At January’s American Dynamism Summit, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks discussed the Department of Defense’s renewed commitment to innovation and the department’s new Replicator initiative, which is accelerating how the DoD procures and delivers capabilities to the warfighter at speed and scale. (Read her full remarks here.) Following…

This content first appeared in the February 2024 Fintech newsletter. If you’d like more commentary and analysis about news and trends from the a16z Fintech team, you can subscribe here. “The amount of innovation we’re about to see in tax is unparalleled in recent history,” says Jamil Khan, the Chief Strategy…

Since its launch, the Talent x Opportunity Initiative (TxO) has been more than a funding vehicle; it’s been a launchpad for culturally inspired innovation and a community of support for under-networked founders. Like the startups in our portfolio, TxO is constantly evolving to ensure we’re meeting the needs of our…

Few 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…

Modern AI has allowed us to build the world’s first creative computers. Fields that once seemed uniquely human — like visual art, writing, music, or even the art of conversation — are now accessible to software in ways we couldn’t previously imagine. For many consumer AI apps, this is an…

It’s been an eventful year in the world of generative music. In April, the first viral AI cover dropped: ghostwriter’s “Heart on My Sleeve,” which woke up the music world to the fact that AI content could not only exist, but could be good. Soon after, Google unveiled MusicLM, a…

One of the most common pricing questions we get from late-stage SaaS companies is: should we switch to a usage-based pricing model (also known as consumption-based pricing)? Often, these companies have an existing subscription model, and usage-based pricing sounds like it would further align their incentives with their customers’. After…

Nearly all of our electricity is generated from heat powering a steam turbine. Historically, this energy conversion has been achieved through burning wood or fossil fuels. However, while these sorts of reactions release a large amount of chemical energy, they are nothing compared to the energy of a nuclear reaction.…

What do enterprise buyers in healthcare care about most when evaluating AI products? To answer that question, we interviewed leaders from many of the largest healthcare providers and insurers across the country. In Part A, we outlined the paths to generating unique value for the healthcare system and patients. Now,…

In this series, we have explored a variety of funding options for startups looking to launch a new financial product as well as terms to consider when negotiating your first warehouse facility. At this point, your company has decided to raise debt or at least would like to explore the option……

Going public is not the same as being a public company. When you go public, your company’s performance suddenly has a real-time scoreboard: your stock price. It’s easy to think that high growth can make up for a low stock price, especially for founders at fast-growing late-stage startups that are…

It’s been 9 months since ChatGPT was released and 7 months since it became the fastest consumer application to reach 100 million monthly active users, ushering in a new era of generative AI. But other than ChatGPT, how are consumers interacting with generative AI (GenAI) products? In which categories do…

“Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company…

A dynamic new wave of digital-first companies has emerged, driven by a significant decrease in the cost of building a minimal viable venture and further propelled by recent advancements in Generative AI. Founders can now quickly build chatbots/companions, education tools, image generation tools, lightweight SaaS apps, and games for customers around the world. Selling these digital products globally,…

From left to right: SoFi CEO Anthony Noto, Wise CEO Kristo Käärmann, Adyen co-CEO Pieter van der Does, and a16z Partner Alex Immerman. During a recent Connect/Fintech event hosted by a16z, Pieter van der Does, co-founder and co-CEO of leading financial technology platform Adyen, Anthony Noto, CEO of the leading…

The world is amidst an AI-driven industrial revolution. As a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen recently wrote, AI will save the world. The United Kingdom just staked its claim on the AI frontier, challenging US policymakers to reaffirm America’s role as the powerhouse of tech innovation. Whether we let it improve the health of Americans is…

When social and music platforms started taking off in the 2000s, many musicians saw the huge potential of global distribution networks to showcase their artistic talent and connect with fans. Unfortunately, as they consolidated more power and leverage, the platforms acted more as gatekeepers – ceding little control and extracting…

Pricing a new product or service can be confusing, and founders—be they first-timers who’ve just shipped their MVP or veterans whose products have been in market for years—are often unsure how much time they should be spending on pricing strategy. Pricing can be particularly tricky for B2B fintech companies, which…

“The great thing about AI is that it is constantly evolving. One day it will be better than a real [girlfriend]. One day, the real one will be the inferior choice.”  This quote is from one of more than 20,000 users who joined the early community of CarynAI, a voice…

As an investor, one of the most rewarding aspects of my job is believing in and standing alongside great founders. Lucky for me, Gaurav Misra and Dwight Churchill were the first cofounders I invested in after joining a16z in 2020. Since then, they’ve confirmed for me that a combination of…