. , you get feedback every single day about how you're doing. If you're an engineer, you're checking in code or you know your manager, you hire a great person, whatever it is.When you're at Visa, you're not getting direct feedback, right? You know, maybe today what I'm doing now, recording this with you is the best thing ever because some amazing fund is gonna meet it and they're gonna come talk to me, or maybe it's a total waste of time and I should be talking some else. You do have no way of knowing.So you really have to think very differently about how you think about patients, how we think about spending your time, and you don't get the dopamine of like, oh, I'm getting this great reinforcement loop. Um, the second part of it is because of that lack of feedback loop, you often don't know how well you're doing.Also, you don't have that fantastic product demo or you're like, you know, if an engineer like, oh, I got this thing working, the builder is working, it's 10 x faster, or this thing actually works, whatever the thing is, you don't get that feedback loop, uh, because that next great company that, you know, the next Larry and Sergey or Brian Armstrong might walk in through your door or Zoom meeting tomorrow or maybe two years from now.So you don't really have a way to know. Um, so you kind of have to be, you have a focus on different ways to do, uh, get. Kind of figured out how well you're doing. The third part of it is, uh, you know, the, uh, the feedback loops are so long where, uh, you know, you, you can't test it. When I was a product manager, you would ship things, something you, if you don't like it, you kill it, you ship something else.At, at our firm in, you invest in somebody, you're working with them for a decade, if not longer, really for life in some ways. So you are making much more intense, but much less frequent decisions as opposed to when you're in a regular job, you're making very frequent, very common decisions, uh, every single day.So, uh, I get a lot of differences and I think, you know, sometimes, uh, you know, folks who, who are like a former CEO or former like VP product, uh, uh, I talk a lot of them sometimes who went from, came to BC and then went back and they either couldn't adapt or didn't like it, or didn't like the emotions of it.And I had to really convince myself that okay. Hopefully wouldn't fate those problems. I probably, maybe some other problems. And, uh, uh, so yes, the long way of saying no, , [00:43:13] Why Don't More Venture Capitalists Become Founders?[00:43:13] Dwarkesh: um, the desk partly answer another question I had, which was, you know, there is obviously this pipeline of people who are founders who become venture capitalists.And it's interesting to me. I would think that the other end or the converse of that would be just as common because if you're, if you're an angel investor or venture capitalist, you've seen all these companies, you've seen dozens of companies go through all these challenges and then you'd be like, oh, I, I understand.[00:43:36] Sriram: Wait, why do you think more VCs driven apart? You have some strong opinions of this . [00:43:40] Dwarkesh: Should more venture capitalists and investors become founders? I think [00:43:43] Aarthi: they should. I don't think they will. Ouch. I dunno, why not? Um, I think, uh, look, I think the world is better with more founders. More people should start companies, more people should be building things.I fundamentally think that's what needs to happen. Like our single biggest need is like, we just don't have enough founders. And we should just all be trying new things, building new projects, all of that. Um, I think for venture capital is, I think what happens, and this is just my take, I don't know if Farram agrees with it, but, um, I think they see so much from different companies.And if you're like really successful with what you do as a vc, you are probably seeing hundreds of companies operate. You're seeing how the sausage is being made in each one of them. Like an operating job. You kind of sort of like have this linear learning experience. You go from one job to the other.Here you kind of sort of see in parallel, like you're probably on like 50, 60 boards. Uh, and oftentimes when it comes to the investor as like an issue, it is usually a bad problem. Um, and you kind of see like you, you know, you kind of see how every company, what the challenges are, and every company probably has like, you know, the best companies we know, I've all had this like near death experience and they've come out of that.That's how the best founders are made. Um, you see all of that and I think at some point you kind of have this fear of like, I don't know. I just don't think I wanna like, bet everything into this one startup. One thing, I think it's very hard to have focus if you've honed your skillset to be much more breath first and go look at like a portfolio of companies being helpful to every one of them.And I see Sure. And do this every day where I, I have no idea how he does it, but key context, which is every 30 minutes. Yeah. And it's crazy. Like I would go completely and say, where if you told me board meeting this founder pitch, oh, sell this operating role for this portfolio company. Second board meeting, third, board meeting founder, pitch founder pitch founder pitch.And that's like, you know, all day, every day nonstop. Um, that's just like, you, you, I don't think you can like, kind of turn your mindset into being like, I'm gonna clear up my calendar and I'm just gonna like work on this one thing. Yeah. And it may be successful, it may not be, but I'm gonna give it my best shot.It's a very, very different psychology. I don't know. What do you [00:45:57] Sriram: think? Well, Well, one of my partners Triess to say like, I don't know what VCs do all day. The job is so easy, uh, uh, you know, they should start complaining. I mean, being a founder is really hard. Um, and I think, you know, there's a part of it where the VCs are like, oh, wait, I see how hard it is.And I'm like, I'm happy to support, but I don't know whether I can go through with it. So, because it's just really hard and which is kind of like why we have like, so much, uh, sort of respect and empathy, uh, for the whole thing, which is, I, [00:46:20] Aarthi: I do like a lot of VCs, the best VCs I know are people who've been operators in the past because they have a lot of empathy for what it takes to go operate.Um, and I've generally connected better with them because you're like, oh, okay, you're a builder. You've built these things, so, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. Um, but I do think a lot more VCs should become [00:46:38] Sriram: founders than, yeah. I, I think it's some of the couple of other things which happened, which is, uh, uh, like Arthur said, like sometimes, uh, you know, when we see you kind of, you see, you kind of start to pattern match, like on.And you sometimes you analyze and, and you kind of, your brain kind of becomes so focused on context switching. And I think when need a founder, you need to kind of just dedicate, you know, everything to just one idea. And it, it's not just bbc sometimes with academics also, where sometimes you are like a person who's supporting multiple different kinds of disciplines and context switching between like various speech students you support.Uh, but it's very different from being in the lab and working on one problem for like long, long years. Right. So, um, and I think it's kind of hard to then context switch back into just doing the exact, you know, just focus on one problem, one mission, day in and day out. So I think that's hard, uh, and uh, but you should be a founder.Yeah, I think, yeah, I think more people should try. [00:47:32] Role of Boards[00:47:32] Dwarkesh: . Speaking of being on boards, uh, what the FTX Saga has raised some questions about what is like the role of a board, even in a startup, uh, stage company, and you guys are on multiple boards, so I'm curious how you think about, there's a range of between micromanaging everything the CEO does to just rubber stamping everything the CEO does.Where, what is the responsibility of a board and a startup? [00:47:54] Aarthi: What, what, what are the, this is something I'm really curious about too. I'm [00:47:57] Sriram: just, well, I just wanna know on the FDX soccer, whether we are gonna beat the FTX episode in interviews in terms of view your podcast, right? Like, so if you folks are listening, right?Like let's get us to number one. So what you YouTube like can subscriber, they're already listening. [00:48:10] Aarthi: What do you mean? Get us [00:48:10] Sriram: to number one? Okay, then, then spread the word, right? Like, uh, don't [00:48:13] Aarthi: watch other episodes. It's kinda what you [00:48:15] Sriram: should, I mean, if there's [00:48:16] Dwarkesh: like some sort of scandal with a 16 Z, we could definitely be to fdx.[00:48:21] Sriram: Uh, uh, yeah, I think it's gonna, well, it's gonna be really hard to read that one. Uh, , uh, uh, for for sure. Uh, uh, oh my goodness. Um, uh, but no, [00:48:29] Aarthi: I'm, I'm genuinely curious about [00:48:31] Sriram: these two. Well, uh, it's a few things, you know, so the multiple schools of thought, I would say, you know, there's one school of thought, which is the, uh, uh, you know, which I don't think I totally subscribe to, but I think some of the other later stages, especially public market folks that I work with sometimes subscribe to, which is the only job of a, uh, board is to hire and fire the ceo.I don't think I really subscribe to that. I think because we deal with more, uh, early stage venture, um, and our job is like, uh, you know, like lot of the companies I work with are in a cdc c, b, you know, they have something working, but they have a lot long way to go. Um, and hopefully this journey, which goes on for many, many years, and I think the best way I thought about it is to, people would say like, you want to be.Wave form dampener, which is, uh, you know, for example, if the company's kind of like soaring, you want to kind of be like kind the check and balance of what? Like, hey, okay, what do we do to, uh, you know, um, uh, to make sure we are covering our bases or dotting the is dotting the, crossing The ts be very kind of like careful about it because the natural gravitational pool of the company is gonna take it like one direct.On the other hand, uh, if the company's not doing very well and everybody's beating us, beating up about it, you're, you know, your cust you're not able to close deals. The press is beating you up. You want to be the person who is supportive to the ceo, who's rallying, everybody helping, you know, convince management to stay, helping convince, close host, hire.So, um, there are a lot of things, other things that go into being a board member. Obviously there's a fiscal responsibility part of things, and, um, you know, um, because you kind of represent so many stakeholders. But I think at the heart of it, I kind of think about, uh, you know, how do I sort of help the founder, uh, the founder and kind of dampen the waveform.Um, the other Pinteresting part was actually the board meetings. Uh, Themselves do. Uh, and I do think like, you know, about once a year or, uh, so like that there's every kind of, there's, there's almost always a point every 18 months or so in a company's lifetime where you have like some very decisive, interesting moment, right?It could be good, it could be bad. And I think those moments can be, uh, really, really pivotal. So I think there's, there's huge value in showing up to board meetings, being really prepared, uh, uh, where you've done your homework, you, you know, you've kind of had all the conversations maybe beforehand. Um, and you're coming into add real value, like nothing kind of annoying me if somebody's just kind of showing up and, you know, they're kind of maybe cheering on the founder once or twice and they kind of go away.So I don't think you can make big difference, but, uh, you know, I think about, okay, how are we sort of like the waveform, the, you know, make sure the company, [00:50:58] Aarthi: but I guess the question then is like, should startups have better corporate governance compared to where we are today? Would that have avoided, like, say the FTX [00:51:08] Sriram: saga?No, I mean, it's, I mean, we, I guess there'll be a legal process and you'll find out right when the FTX case, nobody really knows, you know, like, I mean, like what level of, uh, who knew what, when, and what level of deceptions, you know, deception, uh, uh, you know, unfolded, right? So, uh, it, yeah. Maybe, but you know, it could have been, uh, it could have been very possible that, you know, uh, somebody, somebody just fakes or lies stuff, uh, lies to you in multiple ways.[00:51:36] Aarthi: To,

“We Learn to Live When We Learn to Boast” by Rev. Jeff Jordan. Morning Worship – November 20, 2022.

On this episode of Frogs Today Brian welcomes former QB and TCU great Jeff Ballard, Assistant Athletic Director for Player Personnel Jeff Jordan and our roundtable of experts David Beaudin, Jeff Wilson and Jamie Plunkett.

This is a special episode pulled from the Just Go Grind vault! Dr. Iman Abuzeid is the Co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, a career marketplace whose custom matching technology offers hospitals the fastest, most effective way to hire qualified permanent nursing staff. By 2024, the United States is poised to experience its biggest employment crisis to date, a shortage of one million nurses, putting patient care in jeopardy and hospitals at risk of significant financial loss. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the nursing shortage, highlighting the need for qualified nurses across the country. Incredible Health is on a mission to reinvent the hospital and healthcare staffing landscape, helping to solve the nursing shortage. As a former medical doctor whose immediate family includes three surgeons, Iman understands the importance of helping healthcare professionals find and do their best work. Incredible Health is based in San Francisco, backed by top tier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and is used by hundreds of leading hospitals across the country, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Stanford Healthcare, Baylor Scott & White and many more. Dr. Abuzeid holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In August 2022, Iman led Incredible Health to $1.65B unicorn status with an $80M Series B raise. This makes Incredible Health the highest valued tech-enabled career marketplace in healthcare. This new funding comes on the heels of several major milestones for Incredible Health. In 2021, revenue grew 500% as their marketplace grew exponentially. More than 10,000 US nurses now join Incredible Health's platform every single week, and they've expanded from partnering with 200 hospitals to 600 hospitals. Their marketplace technology has reduced the average time to hire permanent nurses to only 14 days – from an industry standard of 82 days – while saving each hospital location at least $2M annually in travel nurse, overtime, and HR costs. Topics Covered by Iman Abuzeid in this Episode How Incredible Health got started Being 1 million nurses short in the U.S. by 2024 How Iman figured out what the initial version of Incredible Health would be Creating a solution that's 10x better than what's currently available How Iman met her co-founder, Rome, and the conversation around going into business together How Iman thought through the equity split early on Raising a few hundred thousand dollars from friends and family to get Incredible Health off the ground Raising a $2.4M Seed Round in 2-3 months after going through the NFX accelerator Raising a $15M Series A in 4-5 weeks led by Jeff Jordan at Andreessen Horowitz Iman's advice for fundraising and creating a process and how her own skills evolved How Iman brought on the first hospitals through cold-calling The MVP of Incredible Health and why you have to fight the urge to ship perfection How the team has grown for Incredible Health The values of Incredible Health and how it's part of everything they do How Incredible Health uses customer insights to develop their platform, operations, and marketing Why Incredible Health offers free continuing education for every nurse in the country How Iman thinks through the products and tools they're going to provide to their customers The sales process of getting hospitals on their platform The 3 biggest value adds of the investors Iman has for Incredible Health Questions that Iman asked of CEOs for reference checks on investors How Iman takes care of her own mental health and why she has a therapist How getting an MBA from Wharton impacted Iman's journey as an entrepreneur Books and blogs that Iman recommends How Iman recharges away from work and why she doesn't work on Saturdays Iman's experience as a minority woman founder Diversity debt Links from the Episode Rome Portlock NFX Jeff Jordan Andreessen Horowitz Obvious Ventures signal.nfx.com James Joaquin The Hard Thing About Hard Things Who (A book on hiring) Above the Crowd by Bill Gurley Stephanie Lampkin Blendoor Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Jeff Goodman and Robbie Hummel are joined this week by Jeff Jordan, the son of Michael Jordan, who discusses what life was like growing up as the son of a legend. POWERED by BetRivers Check out the Field of 68 merch store: fieldof68.shop You can purchase The Almanac here: http://thealmanac.gumroad.com/l/almanac SUBSCRIBE! Our YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3kWahy5 Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2XKlwAh Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3F15GCC FOLLOW! Rob Dauster: https://twitter.com/RobDauster Jeff Goodman: https://twitter.com/goodmanhoops Field of 68: https://twitter.com/thefieldof68 Check out TheFieldOf68.com to see our full roster of podcasts!!!  

Can you get better at decision-making with practice? Many founders, investors, and builders must make many critical decisions, big and small, every day, and improving the quality of your decision-making process can become a big competitive advantage. In this episode from October 2020, expert decision strategist, author and professional poker player, Annie Duke, joins a16z managing partner Jeff Jordan, to discuss some of the frameworks, strategies, and tactics for better decision-making by both individuals and organizations that she outlines in her second book, How to Decide. This was Annie's second appearance on the podcast – she first joined a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen and host Sonal Chalksee to discuss her first book, Thinking in Bets, where they  went deep into how to frame taking risks and placing bets, especially in the context of innovation. You can read the full transcript of this episode here, and you can read the transcript of Annie's first episode on the a16z Podcast with Marc Andreessen here. 

“Walk by the Spirit” by Rev. Jeff Jordan. Morning Service – June 12, 2022.

My guest today is Jeff Jordan, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Jeff has one of the most interesting set of experiences of guests that I've had on the show. As an operator, he has been the General Manager of eBay.com, President of PayPal, and CEO of OpenTable. As an investor, he was one of the first General Partners at a16z and sits on the board of Airbnb, Instacart, Pinterest, and other notable firms. Given his vast experience, he is the firm's go-to-expert on all things marketplaces, which is the common thread in our conversation. Please enjoy this great discussion with Jeff Jordan.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.   -----   This episode is brought to you by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. If you're a professional equity investor and haven't talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com/Patrick.    -----   This episode is brought to you by Lemon.io. The team at Lemon.io has built a network of Eastern European developers ready to pair with fast-growing startups. We have faced challenges hiring engineering talent for various projects - and Lemon.io offered developers for one-off projects, developers for full start to finish product development, or developers that could be add-ons to the existing team. Check out lemon.io/patrick to learn more.   -----   Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.    Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:02:48] - The notion of perfect competition in marketplaces [00:04:31] - How to build a marketplace while thinking about perfect competition [00:05:32] - Promoting price discovery at eBay [00:06:52] - Features of a marketplace he focuses on  [00:08:38] - Best way to do lead generation  [00:10:20] - Red flags for marketplace businesses  [00:11:00] - Major business lessons learned while at Disney  [00:12:10] - Learning to be an operator while at eBay; Leaving It All on the Field [00:14:45] - How he got hired at OpenTable [00:16:22] - Taking OpenTable public and being its first public company CEO [00:17:44] - What they did well in financing OpenTable [00:18:54] - Communications between company leaders and its investors  [00:19:45] - Going from operator to investor [00:22:08] - Lessons from the early years of becoming an investor and pricing companies [00:24:12] - Power of network effects on a startup [00:26:56] - Healthy tensions inside of a network [00:29:23] - When the supply side is the more difficult part of the equation [00:30:27] - Characteristics of founders when it comes to marketplaces [00:33:30] - The importance of being a perpetual learner as a founder [00:35:36] - When he starts focusing on unit economics and margin profile in a new marketplace [00:37:45] - Increasing convenience for a buyer as a business strategy  [00:42:14] - Categories that could use better marketplace solutions [00:44:36] - Layers of growth inside a business [00:50:26] - Lessons with the unique business model of Pinterest [00:52:03] - Unique aspects of the Andreessen Horowitz business model [00:55:54] - Finding and recruiting talented general partner investors  [00:57:37] - The morning basketball game and community strengthening [01:01:36] - Defining great mentor relationships [01:04:54] - Kindest thing anyone has done for him [01:06:05] - Lessons from his parents

After achieving product-market fit and starting to gain users, how do startups then avoid the "leaky bucket" problem of losing users as quickly as they gained them? By focusing on user engagement and retention, startups can not only keep their hard-won customers but also ensure that each new cohort of users gets more and more value out of their product.This episode is part two in a two-part series on the basics of growth. Featuring a16z general partners Andrew Chen (formerly of Uber and author of the book, The Cold Start Problem) and Jeff Jordan (formerly of OpenTable, eBay, Disney, and more), in conversation with Sonal Chokshi, the conversation goes deep on many aspects and nuances of engaging and retaining users: from how network effects come into play and if there is really a magic number or "aha" moment for a product to who are the power users and the power user curve for measuring, finding, and retaining those users.For a deeper discussion on user acquisition, check out last week's episode, the first part of this series. 

Once known as “growth hacking”, the concept of Growth has now evolved into an entire discipline that spans marketing, product management, user experience, and more. Why? After achieving product-market fit, startups need to capitalize quickly on that initial traction to capture and retain more users and market share before the competition does, and building an efficient and resilient growth strategy is a critical component.This episode -- one of two in a series -- focuses on the user acquisition aspect of growth. Featuring a16z general partners Andrew Chen (formerly of Uber and author of the book, The Cold Start Problem) and Jeff Jordan (formerly of OpenTable, eBay, Disney, and more), in conversation with Sonal Chokshi, the discussion also covers the nuances of paid vs. organic marketing (and the perils of blended CAC); the role of network effects; where does customer lifetime value (LTV) come in; and much more. Because at the end of the day, businesses don't grow themselves. 

original episode notes and transcript here: https://future.a16z.com/podcasts/innovating-in-bets/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. The second of these three special rerun episodes is a conversation that originally took place spring/summer 2019, pre-pandemic (ah, that we could remember that time!) – between a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen and Sonal interviewing author, consultant/advisor, and former pro poker player Annie Duke, on one of her first few appearances with us. It's a conversation quite unlike her other conversations, and one in a series of special joint interviews Marc and Sonal did. So there's a lot of high-speed talking, but the three cover a broad range of topics relevant to both businesses and individuals: on skill vs luck, on outcomes vs process, on asking the right questions, on how to communicate in probabilities within an organization or team, and, on how NOT making a decision is also a decision and why that matters. Be sure to also check out this feed for the followup conversation with Annie, Jeff Jordan, and Sonal on the specifics of HOW to Decide as well -- the practical and organizational implementations. (Because the a16z Podcast became an early go-to for book authors to release their books, Annie agreed to share her next book with us first.) But overall, these evergreen episodes are really all about INNOVATION, which is another signature theme in defining the identity of the a16z Podcast…

All Sports Talk Live with Tim Tackett & Jeff Jordan. 

Jeff Jordan of Fabritec International shares ways he's found to form a team atmosphere in a business. We discuss why it's important in a drycleaning company, the role of management in fostering this feeling in a plant, and how to avoid common morale killers. 

Jeff Jordan is a managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He was previously CEO and then executive chairman of OpenTable as well as Senior Vice President and General Manager of eBay North America. James refers to Jeff as one of the Best Venture Capitalist in the last ten years and one of his favorite mentors. Jeff was also on the board of James' former company, Tilt. In today's Episode, James and Jeff dive into the early career of Jeff at companies like Disney and eBay. Jeff Explains how he built eBay North America from 3 employees to thousands in just a few years. James and Jeff also give insight on "How to Manage," this includes managing employees to managing tasks and time. They also dive into Network Effects and how it has helped them both make decisions on what companies to invest in. To conclude the Episode, Jeff explains the working relationship with James and his company Tilt. https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine Find out more about Jeff: https://a16z.com/author/jeff-jordan/ Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline Support Our Sponsors: Magic Mind https://magicmind.co (Use Code BTL at Checkout for 20% off) AppSumo http://appsumo.com/bff About your host, James: James Beshara is a founder, investor, advisor, author, podcaster, and encourager based in Los Angeles, California. James has created startups for the last 12 years, selling one (Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), and invested in a few multi-billion dollar startups to date. He has spoken at places such as Y-Combinator, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, TechCrunch Disrupt, and has been featured in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Time Magazine. He's been featured in Forbes, Time, and Inc Magazine's “30 Under 30” lists and advises startups all around the world. All of this is his “above the line” version of his background. Hear the other 90% of the story in the intro episode of Below The Line. “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.

Dear founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, board members Angela Ahrendts, Ken Chenault, Belinda Johnson, Jeff Jordan, Alfred Lin, and Ann Mather, and all investors, hosts, and guests;I write to you today in the hope that you will radically re-structure your company before it starts a class war in which you will almost certainly lose the lion's share of your wealth, your moral conscience, your place in history as innovators instead of oppressors, and you and your family's physical safety.Brian, Joe, Nathan; you started Airbnb with the best of intentions. You couldn't afford to make rent on your San Francisco apartment, so you bought some air mattresses and served breakfast to your guests. Brilliant.But things of changed since then. Now you control an $80 billion company that has devoured millions of housing units, evicted countless families, and turned their homes into full-time clerkless hotels, with a promise in your IPO documents to fight democracies in court for as long as you can afford to do so.To be clear, renting out spare rooms, attics, basements, and backyards in owner-occupied properties isn't the problem. It's when an investor outbids a family for a second property and turns it into a full-time Airbnb. Or worse, when a holiday rental company does so. Or worse, when a highly-leveraged hedge fund buys a swath of holiday rental companies. Or worse, when a sovereign wealth fund buys a portfolio of hedge funds. It's why the average house will cost $10+ million within 50 years.Picture the future and do the math. Your company's mandate is to grow exponentially forever. If new housing construction doesn't keep up — and it hasn't for more than a decade — it's mathematically impossible that your company won't take hundreds of millions of houses away from real families in the decades ahead. Do you think this will end well for you?As it stands, you have set your company on a path that can only lead to ruin — for millions of houseless families, and eventually, your leadership team and your investors.But it doesn't have to be this way.1. Start with transparencyAs far as we're aware, only 8% of Airbnb hosts are renting a room in a single house, and that number is falling fast. How many million houses has Airbnb taken off the market so far, and how many more are being stolen each month?It's only fair that the commons knows what we're up against. If you want to build real public trust, your company needs to allow independent auditors to track how many of your hosts are actually owners who rent rooms in houses they occupy full-time, versus how many investors have taken a housing unit off the market and turned it into an unregulated clerkless hotel.2. Ensure all your hosts are owner-occupiers onlyYou must revert to your original model. When an owner occupies a house, they take care of it. They know their neighbors. They keep the noise down. They shop locally. They keep the local schools open by sending their kids. They set down roots.Absentee landlords kill communities. They don't have roots. They don't care about noise or safety or cleanliness. They don't care about schools. They don't care about neighbors. All they care about is extracting wealth.Worst of all, the huge proliferation of holiday investors is skyrocketing house prices beyond all affordable values. This means that the real societal contributors — productive workers — have to relocate to less desirable locations further away from their places of work. This is already robbing millions of people of billions of hours of life due to extra commuting, and the environmental toll of all that pollution is yours to bear.All of this could be ameliorated by ensuring that every single one of your hosts is only renting out space in a housing unit that they own and live in full-time.3. Limit the number of rental nights to 14/yearObviously, high year-round commercial availability removes a house from the residential market. The average American gets two weeks of vacation per year. As such, it seems reasonable to limit the number of rental nights to the number of vacation days of the average owner-occupier. Many cities have already started to put such a limit in place, but if your company truly cares about the commons, you'll pre-empt them all by ensuring your hosts are good citizens first, and hosts seconds.In a word, there must be no more full-time Airbnbs in residential homes.4. Stop suing democraciesI realize that part of your business plan includes building a war chest to fight 100,000+ cities in court. But is this really how you want to make your money? By fighting democracy? How will your children and grandchildren look at you when they learn the truth of your actions? Is this how you want history to remember you?Airbnb's fight-the-public-forever model is going to cost you a ton of money, and it's going to cost the commons even more. But do you expect us to just roll over and die? When millions of us don't have a place to live, what will you expect us to do instead?5. Stop bribing CongressLet's face it, the rest of the world calls corporate lobbying what it actually is: bribing. Why do you have 13 lobbying firms in Congress? Why did you hire a PR firm to meet with Scottish delegates on 28 occasions? Why did you fund more than 400 fake grassroots organizations?Instead of bribing corporate-captured puppet politicians to make laws that oppress the commons, why not build a company that doesn't require the overthrow of democracy instead?6. Start building clerkless hotelsClearly, there is a huge market for your business.People don't love the hassle of hotel check-ins and check-outs.They like paying online.They like having kitchens.They like having unique and interesting spaces.If you build it, they will come.Seriously — as more people start to travel regularly, there's likely a market for more than a billion Airbnb hotel units globally. Airbnb could earn (actually earn) a real profit by revolutionizing the hotel industry.You've been bleeding investor cash for nearly a decade, so why not make a profit for a change?7. Start an AirbnbankNow, of course, the sheer brilliance of extraction economy companies is that you take a massive cut of the profits without shouldering any of the risks and costs, shunting all those pesky expenses onto the backs of your army of hosts.So why not continue to pass the buck by giving your hosts an opportunity to invest in full-time commercially-zoned vacation space?Start a bank, give hosts mortgages, and allow them to buy units in Airbnb towers in properly zoned commercial areas. This would allow hosts to skim passive profits off tourists, allow you to make your hefty Airbnb fee, and earn interest like a fat cat Wall Street banker.You could also control maintenance and cleaning and security on these buildings, extracting further fees from your hosts. You could also rent ground-level space to restaurants, fitness centers, food shops, pubs, barbershops, and spas. Heck, you could even save a few floors for office share space and destroy WeWork for good. Best of all, you'd never have to take another residential unit away from a family ever again.Because even one house taken off the residential market to be used as a holiday house is one too many.Like it or not, your company is now the tip of the spear in a movement that is rapidly commodifying global residential real estate. You're leading the charge in turning a human necessity into a tradeable commodity. Access to affordable shelter is a universal human right, and you're devastating real people.A word of warningNow obviously, your full-time job is simply to boost Airbnb's stock price, so I don't expect you'll heed any of these suggestions; in which case, all that's left to say is: Enjoy it while it lasts. Because they're coming for you, and when they do, there will be blood. You thought Occupy Wall Street had a big turnout? Wait until hundreds of millions of evicted renters smash your empire. Rule number one of business: Never back desperate people into a corner. Pretty soon, the listings on your website will just become a hit list.Expect thousands of municipal lawsuits from city councils. Expect class-action lawsuits from evicted renters and priced-out buyers. Expect pitchforks in the streets.Expect bricks through windows and fires in listed properties.Expect homeless mobs climbing the walls of your gated mansions.If you continue on your current course, you will pay reparations one way or the other — so either get a good insurance policy or get back to your original business model so the world may call you blessed.A personal noteMy wife and I are having our first baby in late September. Our house lease expires in March, and our landlord is turning our home into an Airbnb. There isn't a single house to rent at any price within a half-hour drive. We have to leave the village we've come to love these past few years. We want to raise our child in a real home, but let's be honest — our landlords will extract way more money by renting our house out nightly instead of monthly.Our whole village is the same way. Nearly every property that comes up for sale is snapped up in days by a holiday rental company for far more money than any local family can afford to pay. If the trajectory continues — and there's no indication that it won't — there's a good chance our local school will close before our child has a chance to attend.I can't describe to you the sinking feeling I get in my stomach every time a sixty-year-old suburban woman stops in front of our place and says to her husband, “oh, that one would be cute,” or worse, when a holiday rental company van pulls up and snaps a photo of our home.There's a ticking clock that hangs over our heads, counting down the days until we'll inevitably have to move to a less desirable location, into likely a much smaller place, and still pay way more money, thanks to the commodification of real estate in the hands of Airbnb land-lorders.Calls to actionThere is much to be done in this world, and much of it is an undoing.Airbnb investors and board members: For the sake of long-term societal safety and short-term societal affordability, I call on you to divest of Airbnb stock in the same way you would of fossil fuels and weapons of war, or at the very least, become activist members that force the board to abandon its non-owner-occupied position.Airbnb hosts: I encourage you to only rent out rooms or units on your primary residential property, and sell any properties that you have stolen from the commons.Airbnb guests: I encourage you to stay in hotels, resorts, regulated bed and breakfasts, and in real commercially-zoned vacation rental properties, not in residential neighborhoods. If you want to use Airbnb in an ethical manner, do your due diligence to ensure that the property you're renting is a bona fide owner-occupied unit and not a unit that has been taken away from a family. It's deeply troubling to enjoy family vacation time in a space when you know another family has lost theirs — it's time to make the Golden Rule popular again.Citizens: Lobby your city councilors, county clerks, state representatives, and Congresspeople to ban all commercial activity and investment in residential real estate. Whether they include a 500% second house premium, a cost-prohibitive landlording license, or an outright ban on non-owner-occupied clerkless hotel rentals, we simply must drive investors out of the residential real estate market.Please sign this petition to save my village.Please spread the word and raise awareness about Airbnb.If you'd like to write to any of Airbnb's board members or executive management, their email is [first name].[last name]@ airbnb.comBrian, Joe, Nathan: You started Airbnb with the best of intentions. You couldn't afford to make rent on your San Francisco apartment. Today, your company has made it nearly impossible for people like your former selves to live in San Francisco, Paris, New York, London, or nearly any other desirable place on earth, including my little village.Houses are supposed to be homes. You've extended the capitalist script by turning houses into abusive investments, extractive commodities to be sold to the highest bidder. Please go back to your roots before society burns your whole empire to the ground. Get full access to Surviving Tomorrow at www.surviving-tomorrow.com/subscribe

In today's episode, Trey Lockerbie sits down with Polina Pompliano. Polina is the founder and author of The Profile, which is a newsletter that profiles highly successful individuals in business, science, storytelling, sports, and more. Polina has a wealth of knowledge from her many experiences interviewing everyone from Melinda Gates to Jeff Jordan.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN:(26:44) How exceptional people think(07:51) Five mental models that are the common denominators for success across nearly every discipline(41:18) How to run a Maker vs Manager schedule and a whole lot more*Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences.BOOKS AND RESOURCES:Polina Pompliano TwitterPolina's newsletter, The Profile Twitter, and websiteTrey Lockerbie TwitterPreston, Trey & Stig's tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool Simplify working with multiple freelancers, set budgets, and manage projects with ease with Fiverr Business. Get 1 free year and save 10% on your purchase with promo code INVESTORSHave high-quality, sustainably sourced Wild-Caught Seafood delivered right to your door with Wild Alaskan Company. Order today and get $15 off your 1st box of premium seafoodCommunicate your ideas in the best way possible with CanvaJoin OurCrowd and get to invest in medical technology, breakthroughs in ag tech and food production, solutions in the multi-billion dollar robotic industry, and so much moreThe all-electric Cooper SE starts at only $29,900. It's everything you love about MINI fully electrified. Reserve yours nowThank an awesome human with the best scrubs in the world -- FIGS! Enter promo code WSB at checkout to get 15% offGet up to 40% off + Free Shipping on Four Sigmatic‘s Mushroom Coffee bundlesStart feeling better with a single message. Match with a licensed therapist with Talkspace and get $100 off your first month with the promo code WSBCheck out our Investing Starter Packs about business and financeBrowse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) hereSupport our free podcast by supporting our sponsorsHELP US OUT!Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mo has to take over while Chris catches his breath from laughing. Baseball talk continues from Hour 1. The guys visit with Zion Chr. football coach Jeff Jordan to talk 8-man football. Wild & Wacky gets CRAZY

We kick off Season 9 with a classic: Part I of the a16z story. How did this brand new venture firm charge out of the gates in 2009, going from zero to disrupting the entire venture industry overnight? You probably know Marc & Ben's history with Netscape and Loudcloud/Opsware... but what about the Black Panthers, Nintendo 64, Al Gore, Doug Leone, Masayoshi Son, and an epic feud with Benchmark Capital that became Silicon Valley's version of the Hatfields and the McCoys? Buckle up, Acquired's got the truth. If you love Acquired and want more, join our LP Community for access to over 50 LP-only episodes, monthly Zoom calls, and live access for big events like emergency pods and book club discussions with authors. We can't wait to see you there. Join here at: https://acquired.fm/lp/ Sponsors: Thank you to Pilot for being our presenting sponsor for all of Acquired Season 9! Pilot takes care of startups' bookkeeping, tax and CFO services so busy founders can focus on what matters, which is building the company. To paraphrase Jeff Bezos's famous AWS analogy: bookkeeping and tax don't make your product any better — so you should let Pilot handle them for you. In fact Pilot is backed by Bezos himself via Bezos Expeditions, along with an all-star roster of other investors including Sequoia, Index, and Stripe. They are truly the gold standard for startup bookkeeping, and many of the companies we work with run on them. You can get in touch with Pilot here: https://bit.ly/acquiredfmpilot , and Acquired listeners get 20% off their first 6 months! (use the link above) Thank you as well to Pitchbook and to Nord Security. You can learn more about them at: https://bit.ly/acquiredpitchbook https://bit.ly/acquirednord Links: David Streitfeld's great NYT piece on the Horowitz family: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/technology/one-family-many-revolutions-from-black-panthers-to-silicon-valley-to-trump.html Marc on the Tim Ferriss Show: https://tim.blog/2018/01/01/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-marc-andreessen/ 2003 Marc in SF Gate: https://www.sfgate.com/business/ontherecord/article/OPSWARE-INC-On-the-record-Marc-Andreessen-2525822.php#photo-2684736 Carve Outs: Ben: The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life: https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyday/dp/0190495995 David: Resonant Arc Podcast / YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFzWAEPDGiY34bGpwM_DWmA Episode Sources: [Google Doc link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DDb2nGfvnQ_XV4qs6qoHE084eS0J8cP74gTfdr736GE/edit# ] http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0099.html http://allthingsd.com/20130125/go-west-young-geek-chris-dixon-on-why-he-became-a-silicon-valley-vc-at-andreessen-horowitz-and-more-video/ http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/1789/Marc-Andreessen/ http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/08/20-years-on-why-netscapes-ipo-was-the-big-bang-of-the-internet-era/ https://a16z.com/2011/05/09/microsoft-buys-skype/ https://a16z.com/2011/06/30/meet-our-new-general-partner-jeff-jordan/ https://a16z.com/2017/04/07/todd-and-freddy-okta/ https://a16z.com/2018/09/25/michael-ovitz-entertainment-culture-negotiation-talent/ https://a16z.com/2019/06/20/slack/ https://a16z.com/2019/11/20/brand-building-a16z-ideas-people-marketing/ https://a16z.com/2019/11/26/a16z-podcast-how-what-why-500th-episode-behind-the-scenes/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/andreessen-horowitz-hires-a-female-partner-from-outcast-communications/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/andreessen-horowitz-starts-second-fund/ https://books.google.com/books?id=zyIvOn7sKCsC&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q&f=false https://charlierose.com/videos/12907 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreessen_Horowitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Horowitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Clark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Jordan_(venture_capitalist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ovitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Betty_Van_Patter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ning_(website) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc. https://fortune.com/2011/07/12/skype-the-inside-story-of-the-boffo-8-5-billion-deal/ https://fortune.com/2021/01/20/tech-and-crypto-funder-andreessen-horowitz-wants-to-replace-the-media-that-might-be-bad-news-for-investors/ https://fortune.com/longform/jeff-jordan-vc/ https://greatness.floodgate.com/episodes/marc-andreessen-was-netscape-an-overnight-success https://money.cnn.com/2009/07/02/technology/marc_andreessen_venture_fund.fortune/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/07/25/8266639/ https://newrepublic.com/article/162227/david-horowitz-profile-trump-propagandist-radical-leftist https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ben-horowitz-02-25-20/id814550071?i=1000466601994 https://techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/andreessen-on-charlie-rose-i-am-creating-a-fund-full-video/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/06/20/andreessen-horowitz-celebrates-first-year-with-new-general-partner-john-ofarrell/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/27/andreessen-horowitz-raises-massive-new-1-5-billion-fund/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/andreessen-horowitz-has-a-new-crypto-fund-and-its-first-female-general-partner-is-running-it-with-chris-dixon/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/01/a16z-ushers-in-new-fund-strategy-with-2-75b/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/24/andreessen-horowitz-triples-down-on-blockchain-startups-with-massive-2-2-billion-crypto-fund-iii/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADZwBJIiwmoiePFPnoZk3s1WbLc0aUfwh4wj_nMnhEi5nYQ0Q1xfZfmYDhSbKEsY22uz29mILPEgwMe6RNf3pL8Jmpa6t8I3D19mTdP2c5zWv5jnGf2VNMFgB6UcS4o_5nTs2ymb7QON0OtJ4X4aiHWgNAW5auKjI6Hq65Unz0x8 https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/browser-wars/ https://tim.blog/2018/01/01/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-marc-andreessen/ https://venturebeat.com/2009/08/19/first-andreessen-horowitz-investment-apptio-raises-14m/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110407235346/http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/06/andreessen-horowitz-has-a-new-200mm-co-investment-fund/ 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There's been a false dichotomy in technology and management lore over the past decade, between "brain" and "brawn", digital and physical, independence and interdependence, software culture versus industrial culture… or so observes Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer, former big-company executive, and startup founder Robert Siegel in his new book, The Brains and Brawn Company: How leading organizations blend the best of digital and physical.Whether you're an early startup or a Fortune 500 company, we live in an increasingly complex world -- which means embracing digitization is not enough. But logistics, supply chains, and infrastructure are messy, ugly, and hard. So today's leaders have to think completely differently, in terms of ecosystems; and they're often in the position of having to influence but not have control. So when and how do they assert power in an ecosystem? When do they try to shape it? When do they sit back? What to do if their channel partner suddenly changes? When do you want to stay frenemies and when do you wanna be enemies? These are just some of the hard questions companies today have to wrestle with... All boiling down to when and where to partner, when to go it alone?So in this hallway-style discussion among Siegel and fellow Stanford b-school lecturers Jeffrey Immelt (former CEO of GE) and a16z general partner Jeff Jordan -- in conversation with host Sonal Chokshi -- the group wrestles with these questions, spinning through several different company examples such as Instacart and Stripe to Apple and Android/Google to Disney, Peloton, and others. But we talk too much about the outliers; we need to also talk more about the tools, and mindsets, that leaders of all kinds -- not just the once-in-a-generation leaders! -- can use. After all, argues Siegel, "Incumbents are not doomed and disruptors are not ordained." The views expressed here are those of the 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. 

Seattle Pacific University Vice President for Student Life Jeff Jordan shares his best advice on how parents of college students can relate to their children when they return home for the holidays.

Seattle Pacific University Vice President for Student Life Jeff Jordan is responsible for collaborative planning with SPU's academic leaders, student leaders, and student life staff. As if overseeing eight on-campus departments wasn't enough, Jordan also recently launched a leadership studies minor where he serves as professor and mentor. In this episode, Jordan talks about his career journey in higher education and raising up the next generation of leaders.

Order of Show: 0:00 - Good ride, Cowboy 0:01 - Penn State's schedule is finally out 0:14 - Lehigh's schedule is absurd 0:17 - Ben Darmstadt potentially out for the year 0:19 - Rankings, rankings everywhere 0:33 - Theorius Robison to Northern Colorado 0:44 - Victoria Anthony Medved debacle 0:46 - Jeff Jordan retires 0:47 - FRL listener questions  

Order Of Show: 0:00 - Billy Baldwin 0:06 - Matt Dernlan resigns and Binghamton needs a head coach 0:15 - IMar has turf toe?  0:19 - Jeff Jordan interview post-Ironman 0:24 - Oklahoma vs Iowa State: easier rebuild job? 0:43 - 3 Big Takeaways so far 1:02 - Willie Pick ‘Ems

NASDAQ CEO Adena Friedman runs one of the world's largest financial services companies, including the NASDAQ stock exchange that's home to more than 3,500 listed companies. They were also the creator of the world's first electronic stock market. Yet how does the company adapt to technology trends today, such as the blockchain? How does it deal with other headwinds in its business, from fewer listed companies to trends in passive vs. active investing? Based on a conversation that was recorded at our annual a16z Summit in November 2017, this podcast features general partner Jeff Jordan interviewing Friedman about these changes... as well as broader themes in the way markets work. They also discuss the IPO process (which Jordan has also shared his experiences and advice on) -- from what companies should be thinking about to where technology could help.

There are the things that you carefully plan when it comes to an IPO -- the who (the bankers, the desired institutional investors); the what (the pricing, the allocations); and the when (are we ready? is this a good public business?). But then there are the things that you don't plan: like the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression... as happened before the OpenTable IPO. There's even a case study about it. And so in this episode of the a16z Podcast, we delve into those lessons learned and go behind the scenes with the then-CEO of the company -- now general partner Jeff Jordan -- and with the then-banker on the deal, J.D. Moriarty (formerly head Managing Director and Head of Equity Capital Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch), in conversation with Sonal Chokshi. Is there really such a thing as an ideal timing window? Beyond the transactional aspects of the IPO, which relationships matter and why? And then how does the art and science of pricing (from the allocations to the "pop") play here, especially when it comes to taking a long-term view for the company? What are the subtle, non-obvious things entrepreneurs can do -- from building a "soft track record" of results to providing the right "guidance" (or rather, communication if not guidance per se) to the market? And finally, who at the company should be involved... and how much should the rest of the company know/ be involved? In many ways, observes Jordan -- who got swine flu while on the road to the OpenTable IPO -- "your life is not your own" when you're on the road, literally. But knowing much of this can help smooth the way.

An aerospace engineer who worked for NASA for over 40 years, Dr. Christine Darden is one of the mathematicians that the book and movie Hidden Figures was based on. Darden eventually would lead the sonic boom team, going on to become the first African-American woman in senior management at NASA. In this intimate conversation with a16z's general partner Jeff Jordan, held at the SF Jazz Center, Darden shares with Jordan how she first fell in love with geometry and math; the effect that Sputnik had on our culture (and her); and what it was like to work at NASA in the 1960s. And finally, Darden shares with us all the secrets of the sonic boom.

Just as "social networking" is a bland term that doesn't really capture the layers of what happens underneath (and on top of) social networking platforms, "crowdfunding" is a broader phenomenon than what the term and tools implies. Or so argue the guests on this episode of the a16z Podcast, Tilt co-founder and CEO James Beshara and a16z general partner Jeff Jordan with Sonal Chokshi. Crowdfunding isn't just about reaching a certain threshold to make something, but it's also about "pre-commerce" or "pretail" -- the next evolution in commerce, which involves the ability to suss out demand before production and sell directly to consumers. Crowdfunding is also about "social commerce" -- the ability to not only build community, but trigger collective action towards some goal. There's even a sort of Dunbar's number equivalent for crowdfunding, the tipping point at which the momentum of this collective action takes over (hint: it involves the magic number of 34%). Beyond crowdfunding, there are broader themes of economic change and behavior at play here -- whether it's people's tolerance for waiting and buying something before it exists; a new type of scarcity and desire for experiential buying; or makers creating or co-creating things publicly, and even incompletely. All we know is that we're at a watershed moment of sorts -- as evidenced by car manufacturer Tesla's pre-orders for its Model 3, which is not even going to be available for a few years. And yet...! 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.

One of the biggest misconceptions around network effects (which are one of the key dynamics behind many successful and highly defensible software companies) is confusing growth with engagement. So how does one tell the difference between viral growth and network effects? How does one create network effects in different businesses? (Hint: it's not by accident!) How do you know when to hang in there because you see signs of network effects or just drop it and move on to something else? And what are some examples of teasing all of the above apart? In this episode of the a16z Podcast -- based on an event we hosted and slide deck we released all about network effects -- a16z partners Anu Hariharan and Jeff Jordan (who cover all things marketplaces, consumer, and more) share (in conversation with Sonal Chokshi) their observations, insights, and experiences. Because, why reinvent the, er, flywheel?

The NFL has descended upon Silicon Valley for Superbowl 50, and a16z was fortunate to have 30 of the world's best football players post-up at the firm to talk about the intersection between the world of professional sports and venture capital. Joe Montana -- yes, the Hall of Fame 49ers quarterback – joins a discussion with a16z's Jeff Jordan and Ben Horowitz about their approaches to tech investing and the startup ecosystem, how they manage the risk involved (there's plenty), and whether athletes and other high-profile folks can -- and indeed should – get involved. Here's one piece of common ground: The hardest thing for NFL legends and VC's alike? Losing.

You know how talented Andre Iguodala is as a basketball player. You may not know that he signed with the Warriors in part to be near Silicon Valley and the tech scene. Iguodala knows tech, and in a conversation with a16z's Jeff Jordan at the 2015 Tech Summit he talks about his relationship with tech as a professional athlete and as a businessman. 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.

Now that we are under a 100 days before San Diego Comic-Con 2015, I though it would be great to look back at the wrap up of 2014. Reposted from last July, I’m joined by the awesome Megan Gotch of The Nerdy Girlie and my sidekick Jeff Jordan of Nerds In Recovery. Just days after the 2014 show, we review our favorite offsite …

Online marketplaces are growing much faster than e-commerce overall. Why is that? And what new kinds of marketplaces powered by the internet and mobile are we now seeing? a16z's Jeff Jordan and Anu Hariharan share their observations here and also explain what makes marketplace powered by software and reputation work -- as well as how to manage tensions, trust, and marketplace community reactions around change.

The ease with which we can order anything online masks the tremendous complexity of getting that item to your door in a day or two (or less). Andreessen Horowitz's Jeff Jordan leads a discussion with four experts in ecommerce logistics and operations -- the tough business of getting things from one place to another. 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 modern, average 12-year-old Madden NFL videogame player has actually visualized more plays than ‪any past real-life NFL Hall-of-Famer. And now, for the first time, we're seeing those videogame tactics show up on the field too. There's a "technological and analytical arms race" going on in sports, and it's producing the world's best athletes in history. How are they working smarter, using science and technology to enhance the way they train and perform, when it's not enough to put in 10,000 hours? How should athletes sleep? (Note: you can try this at home, too). And what does “performance by the aggregation of marginal gains” have to do with winning? Author of the new book Faster, Higher, Stronger Wired's Mark McClusky -- interviewed by a16z General Partner (and enthusiastic basketball player) Jeff Jordan -- bridge the worlds of "jocks" and "nerds" in this wide-ranging conversation about sports, performance technology, nature vs. nurture, and the tricky nuances of why some enhancement technologies are legal vs. illegal or better vs. worse than others.