Pivot

Why is Everyone Freaking Out About AI Right Now? | Pivot

We have never in the history of the modern economy had a trillion dollar industry that is totally unregulated

The a16z Show

The AI-Native CRM

Keith believes intelligence can replace much of the rigid schema behind traditional software, and what changes when AI has enough context to reason about a company and its customers.

The a16z Show

The AI-Native CRM

his team followed customers from AI presentations into sales workflows and eventually found a harder problem: making sense of the fragmented and often conflicting data spread across a company's emails, calls, CRM, and other systems.

The a16z Show

World Models, Robotics, and the Future of 3D AI

just as language models became general-purpose engines for working with text, world models could become a horizontal layer for visual and physical intelligence across industries from entertainment and gaming to construction and robotics.

The a16z Show

What It Takes to Build a Startup | Andrew Chen & Matt Perault

these founders rarely have the time or resources to engage with policymakers, even as regulation can have an outsized impact on whether and where they build

The CEO Signal

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby on Making Bets & Building a US Flag Carrier | The CEO Signal

I say to people sometimes the biggest mistake that most people make in their career is never making a big mistake because they never take a chance. Um and if you just wait for sure things you basically never do anything. You don't ever make any big mistakes but you never do anything big.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

How Sonos rebooted itself

When I came in the door, one of my earliest observations was that the company behaved like it was 100 percent hardware, but we're really 100 percent hardware and 100 percent software. And if you get either one of those even a little bit wrong, the impact is tremendous.

The a16z Show

Can Open Source Keep AI Power From Concentrating?

today's concentration may be a feature of the current technological paradigm rather than a permanent feature of AI. Transformers reward enormous amounts of data and compute, but future breakthroughs could make smaller, more specialized models far more capable.

The a16z Show

Your AI Doctor Is Coming | Julie Yoo

Because healthcare never built the same layers of legacy software as other industries, it may now be able to leapfrog directly into agentic AI.

The Business of Tech

Blackbird’s billion-dollar bet on founders

New Zealand is like a "Galápagos island of ideas", where founders often start companies not because startup status is fashionable, but because they have encountered a problem they feel compelled to solve.

The Prof G Pod

China Is Dumping AI to Crash Silicon Valley — Josh Tyrangiel

You need to separate the tech from the tech companies because then you're going to start finding interesting things like real experimentation and real people with values. Until you do that, you're just going to be stuck in the hype cycle.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

How Sonos rebooted itself

Tom was on the board at Sonos during the disastrous 2024 app redesign that threatened to crash the entire brand, and he took over as interim CEO to right the ship during that period.

The Business of Tech

Blackbird’s billion-dollar bet on founders

there's nothing like your first believer, making that first investment when your idea is maybe just an idea, your pre-product, pre-customer.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sarah Guo - What the 250 People Building AI Believe - [Invest Like the Best, EP.489]

At the center is Sarah's conviction that no single company will own the future of AI, and what that means for founders, investors, and anyone allocating their time and resources in a world moving this fast.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

OpenAI's executive exodus has one big winner

When the board coup happened in 2023, Brockman was so incensed that he quit immediately. He and Altman were going to start their own thing, or were potentially going to lead a department at Microsoft. Brockman said, 'Okay, if Sam goes, I go.' That's when he became Sam's right hand in a new way. Before that, he was just one of the many execs. They were close, but the board coup made them closer than ever. That's also what made Sam know that he could trust him in a new way and thereby later greenlight him getting more power.

Founders

#431 How Henry Singleton Worked

Henry Singleton has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business. If one took the hundred top business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, their record would not be as good as Singleton's.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Neil Movva - Making AI 10x Cheaper - [Invest Like the Best, EP.488]

the premium the frontier labs charge for being three to six months ahead may not last

Decoder with Nilay Patel

OpenAI's executive exodus has one big winner

But when Sam Altman got fired by the board, Brockman was so incensed that he quit immediately. He and Altman were going to start their own thing, or were potentially going to lead a department at Microsoft. That's when he was making waves in a new way because he was hellbent on the drama.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Eric Vishria - A Decade of Lessons Investing in Software & Hardware - [Invest Like the Best, EP.486]

The best hardware companies look a lot like software companies in the way they think about software and the customer relationship, and the best software companies are starting to look a lot more like hardware companies in the sense that the physical world matters and the intersection of the two is where a lot of the most interesting things are happening.

It's Been a Minute

Hitting the open road can lead to new beginnings | It's Been a Minute

I watched so many things, great ideas die on the vine and I didn't really want that to keep happening. So this was after like, you know, five or six years of just trying to get something off the ground.

It's Been a Minute

Hitting the open road can lead to new beginnings | It's Been a Minute

If we wait for the financing, sometimes the timing of a project just doesn't ever materialize. And I watched so many things, great ideas die on the vine and I didn't really want that to keep happening.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Eric Vishria - A Decade of Lessons Investing in Software & Hardware - [Invest Like the Best, EP.486]

The best companies we've invested in, the founders had a point of view about the world that was different from consensus, and they were right. And the hardest part of venture is that you can have a non-consensus view and be wrong, or you can have a consensus view and be right, but only the non-consensus and right leads to the outlier returns.

The Prof G Pod

"The UK Has Been De-Growing for a Decade" — Hannah Ritchie

I think part of the reason why I have the space for myself now is not just about honing one particular skill, is actually about finding the the unique overlap of a combination of interests and skills that actually makes that like an unsaturated space, right?

The a16z Show

The Infrastructure Behind the Machine Age

AI is turning problems once constrained by engineering into problems that can increasingly be attacked with capital and compute.

TED

How to Get Past the “Messy Middle” of a Big Change | Mary Martin | TED

As much as we want to avoid those messy middle moments, I would argue not only are they inevitable, they're a good thing. Why? Because messiness is a sign of bold ambition. Transformation without a messy middle means you probably won't get the big results you were hoping for.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

OpenAI's executive exodus has one big winner

While Sam Altman is the CEO and still OpenAI's most public face, Brockman has amassed enormous power and influence within the top ranks of the company as other senior leaders have left in rapid succession.

Founders

#430 How to Write Ads That Sell

The average salesman seeks favors. He seeks profit for himself. His plea is, 'Buy my goods.' He makes a selfish appeal to selfish people, and of course, he meets resistance. I was selling service.

Diet TBPN

North Korea’s Secret US Workforce, Canceling the SaaSpocalypse, MSL’s Latest Exits | Diet TBPN

There are SAS apocalypse victims that have not come back, are probably not coming back, need to completely reinvent the business because they have been uh made obsolete by just base level LLM capabilities.

The a16z Show

The State of AI: Macro, Apps, and Consumer

the biggest risk for today's founders may no longer be thinking too big, but thinking too small

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Neil Movva - Making AI 10x Cheaper - [Invest Like the Best, EP.488]

one where AI agents run in the background for hours or days at a time rather than answering a human in real time. In that world, latency matters less and cost matters more, and Neil has built the whole company around driving the cost of a token as low as it can possibly go.

The a16z Show

The New Economics of AI | Martin Casado & Steven Sinofsky

problems that were once constrained by engineering talent can increasingly be attacked with capital and compute

Founders

#430 How to Write Ads That Sell

To poverty I owe the fact that I never went to college. I spent those four years in the school of experience instead of the school of theory.

The a16z Show

Martin Casado on Where the Value Is Going in AI

Martin believes this may be the biggest unlock of wealth he's seen since the 1990s.

The a16z Show

How Global Networks Are Reshaping Startup Success

founder diasporas can function like powerful alumni networks, why spending time in Silicon Valley can help founders recalibrate around speed and ambition, and how the next generation of global companies may increasingly be built across multiple countries from day one.

The Prof G Pod

The Jobs Report Has a Blind Spot | Office Hours

You can have a very successful business and have huge cash flow problems. As a matter of fact, the faster you're growing, the more cash flow you need.

The a16z Show

How Whatnot Built a Global Marketplace

Whatnot thinks less like a traditional e-commerce marketplace and more like a digital shopping mall, where discovery, entertainment, community, and commerce all happen at once.

China Decode

Why Microsoft Is Quietly Abandoning China | China Decode

I think there's a third category, and this is the category that I would put Microsoft into. This is the category of companies, big western companies that dared to dream the dream but never managed to realize it.

Freakonomics Radio

Meet Warren Zanes, the Author and Rocker Behind the Springsteen Movie | Better in Person

When he joined the Del Fuegos, his big brother's band, all Warren knew how to play was a record player.

The Prof G Pod

“SpaceX Is a $10 Stock” | Office Hours

Musk will go down as the greatest engineer of our time, but as a financial engineer. He convinced the SEC and Trump and NASDAQ to include him in the 100, which no IPO has ever been included before, meaning trillions of dollars of funds are mandated to put whatever percentage of a weighted index that SpaceX represents, that amount of their capital into SpaceX shares. No company right out of the gates has enjoyed that incremental demand.

The a16z Show

Stripe’s AI Strategy: Build More, Not Less

Stripe sees AI productivity as an opportunity to build more rather than simply cut costs, including how its internal coding agents now generate thousands of pull requests each week.

TED Radio Hour

The price of creativity

right now we find ourselves more people than ever creating. More demand for content than ever. Yet less support systems than ever. And there's this very acute pressure that every artist and creative person feels right now. Of like, I feel like I'm falling behind. I don't even know what to do.

Diet TBPN

North Korea’s Secret US Workforce, Canceling the SaaSpocalypse, MSL’s Latest Exits | Diet TBPN

Having a huge monolithic piece of software is less of a moat today than it was a decade ago. That's for sure. Competition is increasing, especially for point solutions. But many of those SAS companies that were so beaten up in the SAS apocalypse were revealed to have sources of strength that didn't fit neatly into the lots of lines of code written bucket.

TED Radio Hour

The price of creativity

More people than ever creating. More demand for content than ever, yet less support systems than ever. And there's this very acute pressure that every artist and creative person feels right now of like, I feel like I'm falling behind.

The a16z Show

The Two Ways to Sell AI: Lighthouse or Landgrab?

the current rush to adopt AI has created a rare window for startups to sell big software again

The Prof G Pod

Scott Galloway: Why I Moved to Europe | Office Hours

When you're in your income earning years, I find the US is still the best place. People in the US start from a position of yes. How do we how do we make money together? How do we do stuff together? And Europe is the best place to spend it.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Bose CEO Lila Snyder on the fight for high-quality audio

Becoming a software company in addition to a product company comes with a whole new set of challenges, and Lila and I got into how it's all working.

The a16z Show

Garry Tan on Taste, Agents and Founder Ambition

why the best ideas tend to begin with people pursuing strange, earnest obsessions outside the mainstream

Diet TBPN

Zuck’s AI Vision, Celebs Are Dating Private Equity Guys, AI Agent Hacks Gym | Diet TBPN

By recording the screens of every Meta employee which is very controversial and bold but actually ripping that band-aid off and just saying hey we're we're an AI training company now and everyone's going to be recording their screens and their flows and all how all their work gets done. They basically got like a frontier leading AI data labeling company for free.

Diet TBPN

Nvidia’s $500B Compute Deal, Paramount Threatens CA Exit, Musk’s Shortcut to $1T Payday | Diet TBPN

AI tokens are profitable incredibly profitable. When you have something profitable, everybody wants to make more of it. Great demand, great profitability. The conditions are exactly right for the work that we're doing right now.