AI + a16z

Jack Altman sits down with Martin Casado, General Partner at a16z, to unpack the shifting dynamics of venture capital and why media matters more than ever. They cover a16z’s evolution from generalists to specialized platforms, the rise of AI infrastructure, and why today’s fiercest battles are often for talent, not market share.

Timecodes:

0:00 Introduction

0:27 Importance of Media for VC

3:50 Evolution of a16z

7:00 Specialization

10:32 Value of Distribution

13:16 Staying Power in Infrastructure

19:49 The Conflicts Dynamic

26:32 State of Play in AI

30:48 The Future of Coding

34:58 Significance of Open Source

39:48 Marc Andreessen’s Leadership

44:02 The Only Sin in VC

48:37 Scaling a Lot of Board Seats

Resources: 

Listen to more from Uncapped: https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod

Find Jack on X: https://x.com/jaltma

Find Uncapped on X: https://x.com/uncapped_pod

Find Martin on X: https://x.com/martin_casado

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Please 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.

Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

Please 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.

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a16z's Martin Casado and Sarah Wang join Latent Space hosts Alessio Fanelli and Swyx to discuss what makes this AI investment cycle unlike anything in the history of venture capital. They cover why the lines between venture and growth, apps and infrastructure are blurring, how frontier model companies can raise more than the aggregate of everyone built on top of them, and why the industry-wide gap between perception and reality has never been wider.

Follow Alessio Fanelli on X: https://x.com/FanaHOVA

Follow Swyx (Shawn Wang) on X: https://twitter.com/FanaHOVA

Follow Martin Casado on X: https://twitter.com/martin_casado

Follow Sarah Wang on X: https://twitter.com/sarahdingwang  

Listen to more from Latent Space: https://www.youtube.com/@LatentSpacePod

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Please 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.

Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

Please 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.

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Raghu Raghuram, Managing Partner at a16z, and Sarah Wang, General Partner at a16z, speak with Samar Abbas, CEO of Temporal, about how durable execution became the infrastructure layer behind some of the world’s most widely used AI agents. They cover why long-running agents require state management and recoverability, how Temporal powers OpenAI’s Codex and Snap’s Story processing, and why the shift from interactive to background agents is creating distributed systems challenges at a scale that didn’t exist two years ago.

 

Resources: 

Follow Samar Abbas: https://x.com/SamarAtTemporal

Follow Sarah Wang: https://x.com/sarahdingwang

Follow Raghu Raghuram: https://x.com/RaghuRaghuram

 

 

Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

Please 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.

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Martin Casado speaks with Ankur Goyal, founder and CEO of Braintrust, about where engineering actually matters in AI and where it doesn't. They cover the open source vs closed source model cycle, why Chinese models are gaining ground faster than spending suggests, whether AI demand will eventually saturate, and the Bash vs SQL benchmark that challenges the "just give it a computer" approach to agents.
Follow Martin Casado on X: https://twitter.com/martin_casado
Follow Ankur Goyal on X: https://twitter.com/ankrgyl

Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

Please 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.

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Sam Altman has led OpenAI from its founding as a research nonprofit in 2015 to becoming the most valuable startup in the world ten years later.
In this episode, a16z Cofounder Ben Horowitz and General Partner Erik Torenberg sit down with Sam to discuss the core thesis behind OpenAI’s disparate bets, why they released Sora, how they use models internally, the best AI evals, and where we’re going from here.
Follow Sam on X: https://x.com/sama
Follow OpenAI on X: https://x.com/openai
Learn more about OpenAI: https://openai.com/
Try Sora: https://sora.com/
Follow Ben on X: https://x.com/bhorowitz
Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg

Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

Please 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.

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