I cause a lot of antagonism between us and the other firms in those days.

Your filter is like you're going to get the deal or I'm going to get the deal. You die or I die.

And they're not exactly shrinking ballots themselves.

They hated that cover story. Look at him on the cover of the magazine. That's not supposed to be him. Not supposed to be the entrepreneur. What the hell? D. I mean, they just like we didn't have any entrepreneurs at the time.

VC was like a big secret. And then actually building companies was a big secret. And so just kind of talking about it was a big differentiator.

We don't have products.

Yeah. And we we have products.

We have people and ideas. That's it.

All right. Welcome to the A16C. What are we on? The Mark and Ben show. Welcome to the Mark and Ben show. Um today we've got Margaret Wenmachers, the legendary Oh jeez. uh head of marketing for A16Z for for the last 16 years. Uh and she is going to uh tell us the story of all that. You've heard snippets of it from me and Mark over the years, but now we're going to hear the real thing from the real person. Market, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me, guys. I'm thrilled to be here. But between the legendary and the 15 or 16, I feel kind of ancient.

Wise wise. No, it's getting us all. It's very It's very rough.

I know. It just [ __ ] that way.

Um, so maybe we can start with just like uh when we met maybe we I'd love to hear it from your perspective. Where were we at? Hobies or I think it was the stats. The crearyy. The crearyy. The crearyy.

At that point was your office.

Yeah.

And um so I

I forgot. Yeah. The the firm started at the crearyy. That's right.

Right. Exactly. So I was um some a certain someone who shall go nameless tried to hire outcast

and um Facebook invoked a conflict of interest. You know exactly who that is, right? And so that certain someone called Mark and like just call Mark Zuckerberg and I think you have better things to do than like pull a favor for Mark Zuckerberg to go like why don't you like just whatever. Anyhow, but I think you asked for my email address and so that's how we were introduced. Ah,

and then I was told to go to the crearyy. The waiter at the crearyy, he's like, "Go be it here. They're meeting with some democratic functionaries or something like that."

So I wait there with my little capabilities presentation and I I had met you like years before, but like had no recollection. I had not met you. I'd heard about you a little bit.

So I go there with my capabilities presentation. I sit down. The the Democrats left the booth and I sit down. You basically were just looking straight ahead. You You were just like I don't know what you were thinking about, but it was not that big

probably. How we get the fur we raised the money

and then Mark grabs the like you grab the capabilities position which was generic because I had no idea why I was there. Right.

So, and you go like okay so how do you pick the clients and here are the clients and why those clients and not these clients and like like teams whatever like detailed questions. So, I got this little grilling and then you both said thank you and I left and I concluded that it was probably because you were angel investing at the time and you had just left HP. I was like

maybe they just want to have somebody they can recommend to their angel portfolio or whatever.

Yeah. Right. Right.

And then a few months later

we met at the Rosewood I think. No, it was not the Was it the Rosewood?

We were there a lot. So anyhow, and then you guys, okay, so we're going to start this firm

and uh top secret blah blah blah. I'm going to start this firm and it's going to be the two of us, $300 million. And this was at a certain time where money was kind of tight.

2009 to the end the end of the world, right? There was no liquidity.

The last end of the world. Yeah.

And I looked a little quizzical and I said like, you know, it's not a great time. And you said, Mark said, let's assume success, shall we? And then you had already had the the idea of like well we wanted to say something but we we couldn't be out talking to press or be on Twitter at the time or whatever else and raise money be viewed as soliciting money. Right. So

Mark then went um he had a standing invitation I think on Charlie Rose and you went on Charlie Rose and you had all a nice very nice chat and at the very end he was like well by the way we're going to start a VC firm

and then we all went quiet. So that was that that's my recollection. I don't know what you guys thought. I remember thinking, yeah, like I I I was just so distracted with how like how do we raise money? Like we had never met uh LPS till till then. And so and then we every VC that we had been meeting with and we at the same time we were meeting with lots and lots of VCs trying to understand the industry and um they all said that's a dumbass idea for a fund. you should definitely not do it. Uh

they just wanted to give you jobs, I'm assuming.

Uh yeah. Well, they they were like, well, you know, well, one of them said that um we should just do like we'd never raise it from the LP, so we should just raise the money from VCs and give the VCs who invested half the carry. That was

interesting plan.

Yeah, that was one strategy. And then the the the whole platform thing that was that was really dumb because it had been tried before and proven like like proven like you know QED uh that it could never work

actually who who tried it for real.

I don't know. So I think the main thing that they were thinking about was the incubators.

Oh yeah. So I think it was the Bill It was the late 90s. Exactly. And and you know actually in retrospect like it's actually very very like so there's this entrepreneur Bill Gross Idea Lab.

Yeah. Yeah, which

incubator created I think a lot of companies. I mean among the companies you created turned out to be the company that created basically the Google search model as well as like a bunch of other like super interesting companies. So I think those those actually worked the good ones worked better than people remember. But um

yeah they they specifically and the incubators in those days went for like a 50% equity split. Um right as contrasted a like combinator which is famously like 7%. Um and so to justify the 50% they did like they did they provided your office space and your accounting services and your legal services and so Right. Exactly.

And it just and in our view you know we had just we we had been entrepreneurs and so we just had a very different perspective on what we actually needed from our venture firms and so we we just had a very different view than the incubators had

and then the existing VCs just yeah for whatever reason couldn't put themselves in that in that I think because they hadn't been entrepreneurs.

They hadn't been customers of the VC product. So they weren't looking at it through that lens. they were looking at it, you know, from the provider and you know that by the way those businesses were all great businesses. So, you know, they they sort of earned the right to be arrogant in that sense.

Yeah. And I remember the Bill Gross when he was talking and I met him and it was all like, okay, I have all these ideas.

Well, it was also that there was that, right? hire an entrepreneur and you guys had come from a completely different lens where you had the ideas and believed that you know Larry Ellis and those people had the ideas not the

financial machinery right

and then obviously you had absorbed the oitz um playbook right so it's a very different version of a platform

from an from a v from an incubator

yeah and as as you know I mean that's so basically what we did when we had to find a historical model for what we're doing it turned out to be turned out to be CA because that that just mapped much more um to what we had in mind there hadn't been precedent like that applied in the valley.

Yeah. And at that time uh it was before Ozitz's book came out. So that whole strategy was basically a secret. Nobody knew it. Like you had to know oitz to know it.

Um and oitz was very secretive.

Yes.

Uh you know we we had like several conversations before we could actually get it out of him even though he was out of CIA for many years. you know, it was it was like a very um secret formula he had come up with and it it you know it was an amazing thing

but it ended up being a genius thing to have him on your board like it was a very unorthodox pick like looking in from the outside and it led to all all kinds of useful connections and useful thinking right

yeah true

yeah it was uh it was controversial at the time even amongst our own board I won't name names but uh yeah it was uh it it was different to have them we actually met him through Ron Conway, right?

Years ago.

Yeah.

The human router of all time.

The human router. Yeah. Great. That was a great intro from Ron.

And uh Yeah. What a what an interesting friendship that's been.

So So the next thing that happened. So then we're going to raise the money and we decide that we're going to talk to the press. Um which was very different for VCs to actually be aggressive about that. Usually the VCs would want to talk to the press and some of them had been clients at the IPO time, right?

So they wanted to basically have no risk,

but then when the company goes public, it's like, "Hey, I did that." Right. So it was it was kind of we did it backwards, if you will.

Yeah. You're right. With with nothing

nothing in hand. We we just went for it. So as soon as

we raised the fund, was it Yeah. We must have had to raise the fund to do the press tour. Yep. Because the gun jumping. Yeah. And so

how did you think about it? I guess you know it was very kind of magical from our point of view other than you know when Wyatt slammed the door in my face. But

well that was a useful signal. We we realized oh we have to we have to even the plague field here a little bit.

Yeah that was a little bit of a problem. So tell us tell us about that. Yeah,

the way I used to think about this when this was all working so magically is that okay so if you read any article and you just dissect the headline the paragraphs like how it unfolds and then so you take a client like you guys or or a product company you go okay how do I fill that how do I write that story from a reporter's point of view and like do you actually have it right and so if the story is like oh $300 million and two people who have never actually done this before. That's not a great story. But we did have the column interest to fill, if you will, because you had the idea for the platform, right? You you had you had been proven successful entrepreneurs. You had credibility with the core audience, right? And taking a step back, the thing that we all decided is like we're just going to

aim all of our communications at the entrepreneurs, at the at the entrepreneurs versus the LPS because we have their numbers. We we know how to call them. and you guys got great introductions to people, but like it all needs to be very entrepreneur friendly. And so we sort of set out like we have this platform and it's all in service of the entrepreneur who is the genius if if the and then hopefully the idea works right and then how do can how can we add value and that was different enough to me having met like most of all the other VCs

and then you know the tall guy over here had co-created the browser so that was not a VC credential but it was an incredible entrepreneur credential right like so you how and then and then you did the the turnaround like the save of all time. I mean, I'm not so good with sports analogies, but there's there's got to be 17 in there, right? Like having turned that around and sold it to HP and for like money money

was just spectacular. So, I think the the two people who were behind it were very entrepreneur friendly. They had really good credentials both on the tech side and a category creation side and on the sort of like how does one execute one of those companies and then you had the money and you had the money at a time when there was no money. Yeah.

Right. Like there was nobody really raising and like the other people they could just sit and wait right until times got better.

Yeah.

And then I think

if I remember correctly who had done it in three months which at the time seemed very spectacular because there was no money. So I could then pitch and it's like, okay, like it's those two guys and it did in 3 months and have you read the news and then they have all these ideas. Well, actually, one of the funny things that happened while we were raising money that uh upset Mark upset me because I just thought it was weird. But we went to see an LP who who we knew. And the LP

walks into the meeting, you know, and here we are like, you know, and it really kind of brought us back to raising money in general, which is a good kind of thing to go through if you're going to be uh investing in companies because you need to know what that feels like. So, you know, we're Yeah, we we're like practicing the pitch where he got it all lined up. We're like, "Okay, this is a big meeting. It's a it's a big LP." And we go in and the guy comes in and he goes, "Oh, yeah. You know, yeah, this I I I I I uh you know, I hear what you guys are doing. I think, you know, at best you could raise it in 18 months, but it'll be very hard. But I got to go. I'm going to go talk to some exNFL players."

quote, "I have to go over to Stanford. I have to talk to a room full of NFL players and how to manage their money and then now that they're now that their NFL careers are over."

Yeah.

Like that was the that was the thing that was more important than talking to us, which was a very um Yeah, that was a level setting experience.

Yeah. We were like

that was extremely motivating.

Yeah.

As you can tell,

it was Mark was like super pissed and I just remember going, "Wow, like that's so disrespectful." It's just like so crazy that that that he would do that.

I just made a little angel investment and like this um entrepreneur is trying to raise money and like literally she's been told by an investor. I think people like you just basically shouldn't exist.

Guess how motivated she is.

Show that [ __ ]

This is the thing. The nuclear fire that you get on the other side of that is Yes. Like I can't believe people actually say that out loud and they're not like they're 95 and they don't have a filter anymore. Like they're just

we went I mean there was all these stories from this time but I mean there have been obviously many great VCs before us but there we I mean we went out and we basically met all the all the top VCs you know kind of because one of them knew we were doing it

and uh and you know a different guy one of the VCs at the time I remember him saying uh he's like oh yeah venture is a great business. Venture is like running it's like it's like going to a sushi sushi boat restaurant.

He's like it's fantastic. He's just like you just sushi boat restaurant. He's like it's fantastic. You just sit at the counter and like the startups just like come drifting by

and you're just like oh

and he's like every once in a while you know whenever you want you just reach out and you just like pluck a piece of sushi.

I remember thinking you know what

I'm not sure that this is going to be as hard as we thought it was going to be.

You mean the competing part?

Competing part. Exactly.

Yeah. It was very formative in how we thought about um competing. We were like, and still to this day when we think about the culture of the firm, it's like, don't be that.

Yes.

You know, don't don't be Mr. Smartyp Pants like sitting in your Sand Hill Road office waiting for the sushi boat to come by. Like, don't do that.

And yet, I mean, look, yeah, maybe the competition isn't that hard, but it felt like to me when I was at the out on the outcast side, it felt like to me the top five firms never changed.

Yeah. Like never ever changed, right? And you guys didn't h you guys hadn't peeled off from a VC firm and therefore you didn't have a track. I mean, you had made some angel investments, but like

basically not so much. Not to be insulting, but

we had a professional.

Yeah, it was a the angel fund was what, like $2 million?

Yeah, we had Yeah, we we had no I mean we had no training. We

Right. And and then you know the the all like there are exceptions but all the important companies they're just like the top five firms invest. So like the conundrum was like okay how do you break into that list without

the substance right just with the ideas.

One more story one more story from that period and this this is one I love to tell the LPS.

Another guy uh uh said oh he's like LPs he's like LPS you guys are going to you guys are going to hate dealing with LPS they're just the worst. Um, and

it's a good thing to tell the competitor. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, and he said, and he said, "The key is I," he said, "I realized after a long career, I realized the key is you want to treat the LPS like mushrooms."

Yeah. Like mushrooms.

Like mushrooms.

And we were like, "Magic mushrooms? What the [ __ ] are you talking about?"

So they treat mushrooms is you put you put them in a cardboard box, you put the lid of the cardboard box, and you put it under your bed for two years

and then you don't take the box out until the next time you need to raise money.

Wow. And it was that it it was so funny because the whole time we're thinking, wow, you know, we're coming out of running a public company. We've got like we're meeting with investors who are shorting our stock

and like these guys have like very nice universities.

They were just like super pleasant to talk to when we went out there. They had interesting things to say. It's just so it was like wow, you guys are living in like a weird perceptive world. One of the surprising things to me, I had not ever met LPs because I wasn't on that side of the business, but like

it's a really great community and a lot of them are super super missiondriven. They're not financiers. They they're just

they're very cool people.

Yeah. Very long time horizons and very devoted to their institutions, very smart. I mean, they they spend all their time thinking about right all these topics. They, you know, incredible we have incredible discussions,

great investors. um and very patient and you know

uh want to understand the strategy, care about the strategy, plan to be in it a long time with us, all that kind of thing.

Um it's yeah, it was just very interesting um that that was

I go through the stories because it it is so indicative of so many of these things. It just there are certain industries at certain times where they just get they get wedged. They get, you know, they get they get locked into patterns

and and and you know, the most uncomfortable thing in the world is to like break the pattern, right? Right. And if you don't have to, you know, if you don't have to, you don't.

And if you think of it as a sushi situation or a mushroom situation, why would you ever do marketing?

Right. Exactly. Right. Right.

Why would you ever

blackbox cartel, you know,

some mystique, some like mystical fairy, whatever creature is is way better. That's right. If there's no pressures on it, right? That's right. Yeah. And it was it was a very good strategy which is why you know we went out with the marketing and then um of course so so so we do the press tour. Um and you get Mark on the cover of Fortune which was that that was amazing to me because you know we had been running a company all these years and I remember you saying do you want to be on the cover of Fortune, Forbes or Business Week?

And I was like

and this is when we get a choice.

Yeah. This is like yeah being you know I don't know being in the I don't know Vatican museum or it's just like the most important thing you can possibly in those days those magazines particularly the covers were like incredibly important tough to get

and then and and then the thing that like really blew my mind was I said fortune and then you got Mark on the cover of Fortune

and and nobody was going to put me on the cover of anything in those days. Yeah.

No, but you got to be on the cover of Fortune when you did your book.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I did. I did. But that that be famous first. Yeah.

Look, the thing is you you never get what you don't ask for, right? And then

it it's it's a com like at the time the publications mattered really

now. It's just the writer who matters. And also now they're downstream from all the entire internet, right? Like they come in at the end basically.

Yeah.

But um Kevin Manny was a really good writer. He had had a really strong track record like you you know followed him forever and he would write substantive curiosity driven stories right

and he was great. The worst part about that whole thing was the damn photo shoot

this Mark hates stuff

and like I know remember when you did that finger thing I want you. I was like that's going to be it. Like it's just not even a question but that was the worst part about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. It was a scary picture. It was good.

It was some fun. But that that kind of set off um kind of really positioning us at that point. We knew we weren't going to be friendly with the industry. So we were not only not going to be in the cartel, we were going to be against the cartel because they hated that cover story. Oh my god. I mean, they went bananas. They called every LP. They're like, "These guys, they're egoomaniacs. Look at him on the cover of the magazine. That's not supposed to be him. That's supposed to be the entrepreneur. What the hell? D. I mean, they just like lost

We didn't have any entrepreneurs at the time.

No, it's that's that's bananas. I think I think that comes from them viewing having to do any of those kinds of outbound activities as beneath beneath them and kind of unseemly. And here we were like like unashamed about like advertising ourselves and our wares if you will, right? So it was kind of like what we're doing what now? And

um I it worked I think and I think it got sort of

I think that but like mostly I think the writing

got us in with the entrepreneurs because like I I remember I think it was you Mark told me that an entrepreneur said like I kind of feel like I know you guys a little bit. That's right. Right.

Having not even met you yet.

Yeah. So they hadn't been our offices, they hadn't met anybody, but they had some idea of like who are these people and what do they care about? And then from then on,

every time a GP would come on board, we're like, okay,

what do you want to invest in?

Therefore, we're going to write about these things because that that is becomes the magnet for the entrepreneurs in that corner of the internet or AI infrastructure, whatever it is, right? And I think that was really powerful particular with the entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was kind of one in those days um VC was like a big secret and then actually building companies was a big secret and so just kind of talking about it

was a big differentiator

you would learn right when you because you'd hear as entrepreneur you hear all these horror stories you know from other entrepreneurs of like things that have gone wrong in the relationship with the VC and all the problems but you didn't know like if you didn't know who any of the people were when you walk in the door like who do you trust how are they going to behave under pressure you know what what are they going to do right um and So, I mean, yeah, I it's a great if you can get away with having nobody know who you are and still, you know, be be on top of the industry, it's great, but like if somebody actually does, you know, does it the other way, it's it causes a permanent change, which is, I think, what we catalyed.

It does. And to me like I don't know the latest numbers but like the the blog posts that that you would write or the other um GPS would write that are sort of like timeless like I remember the good product manager bad like that is one of the most successful blog post and you know how many blog posts the firm has put out like a gajillion right but like the ones that have depth that the entrepreneurs can like take something from

and that is somewhat timeless way more important than are we in a bubble or are we not in a bubble and that was kind of fun and that was like like chatter. Yeah.

But like the substantive pieces on like how do I construct a company? How do I manage a person? How do I think about promotions? Like all that kind of stuff. Like I think that that was really valuable to the entrepreneurs and I think it also showed our LPs like okay they actually are very passionate about all the details of the stuff that they invest in.

Well that was one of the interesting things is the LPs were like reading all the content. I mean, which is so different than uh a public market investor just say um you know they and not only did they read the content but we have many LPs that um Reddit would call up say hey in managing my little organization you know this is what I'm running into and so forth. So they really they're real partners. Uh

right

in a way that um

yeah it's just been you know that's been probably one of the best parts of the firm is to to get to have

investors like that.

Yeah. We got one we did one incredibly controversial blog post was turns out like a few LPs really hated the headline and it it was um was in the bio health team and it said [ __ ] cancer which I thought wasn't very controversial but are so nice. They were like, "Did you have to put it that way?" I mean, there are better ways to put this. I'm like, "All right, fine.

Screw cancer."

Right.

Yes. For the record, we're very anti-cancer.

Yeah, we're very

and we're willing to say so.

But they they deeply care about like everything that we put out, which I think is quite flattering even even though they may hate some of it. So, one of the things in the early days that I wanted to ask you about is like because we came out and because they kind kind of we caused that reaction with the other VCs, I I kind of felt like we, you know, maybe I took it too far in terms of just the VC competitiveness and the anti-VC stuff, like we really went hard in in the early days. Like, since you brought this up

over the line. Yeah. So since you brought this up, you have to you have to your your thing with was it the Sarah Lacy?

The peak of this was the your peak moment of this was in the Sarah Lacy thing.

Okay, you have to refresh my memory. Okay. So, remember Sarah Lacy uh at her peak by by the way she was a great uh great journalist um and then she had this thing PO Daily that she started and then she had this uh these big events

and I spoke at the event and she she said to me and it just like I it popped out. She said, "You know, you you're you kind of like have a lot of conflict with the other VCs." And I said, "Well," I said,

I come from enterprise software and so like when I see another VC coming at me and I quoted Little Wayne with a P sign all I see is the trigger and the middle finger

and

that I so my answer was going to be that like you have an inner enterprise sales dude in you.

Yeah. Can't get it out. Yeah. If there if there's ever like I think like

when it comes to other firms it's like which is horseshit because we co-invest like we don't actually compete all that much, right?

No, no, no. We we should be partnering.

But basically your filter is like

you're going to get the deal or I'm going to get the deal. You die or I die. It's like that's that's sort of the the thing that happens to you in any sort of competitive situation. And

yeah,

God help you if you're in the way of that. So yeah, I think we overdid it because like I said like you guys have joint board seats you know you you will we will our teams will call people and it's like hey we've got this company would you like to do follow investment all that stuff here you are pissing them off

and we caused a lot of I cause a lot of antagonism between us and the other firms in those days which I think we've you know at this point like we're more friendlier and they're not exactly shrinking ballots themselves so you know they're also also also

also true.

They've risen to the occasion. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

I think I think we're past that. Maybe. Maybe now.

Yeah. I I think we're we're we're much more user friendly now for sure in terms of uh our VC our our many VC partners uh that we have.

So then uh tell us you know one of the the big pieces that came out was um when Mark wrote software is eating the world uh and how that came about was very interesting because it was a really busy time for us. It was like what 2011 so it was very I think we had just raised a second fund maybe

and the way it came about was entirely random if you will. So at the time there was a guy um you know the economist has these reporters and they sent them to new regions and new beats like for 25 years and they go from Hong Kong to Silicon Valley whatever. At the time there was a guy called Martin Giles and he was covering

very nice guy.

Yes. Very nice guy. Um great guy. And he would cover um Silicon Valley who's British. And every so often I forget what the cadence is. They do a special report. And they were doing a special report on the state of tech and where it was going. And we were sitting

remember my first office was at this office. It was I think it was next door. That's right.

It was like we the three of us were sitting there and Martin is visiting and he's asking all these questions and Mark was like well it's basically like software is eating the world and then he explains the whole thing and I'm like

this is really interesting and I was like we should write this down and Mark's like sure maybe later. And then I placed it with this guy Ryan at the Wall Street Journal and he's like, "If I had an operate like that, would you run it?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure. I would run it."

And then Mark wrote it when when you could schedule things like that. And Mark wrote exactly one draft and it's still that same draft. And I'm sure you're torturing yourself because you would change all kinds of things this that and the other. And then just for kicks to bookend that story when you wrote was it time to build?

It's time to build.

Yeah. wrote, "It's time to build." Like, you caved for a minute. So, like, all right, we'll place it. Maybe we'll place it. And nobody took it. Nobody.

Oh, yeah. That's right.

I called Ryan who has since gone on to bigger and better things. I'm like, Ryan,

can I ask you a hypothetical that thing like if I like you've been at the journal and it's like, of course, like it's a joke. That's not even a question.

But times have changed, so nobody ran it.

Good thing we had a big piece of we had a good audience at the time. No. And I I think I forget I don't want to malign people but somebody said it's angry and I'm like you know we're in a pandemic.

Yeah. Yeah. So this is

and we don't we're wearing

2020. Yeah. And that was the Yeah. The the whole point of it was just that what was actually happening in the pandemic with literally the inability to get like surgical gowns.

Exactly.

For first responders was like the the catalyst for it. Yeah.

it read angry and I was like really

software is eating the world is probably more famous but I'd say time to build is more influential in that um

people read software is eating the world and then they didn't do anything they were like wow that's very interesting and then that was it but with time to build like the number of people in

like Washington and entrepreneurial community and so forth that are like yeah we're taking this this is the blueprint we're moving on it I mean in a way like the whole like abundance movement on the Democratic party came off

which is a great development I think

a great development yeah

But I think the I have a theory on why that is software is eating the world it's like to our people our community duh hello that's happening and they were all building against it they didn't need to read the thing and the people who needed to do something were going to get flattened by the software eating the world movement and they didn't know what to do like how do you retool into a like remember all the car companies that came to visit us right and you take them through autonomous and does the brand even matter and whatever. It just did not

register. They they weren't going to become a software company. Therefore, nobody nobody who needed to do something with it did. Right.

Because it's just rather difficult.

Yeah. Especially, you know, one of the very interesting things uh that we've learned as a firm is how unusual it is for a company that's been around a long time um and where the founders are no longer there to change anything. anything. Yeah.

Yeah. Even in like I mean it's been a huge blessing for us in venture capital and that many of the firms that were extremely powerful when we started just never changed.

They're exactly as they were. Like it's almost like frozen in time. It reminds me of if you've ever been to Havana in Cuba, right?

It it's frozen in time. It's all 1959. Like the cars are 1959, the buildings, everything. It's like just frozen. And uh you know whole industries freeze like that. The auto industry for sure did. Uh and you know it was

Elon you know Elon was came along for what how long when did he start Tesla? Early 2000s and you know had been going and going and going and then like

when the car comes out and is awesome everybody is just like sitting there going

what do we do here? I mean, look, I just saw this on X. I think like the layoff numbers from the German car companies, my home country,

like every six job in Germany is somehow related to the auto industry.

It's a disaster.

Yeah.

But they're not going like the a genius software engineer is not going to they're going to want to work for Elon Musk. Like you can say about Elon Musk whatever you want but like a

suave well manicured executive from the car industry is like not really like an a talent magnet for software engineers right so

and then uh you know one of the things that happened early was I got a um note from Harper Collins saying that I should write a book. Yeah. And uh and you know we I did not have time to write a book but you made it.

Yeah. You thought well you thought it was a good idea to write the book. Why did you think it was a guy? I guess it seemed one it seemed crazy because the blog was doing so well. So like aren't books pass a at least to us. I mean

and then um

yeah and then we didn't have I didn't have time. So like

why did you think that made sense? I guess it wasn't something that VCs did either, right? like

I do think we needed to even out the brand a little bit because like otherwise any entrepreneur with leverage was going to go like well I want him to be on my board right and that was just going to get successes worse with every other GP so that like we needed a plan for everybody right and you were the other at at the time

I thought the book was good because I think

andre other

there is exactly

which is why you wanted to call it horitz andre I remember which uh

it does sound her And it's a cool sounding name. It sounds a little law firmish though. And then you could never A16Z would like

wouldn't work.

H16N is not nearly as good.

It it is good the way it is. I do still think there is value in a book of like having a definitive theory on something. Okay.

I think with all the blog posters and all the expos and all that, I think there is value. People people read books. People consume consume books. Long form podcast is sort of a a different version of the same flavor. But more importantly, I thought you had something to say. Y

like the the actual theory of like how one builds a company and like all the stuff that goes sideways. And as you always said,

most books like the whoever the guy was from this and that, GE, whatever. They were all kind of fancy resumes and victory labs. They weren't really

where you could learn something. and particularly for our audience that like it's so rough and tumble to be in a startup and to be in the trenches and to lose the deal and like not be able to raise the money and you have this magical person walk out the door and all that kind of stuff. So having an honest book that I think you I was expecting you to write I thought was really valuable and then you know the little hack that we had is you had written all the blog post right and so then it was

I have a little built-in audience

right and then it was it's telling the dramatic story of like what went down you know including with Felicia being sick and all of that right like that then made the book but like you kind of had the lessons in your head and like I actually think that book like I like the title I've been living by what you do is who you are forever. I like that title better, but I think this is a more important book and it's way more kind of usable for for people.

It's much more broad-based. I think the uh the what you do is who you are is it's actually it's more useful for me. Um and you know, when I talk to like Ted Sarandos or somebody like that, they're like, "Oh yeah, that's a book I like." But you have to run a very large organization and you you have to have gotten beyond the things hard thing about hard things to start to think about okay how do you program the culture of the whole organization and this kind of thing

but I remember the Navy

too abstract

wanting to wanting to buy the book the hard thing about hard things right like I think people actually think it's much more applicable than you might think

well oh no no it so it's very the hard thing about hard things I would say in retrospect was very broadly applicable like pastors bought it and

you know people you'd never think but you know like to me everything the hard thing about hard things is like easy whereas I had to think a lot more about what you do is who you are it's just like but you know it's one of those things it's like you know how many people need to learn uh algebra versus quantum physics it's it's a it's a thing like that

yeah that's a that's a good point no I actually thought the book was valuable to your brand.

Yeah.

And a good equalizer. And also I think it raised the ambition like when when we then hired new GPS

it was just understood that they were going to be out in the world and then it was a matter for me for my team to go like okay so what are your thoughts? Hopefully you have some right and then what are you good at? And then matching the format. Not everybody should write a book right and not everybody should do podcasts. Some people are good with decks and all of that, but like it was a given that the bar is high.

Well, that's, you know, that's such a good point because one of the things that we always get asked because Grace did such a nice job of of marketing the book is well, like how do you market your book?

Well, go ahead. And I'm like, well, look, you can do there's like well-known marketing ideas and so forth and you can do a lot of things and you can get yourself even on like the bestseller list,

but then the book's going to disappear unless it's a great book. Like it has to be good, right? Like that's the fundamental thing. And so like if you don't write something that's good, if you're completely focused on like how you promote it before you've written it, like that's probably about

that's backwards. Yeah, that is backwards. You have to actually believe that you have an idea that that's worth putting a book. Like a book has to stand the test of time. You know what I mean? It has to be an actual thing versus a tweet or

Well, so many people in business take a blog post idea, a blog post length idea, and they try and turn it into a book. And um

some things are just a snack.

Yeah, they're snacks and snacks should be snacks. Yeah,

exactly.

Yeah. know I thought the book served you well and I think it it made it made the everybody in the firm go like oh

like I don't know that Andrew would he have thought automatically walking in here it's like well maybe I should write a book.

Yeah.

Like and it just made it open up the thinking I think for everybody else.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know a good thing about you also learn a lot when you write a book. So I I think everybody's it set the standard of you can't just have an idea here. you have to be able to really think it through, be able to articulate it, be able to write it, be able to publish it.

And otherwise, like your idea didn't count. And that

that I think um has helped us a lot as an artist.

I mean, look at Katherine Bole. I mean, she came in with the pitch of like if I work here, I'm going to do American Dynamism and here's what that is. And like she also happens to be a gifted communicator

and now it's, you know, it was a deck. Now it's a movement and a fund

and like it's helping really change the way people think about defense tech as all of a sudden allowed.

Remember back in the day Diane Green was outed from Google for like a very innocent contract would look at pictures satellites, right? And that like and Katherine played a re is playing a really big role in turning that around, right? And that's an idea.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure it is. You know, I hadn't actually thought about it that much, but it's a very important part. It's how like marketing, our original marketing ideas turned into kind of a very important cultural point

uh of the firm, which is, you know, like this is how we work, this is how we think.

I mean, sometimes it would it was so overdone like a new person comes in, first thing they want to do is meet with marketing. I'm

like, do you know where you're sitting? And then and then I was like I literally I've had people say like you should really think about me like you should think about Mark Andre.

And I was like okay what are your thoughts?

I I know exactly who that was but I'm not going to say no no no and it's all well intentioned but like you do you do have to test the actual idea right? Like is that a snack? Is it a book? Is it just a conversation?

Like they need to be calibrated properly right and and sometimes young people who are incredibly ambitious. That was me. Still is. Like you just want to go right for the win, but you need to make sure you have the goods to do it.

Yeah. Well, this this kind of gets into a conversation Mark and I have been having, which is, you know, the marketing of companies has changed so much uh because you're really now marketing a person. And that's a lot what we did at the firm now because the firm had our name. It was a natural.

Also, we don't have products.

Yeah. And we we have products. We have people and ideas. That's it.

We could but that's extended now to

Oh yeah.

You know, is it is it Tesla or is it Elon? Is it Palanteer? Is it Alex? You know, like and

the in order to be able to do that like you can be an extremely accomplished person who is not interesting. um like those don't necessarily go together

and that I think that's a little bit unfair from the press or like it creates this perception that Silicon Valley is staffed entirely with weirdos,

right?

They're more interesting to write about.

Somebody who goes to work every day and drives an Audi and is a good father and drops kid off at school, that's all nice. Like I'll I'll pick on someone, right? Like Dylan Field. Yeah.

Most amazing guy built an incredible company. I hosted dinners with him. He's just normal. Well adjusted. The weirdest thing about him is he did the Teal Fellowship.

Yeah.

But like

those don't get written up as much. The weirdos like the weirder the better, right? Like and and it it's gotten to an extreme where it's like this is actually not reflecting Silicon Valley. It's just a the a slice of it. Well, it's an interesting marketing conundrum though because you can't

market a company if you don't have a character,

right?

Like like

no, you used to look there used to be companies and it was fine where all you do is you report your financial results, you announce your new products and that kind of started to end with Steve Jobs because it was a show.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

And he made you want a product.

That's right. And like it it became it's almost like politics adjacent. Like you can't vote for a party. You're voting for a person. Yeah. And if you have the company but not a character or or a sense of character, it just doesn't work. And then you know the the corporate ex accounts and all of that. Those are all fine and like but like at the end of the day it's the identity of the person and do they actually sound like does the tweet sound like Mark? Right? like does the LinkedIn post sound like DG or whatever it is, right? Like you cannot disconnect it anymore,

right?

And that places a premium on people who are willing to play character or be character. I'm not sure that's always the healthiest thing for a company at every in at every stage, right? Or in every situation like that there are some downsides to it, but the upside beats the downside like 10 to one or whatever the right number is. Well, it it requires a lot of discipline, I think, from the founder because you

it turns you into like this uh mini celebrity. And so, as a mini celebrity, um

can you like be out there and not act like an actual celebrity because those aren't great organizational dynamics? Yeah. um just having been around uh you know many celebrities although

and the thing is

Nas notwithstanding he's a very regular uh person and and that kind of thing.

Yeah, he's surprising though

but he he's he's very surprising. He's very unusual

but also he has an amazing product.

Yeah,

it's hard to argue. Uh so like being able to be like this interesting character on the outside and then come in and you know be well just be somebody who you can have an actual conversation with where you can get information and not be this

thing that you put yourself on a pedestal to the point where people won't tell you anything and and that kind of stuff is very destructive in a company.

Yeah. I think I think there's some there's some downside along those lines. And then the other part is like you can't really fake that stuff. If if you have a public persona and it's not real and it's all manicured, it does does not work. It it won't work over time, right? So you kind of have to lean like this is what I always try to do is lean into like who is this person and what are they good at that they can sustain over time. Like you make anybody do a TED talk if you really really are hellbent on doing it.

But like that's not actual marketing campaign that that's not a personal brand. You have to really figure out, okay,

who is this person? What are their dynamics? What are their talents that they can actually be, not act, but like actually be, right?

I think it's hard to actually be a character and a TED talk,

you know, like the people who do TED talks aren't characters and vice versa. You've never done a TED talk? Like I've I've never done a TED talk. I think it's hard to do both. Yeah.

I've never watched a TED talk.

You've never watched a TED talk?

I've never watched a TED talk. Oh man, you're missing out on a very beautifully packaged. It's almost like

But that is my point. My point is that is exactly my point. TED talks are these very manicured

things that like work for a minute. But like anybody who's seen so many TED talks is like this is all the same. It's all the exact same plastic, right? Or maybe you think it's platinum, but it's the exact same formulaic thing. That's not an actual brand. That's maybe an event that if you really care about it, like some people really care about that [ __ ] but like that's not actually who you are.

They read they read to me as religious sermons

and I I have an aversion to fake religions.

They're all they're all little morality. They're little morality stories. They've all they've all got a message

and

it's like the very special episodes of TV shows of the 1970s. They're the very special episodes where you like learn about

very special happy days.

You learn about drug addiction or Yeah. Exactly.

And the thing is I'm in marketing and I find them saccharine. like they're just too they're just too perfect in a way, right? And and and they train you like crazy. And then you know they're the teams that peel off of TED and then they help executives be great and you can just I've talked to them and I'm like like you know you've been invited to

to podcast where that are produced that way and they literally are trying to script what you're going to say and I'm like we don't do that

back specific format and that's why by the way that's why I'm saying that's why I'm I'm riffing on a little bit is because like my my instincts are to the exact opposite of that

as you know which is like of the authenticity and rawness. when you could do a TED talk. I think you'd be fine at it, but like it's actually not you and like therefore it wouldn't it wouldn't acrude to the brand.

He could not do a TED talk because in order to do a TED talk they have to review what you're going to say and they have to edit it and there's no

chance.

No, what I'm saying is if he decided he wanted to if I edit something Mark writes like I take one sentence and I give him one word in it and like and then that's that's as much as he likes to be edited. This is why I find it so hilarious when you send around like when you used to do that when you send around the blog post and then everybody is so eager to edit them and I'm like this is such a waste of [ __ ] time. This is like

not you. It's like not you. So

that actually reminds me of my favorite thing that Larry David said. The rule on Seinfeld was no hugs and no lessons.

Exactly. That's right. That's right. That's right.

And they're very special after

and that's what made that that's what made that show so distinctive is they never did that. They never they never there was never it was never Modlin or Sakura.

Never.

Right. It was like almost unique in that way. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a very very good show.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of the opposite of Ted. Yeah. And look, that is great. Like I'm not trying to malign it, but people like it. It's it's very manufactured and I don't think that's an actual brand. As a person, you can't be that brand.

Yeah. The thing that works well and you know, a lot of this just has to do with the shift in technological environ media environment, but the thing that works in this media environment is much much more much more authenticity and

transpority, right? So interesting. Yeah.

Which is interesting because the old world like our media training in the old world was all like much is the opposite. It's conformist um stand message uh

discipline discipline discipline and that's just out the window. And and the thing that I think what's interesting to media and that's what media has to figure out is

they used to set the tone

and now they're at the very end

at the very end of all the stuff that's been said on Twitter or um Reddit or it eventually spills out and then media is like oh what is this thing comment on the Rogan show

but like it's it's at the very end and like for me that must be total out of body experience where it's like wait

like I was the I was the beginning right when you when you were to when you were unveiling something, that's where you would go, right? And now you can go any freaking place that like you have 50,000 choices, right? And then it gets enough steam and then it gets reviewed by media almost, right? It's just like the order has flipped completely. Yeah, it it makes it very tricky to speak to the media because

when they're on that end and they have to turn you into news,

um anything you you say can and will be used against you,

you know, it's a very Miranda type world.

My new my new version my new version of this my the new test I think is happening is what we might call the GPT test, which is okay, if if what somebody says is in indistinguishable from chat GPT output,

like not going to make it.

Yep.

Right. Um and and then the more advanced version of the test is like is it indistinguishable from like chat GPT 3.5

right which is like not which is like the earlier version that's not as good

and the number of public figures in various domains who continue to speak in public or put out crafted you know whatever and literally you're just like this is indistinguishable from what the LM could do um or or by the way columnists people write you know columns for a living

like there's a lot of people who don't pass that test. Um and and so and I just say that of like there there's going to be a big big turnover there and then and then and then it begs the important question like okay what does it take to pass that test? Right.

Right. Like how many

while it's changing all the time.

Yeah. Also true. Right. Exactly. But like who who is actually I had this a version of this conversation with Tyler Cohen one time. So Tyler Cohen and his partner Alex have been blogging daily for over 20 years. Marshall Revolution which is amazing. And they don't they do a great job

and they're leaders of like these you know intellectual movement and they're incredibly important influential and like all these things and they're in all these rooms that they you know they they will say this like it's put them in all these incredibly important rooms and

and all these things and I was like wow it's worked so great for you guys. It's like why don't you know why don't more people do this and and Tyler just like laughed and he's like Mark how many people have something to say every day. Yeah, that's a lot of talking, right? Like genuinely like how many people have that and then you know every day for 20 years is like maybe the highest bar, but how many people have, you know, three interesting things to say or one interesting thing to say?

But this is what this is my beef with some of these platforms or actually it's the humans. It's not the platforms. It's it's always the humans, right? We're like,

does every thought that you have,

right,

need to go on X or wherever it needs to go? I would beg to differ, but like a lot of people No, a lot of people would go like, "Okay, it's a new day. I got to say something."

Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm like, I don't know.

Well, to me, the test Let me ask you this though. I would you agree that the difference is if they have an interesting thought every day, that's one thing.

Fantastic.

Right. Right. Right.

The more the marrier,

right? Right. Right. But but yeah, most people don't.

But like most people don't. And I sort of feel like

even the people every day don't always. Yeah.

They would be better served to like

pop up when

Yeah. when they have a thought or or contribute something to the conversation. Yeah, that's

I I don't know. I just don't think that everybody has interesting things to say every day.

If I look at X, I see proof.

Well, the reason I go through this is because my my theory at least is the nature of leadership is change because of everything you you guys have discussed, the nature of leadership is changing. And the the the lead that the the people who the leaders who have very the large number of interesting things to say and know how to communicate it are going to do disproportionately well in the years ahead. And the leaders who don't, even if they're professionally skilled, I think are going to have a harder and harder time and their companies are going to have a harder and harder time because it's just the old the old methods are just not working as well anymore.

No. Well, particularly on the um on the marketing front.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, like but people are changing like it's been interesting to watch uh our friend uh Mark Zuckerberg kind of change his public persona so much so fast.

So great.

Yeah. I mean

uh so he's kind of I mean running a gigantic social media company you you would think he would figure it out but I guess but it's still very difficult to do

well and it actually mapped to an internal change right like he himself changed

right it wasn't like a synthetically generated message like it's every everything of like Mark Zuckerberg in public now is is 100% wholly authentic

he used to try to calculate um

what he was going to say through the lens of all his many many constituents and now He's saying what he thinks.

Yeah. People he was and as you know he was trained to do that. He received the A+ grade version of that training from people who were world class at that

and it worked for a while and then the environment

but I also think he whoever was advised like overdid it. I remember being in your office and was like that man has the wrong beer somewhere. It's a scandal because it was so perfect. I was like chill out a little bit. Well, you know what it was

and then he did now that he's doing the like this is me deal with it. It's working great.

And again, the people who train people who train him are like super geniuses and they were fantastic. But they they themselves were trained in what I would describe as like 1980s, 1990s style politics.

They came out politics in particular.

They came out of a political background, right, which is an even more intense version of everything that we're talking about.

Yeah.

And so they got train they they got trained the way politicians got trained in the 1990s, which was extremely uh scripted and controlled,

right? Maximally so. Um and so and then just the the as we've disc like just this massive shift in the environment since then has basically rendered I mean I mean you see this playing out

I think he's done a great job

all over the world right which is this is also everything we're talking about is also playing out politically. Yes.

And maybe even more so politically.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's even like like the subtle things have been the most interesting to me. So he used to be known for like he's always wearing a hoodie which was the most conformous thing in the world in Silicon Valley, right? And now like he's got like the gold chains and this hair all over the, you know, and and it's kind of like he's he's expressing himself, you know, on all fronts.

Exactly what he looks like in private. Like it now now it all matches. It's been great to kind of see him flower like that and be able to like fully express himself.

Yeah. I think it's great something spectacular.

Still people are like, "Well, what's with the gold chains?" I'm like,

he likes them. Yeah.

Well, here's an executive. I know the main one that he wears has a real it's important just with his faith.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a guy who runs a ginormous company that's in the spotlight all the time and like this is what you're picking on. It's like

hello.

Also true.

But it's I I think when people from the old world see that it makes him very uncomfortable. Yeah. Right. One of Okay. One of the guys who was doing what we wanted him to is no longer he's off the leash.

He's not on the program. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Well, he's liberated.

We go all the way back to when when what's his name? The found Dennis from Foursquare, he got yelled at because he went um to a press meeting with a hoodie on like all the way at the beginning.

That was I remember that. I remember that. Yeah.

He was like I think and he had a banana or something like that. It was like apparently

entirely unacceptable, right?

It's almost makes it nostalgic.

Very interesting.

So I think companies I mean look I think all this stuff I'm view all this stuff is going to intensify. I I think every successful company in the I think every successful company in the future is going to need this kind of personality.

They're gonna need somebody who can do this and it's it's a different leadership profile.

Do you think it has to be the CEO?

I I think it's really hard for it not to be.

I I I mean maybe maybe it could be another founder. I think can do it.

Yeah. Co-founder for sure if you're a consumer brand. Yeah.

I think it's very difficult to not have a

a person like that. I think you know if you're less marketing like like if you are like if the I mean there are historically businesses that are all

but I think if you're in a compet competitive situation and on the other side there's somebody who's really good at it.

Yeah.

It still sucks. If you sell security stuff

Palanteer is as enterprise you know government as it gets and

Oh yeah. No is like [ __ ] is killing it.

He's perfect for that.

Imagine being a competitor to Palunteer and not having an Alex right like

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even just the stock market valuation alone, like how can you possibly keep up?

Yeah. It's basically can you sell? And the way you're selling today is entirely different.

Yeah.

Right. Like it's not, you know, having features and a Gartner report. It's just like

I think it's great. I think it's I I I think it's I think it's leading to a more honest world. Uh like more transparent, more authentic,

more honest, more interesting things being discussed, more interesting issues getting surfaced, people actually getting to know each other.

Yeah. It's a much less sanitized world.

Yeah. That's right. That's right. And of course that that it's uncom it's uncomfortable because if you're used to if you're used to the the wall you know the wall as they say the wald garden if you're used to a sanitized environment if you're used to Disneyland entering the real world is traumatic

very traumatic

but like we do live in the real world right and

and as always it's the transition that's the toughest part it's going like oh this is all different now right and and I think we're in a really big transition

and the transition is transitioning it's sort of like

that's right and we're still in the middle of it like it's not over yet

yeah yeah know it's going to it's definitely going to keep moving Yeah.

All right. Well, we're going to keep going.

Good. Awesome. Fantastic. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you for joining us on the Mark Advent show. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you, too. Hope you enjoyed it.