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The a16z Show
Ben Horowitz on the Next Technology Era
00:29:29
David Ulevitch speaks with Ben Horowitz about what it means to lead the technology industry at scale, and the responsibilities that come with it. Following the firm’s largest-ever fundraise, they discuss how venture capital, technology, and national strategy are increasingly intertwined. The conversation covers America’s role in the next technological revolution, from AI to advanced manufacturing, and why maintaining technological leadership is critical not just for economic growth, but for global influence. Horowitz also shares his perspective on working with government, supporting national security innovation, and building systems that give more people the opportunity to contribute. They also discuss how venture capital is evolving, the shift toward larger firms and specialized strategies, and why optimism about technology, and its potential to improve lives, remains essential even amid growing skepticism.
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- [00:01]
Ben Horowitz
Over 70% of people in China are optimistic about AI and kind of less than 30% in America. We're optimistic about AI.
- [00:10]
David Ulevitch
We have placed the largest bet in American history on the proposition that this country will win the next century of technology.
- [00:19]
Ben Horowitz
We won the Industrial Revolution, and we did that because we had superior technology. And here we are on the dawn of a new technological revolution, the AI revolution. Every interesting company that gets started started is a technology company. Now, America does give everybody a chance, and entrepreneurs can really count on that.
- [00:39]
David Ulevitch
If America loses its technology edge and its dominance, the entire world will lose as well. What makes the American system irreplaceable for the world at large?
- [00:49]
Ben Horowitz
Everybody's in the same game, but the rules of the game have changed. And what I mean by that is,
- [00:54]
Podcast Host
what does it mean to lead an industry at a moment of technological change? For decades, venture capital has been about funding companies. But at a certain scale, it becomes something else. Shaping industries, influencing policy, and helping determine which technologies define the future. Today, that responsibility is growing as AI and other frontier technologies reshape the global landscape. The question is no longer just what to build, but how to ensure those systems strengthen the broader society around them. The States extend beyond any single company or sector. They reach into how countries compete, how innovation spreads, and who gets the opportunity to contribute. A16Z co founder Ben Horowitz speaks with general partner David Ulovich about betting on America and building for the next century.
- [01:46]
David Ulevitch
So we've had a lot of excellent discussions. We've talked a lot about policy, but we're actually going to start this more on the venture capital and technology side. You recently shared a blog post that the firm has raised over $15 billion in a new fundraising set of funds for the firm, the largest in a 16Z history. What do you think are the new obligations that come with that kind of scale? We are the largest venture capital firm in the world, and how does that tie into the mission?
- [02:16]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah, so it's interesting. My old mentor Andy Grove said to me, he said, ben, when you're a leader in an industry, then the whole industry, the size of it, the ethics of it, the morality of it, kind of depends on you. And I remember thinking when he said that to me, he was running intel at the time, I thought, wow, I'm glad I'm never going to be the leader of an industry, because that's a lot of responsibility. But here I am, here we are. And I think for us, you have to take a step back and say, okay, for the technology industry, and particularly for kind of New technology companies, what does it need to be? And you have to think about it on a large scale. And the way we've been thinking about it as well, if you go all the way back to humanity, like, what's important for humanity, what advances humanity? And it really kind of comes down to, do people have a chance to contribute? Because when people have a chance to contribute, then they can have an impact and then they can kind of advance the state of things for everybody. And there's really been no country in the world that comes close to America at giving people a shot, giving them a chance to succeed. And it's not a completely equal chance. Some people are born rich, some people are born poor, some people have better genetics, some people live in dysfunctional families and so forth, but a chance. And most countries, people don't have a chance, or they have a very small chance, a very slim chance. And so that ends up being really important. And then if you think about why does America have the influence it has today from a military standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a cultural standpoint, it comes back to, well, we won the Industrial revolution, and we did that because we had superior technology. And here we are on the dawn of a new technological revolution, the AI revolution. And are we going to win and. And are we gonna have that influence and are we gonna be able to give people a shot and kind of continue to advance humanity? I think that's an open question right now. And so when I think about our role in the industry, it's what can we do to help America win technologically? And that's everything from what we invest in to how we integrate into the government and make it accessible to all the citizens and integrate with our allies and so forth. And so it's a big mission, it's a lot of work. And, you know, it's why dynamism in a conference and everything.
- [04:47]
David Ulevitch
Yeah, you have said that the American way, you know, giving people a shot that if we lose this technology race, if America loses its technology edge and this dominance, then the entire world will lose as well. What makes the American system irreplaceable? Why is our technological dominance not just good for America, but actually good for the world at large?
- [05:10]
Ben Horowitz
Yes, I think a lot of things go into it, but to me, it always comes back to. There's a line in the Declaration of Independence that is very well known, but also underrated, which is, we hold these truths to be self evident. And what does that mean? Well, it means that these truths didn't come from us. They're truths, they are self evident. They came from a higher thing. They came from God. We didn't make these rules, we didn't give you these rights. We didn't give you this freedom. It came from something else. And that's really, really important because it means if I'm the president, if I'm Congress, no matter who I am, I can't change it, no matter how much I want to change it. And there are many who would like to change some things, who think they know better than a minute. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, like that is a thing. But because of that, the freedoms that you have in America are really, really protected to a degree that they're not in any other country. And they're very hard to lose. And we've seen this. There's just a great talk about free speech. We've seen this with free speech where countries are like, well, maybe that's not such a good idea anymore. But if it can't be taken, if it didn't come from people, it can't be taken away from people. And that's been very, very powerful and very persistent, I think, over the entire history of the country. And it's really unique. There aren't other countries who have quite as strong a version of that.
- [06:29]
David Ulevitch
Absolutely. You've seen since we've launched. It's now been four plus years since we launched the American dynamism practice. We're on our second fund. You and Mark have been incredible supporters of this effort of investing in the national interest at the intersection of advanced software and hardware and rebuilding not just the defense industrial base, but manufacturing and all the precursors that go along with it. What's been most surprising to you that you've learned about investing at these intersections of national security and venture capital. Along with it came a big presence in Washington. What's been the most surprising? What do you think the biggest learning has been?
- [07:07]
Ben Horowitz
You know, it's been interesting because if you go back to kind of pre ChatGPT, the conventional wisdom was China had this big AI lead on us. And then ChatGPT comes out and says, oh well, maybe no, we have a lead on them and then things will evolve from there. But the thing that was true about the kind of old incorrect idea was that they were way ahead of us in integrating their AI technology with their government on a kind of military basis, on a bureaucracy basis, in all facets. And so when we started, we were coming from, I would say, very far behind, you know, in that idea. The thing that's been surprising though, is like how fast we've been catching up. And I think that that's been really kind of heartening from both the number of entrepreneurs that want to help and then the willingness of the US Government to say, hey, we're interested in these new technologies, we're interested in these new companies. We're not stuck in our ways. We'll change the rules if we have to. And that's amazingly fruitful. And I think that, you know, we're seeing it in the kind of current conflicts that we have, and it gives me great hope that if we keep at it that we'll be very strong going forward.
- [08:20]
David Ulevitch
Yeah, I agree. I think this is a moment of optimism to see just how quickly things can shift when there's a sense of urgency and a sense of change makers. I want to talk about AI and policy. We had Emil Michael earlier, the Under Secretary of War for Research and Development, CTO of the Department of War here. He was obviously in the news talking about anthropology topic over the last week, but this isn't an issue. It may have bubbled up to the mainstream news in the last week, but this has been an ongoing issue. Let's just actually talk about anthropic and AI that's directly head on right now, and then we'll talk broader about policy in Washington.
- [08:57]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah, so look, I think to me, the thing on the whole anthropic kerfuffle that nobody's really said out loud but is the obvious thing that happened is if you understand deals, particularly software deals, you realize that that deal did not fall apart because of philosophical differences. It fell apart because anthropic wanted out of the deal. And you know that because they had all the leverage. They were already deployed. We were about to go to war. Nobody's ever had more leverage than that in a software deal. So anything reasonable that they would have asked for, they would have gotten even probably beyond what they should have. But the fact that they found something they could walk away on and then didn't return a meal's calls for whatever the three calls and then the call to the admin or all those things that happen, it's just, why would you not return the call? If you want it in the deal, they just want it out of the deal. Now, I don't know why they want it out of the deal, whether it was an employee thing or Dario thing or what have you, but you know, that's what happened. And I think the fact that it's getting reported on, like there's some ethical conflict. I Don't think there is. And in fact, if you wanted somebody to use your AI safely, nobody has more rules than the US government, you know, particularly the Department of War. And nobody is more, by the way. And then, and since I'm speaking to a Washington crowd, you know this, if you were to break those rules, there is a 100% chance it's getting leaked to the press immediately, like, there are no secrets in Washington. So, you know, that the whole thing was a little bit surreal to me to watch, at least at this point.
- [10:38]
David Ulevitch
Well, what do you think that, is there anything that founders should be thinking about? People that want to sell to the government, work with the government? How should they approach it inside their own companies? Maybe Anthropic's a one off, but you and I have been in Silicon Valley long enough to know that these issues tend not to come up and go away. They tend, they tend to, they tend to stick around. What would you say to the founders that want to build for the national interest, but, you know, still are coming from a Silicon Valley mindset? What do they need to think about? How should they talk to their teams, you know, how can they build the products that are needed for our government to effectively have the best and most capable technologies?
- [11:17]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting, when I spoke to the firm about it the first time when we started American diamond and so forth, I said, look, you know, like, you can have whatever geopolitical views you want to have, but like, the world is what it is. You know, it's not like everybody has agreed on peace worldwide. And it's not as if everybody's agreed not to commit crime ever. So, like, we do have crime, we do have war, we have these things. And then you have to think about, okay, the people that we grew up with who have gone into the military, risked their lives to save our lives. You are making the call because you are better ethically and you know more about geopolitics and the people in the State Department and the people running the Department of War and the people running the intelligence agencies, you're going to decide that those people who are sacrificing their lives, putting their lives on the line to protect us, don't get the best technology. Like, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So, like, you don't have to work here if you want to do that.
- [12:33]
David Ulevitch
That would be crazy. Think you know better than the State Department?
- [12:36]
Ben Horowitz
Yes. Yes.
- [12:38]
David Ulevitch
Yeah. I mean, we have this issue. I mean, you know, we're board members of these Companies. And, you know, the founder will call us, the CEO will call us and say, you know, I have some employees that don't think we should do business with this country or this country. And it's like, are you the State Department? Do you know better? That's crazy. And by the way, what a slippery slope to go down. You don't, like, you don't want to be in that position.
- [12:59]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah, these issues are complicated. I mean, they really are complicated. And I think that these, you know, this dime store morality or that that companies come up with, you know, it's. It's like a vibe. Vibe. Vibe. Geopolitics.
- [13:16]
David Ulevitch
Right? That's right. Okay, so we call it, we call it. I want to shift gears a little bit. We call it American dynamism, but it is more than America. It's about America and her allies. You have spent a lot of time. I know this because sometimes I join you, but I also get a little bit of visibility into your travel schedule. You've spent a lot of time on the road internationally. A lot of foreign leaders come to you and they say, you know, we want a startup culture. We want American dynamism. We want to, you know, reinvigorate a startup community, do manufacturing, build for defense. You know, how do you think about how can we export our capabilities, our advantages, our culture to these other countries, especially ones that we may have supply chain dependencies on and who are our allies, especially ones that are connected to us, like Mexico, Canada, Latin America? How can we take American dynamism abroad?
- [14:12]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah, so it's an interesting question. I don't have a full answer because we haven't quite entirely figured it out. But I'll say this, you know, we. Because America does give everybody a chance and entrepreneurs can really count on that. I mean, that's the thing. Like, if you're gonna basically bet your whole life on an idea and going to build something, you kind of have to have the. You really have to believe that the government isn't just gonna arbitrarily take it away from you at any point. And there are very few countries that have that going for it. So we are reasonably unique. There are a couple of places that have great technology entrepreneurship. Sweden is one, Israel's one. But it's pretty rare around the world. Having said that, there is great expertise in things that we need help with, particularly to industrialize. So in Mexico, they are, they do have really good, you know, high quality manufacturing expertise in some ways. You know, I think the cars that come out of the American cars that come out of Mexico are better than kind of the kind of Chinese manufacturing on many fronts. So they do have talent. They are partners. They want to work with us. We need to help secure that country because, you know, it's a border, but it's not a thick border, it's a thin border. You know, we have a lot of people vacationing down there and whatnot. And, and so that's a real thing. Similarly, Japan, they've always loved robots and they're really good at manufacturing. And we have a big deficit on the kind of robot supply chain. So we're working with them. At the same time, they just went from 0% of GDP to 3% of GDP spent on defense. We have a lot of defense companies. Their interests and our interests are very aligned when it comes to China. So I think there are some great opportunities, both kind of for us as a firm, our companies, and then the country and working with allies around the world.
- [16:15]
David Ulevitch
Yeah, the, the recent advancements in robotics, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about it today. I'm sure we will next year, but it's really, it feels like we're on the precipice of a robotics revolution and it's going to be very, very exciting to see that play out. And for sure, a lot of our companies and a lot of our allies will have a role to play. In a recent deep dive, you know, Paki McCormick did this long deep dive on the firm, thought it came out pretty well. He described the firm as a power broker using capital and networks to shape markets and influence. How do you view that and balance that power with the need to remain authentic to our founders, to institutions? How do we leverage that power? You know, obviously we're here in dc. How do you think about that responsibility and how do we use it to advance the state of the art?
- [17:04]
Ben Horowitz
Well, kind of what you lack as an entrepreneur is power. So you have a great invention, you may have built a great technology, but you don't have kind of the power to call anybody. You don't have the power to kind of get the right meeting necessarily with the right people in Congress to kind of help get the regulation correct. You don't have the power to get an audience with the right CEO to buy your product and that kind of thing. So power is sort of a feature of our offering is the way I think about it. And that's very different than the culture that we want to have and want to project internally. And as you know, kind of our very first kind of cultural idea is first class business and only in a first class way. And what that means when it comes to entrepreneurs is the ultimate respect for what they're doing. You know, it doesn't mean we're always their best friend or anything like that, but we, we show up on time, we get back to them in a timely fashion, we're honest, we do all the little things to make sure that our overall behavior isn't. We're the powerful and you're the weak because, you know, that obviously would be a short, a short ride for our firm at the top.
- [18:25]
David Ulevitch
What do you think about, you know, as people watch us raising so much capital? It happened during a period where, you know, I think broader, the VC industry had slowed down fundraising, but we closed very quickly. We raised a massive amount of capital. Do you think that signals anything about where venture is going as an ecosystem, as an industry? What do you think it looks like in the state of venture capital today?
- [18:52]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah, so this is something that we've seen coming for a long time and that we kind of prepared for. So if you go back to when we started the firm, there was a study that was done that showed that in any given year there were basically approximately 15 companies that would be started that would ever achieve $100 million a year in revenue. And so the whole idea of venture capital was that you had to get in as many of those 15 as possible and you really didn't want to be in anything that wasn't one of those. And so the way venture capital firms were constructed, whereas these partnerships in both economics and control that were small because why have 100 or 500 or 600 people like we do now if you're only going after 15 companies, it doesn't make sense. But what we saw back then was, well, even though that had been true for decades, it wasn't going to be true anymore because as Mark wrote, my partner, your partner, software is eating the world. And so what that meant is that there was going to be no industry, no company that wasn't going to be better if there was a great software team at its core. And that's even evolving now into AI. And so basically every interesting company that gets started, started is a technology company now. And so there are many, many more interesting companies. And so in order to reach it, you had to be able to scale your organization. Now here's the problem. If you were one of those venture capital firms that started all those years ago, you were likely set up, as I said, as a partnership with shared economics and shared control. If you have Shared control. It's very hard to reorganize because. And you know this, David, as a CEO, to reorganize you need a single decision maker. There is no way to reorganize. If everybody gets a vote, it's going to be bad. I could write a whole book on just reorgs, but reorgs are essentially redistributions of power. When you redistribute power, people are mad if they get a vote that they're going to foul that reorganization. And you can't scale without reorgang. So as a result, we've been able to scale because we have centralized control, but most of our competitors have not been able to scale like a very few have. And so I think what we have now is large firms who can cover all the technological areas and then specialized firms that are, okay, I'm a specialist in AI infrastructure, I'm a specialist in bio, or I'm a specialist in crypto, or I'm a specialist in games, but I'm not doing all of that. And. And the kind of firms in the middle, I think are getting squeezed out.
- [21:59]
David Ulevitch
I think that's right. People. People sometimes ask me, like, how do you work at such a massive firm, you know, 600 plus people? And I say, look, well, we're actually a bunch of really small teams that leverage a bunch of shared platform services, much like our portfolio companies. And that allows us to move with urgency but have the might of a very, very large organization behind us. I think one of the other things that I think is interesting that people don't always realize about the firm is there's probably more CEOs as general partners inside the firm. There's gotta be than any other firm. And I think all of us recognize having a hierarchy and a benevolent dictatorship is really appealing. You don't.
- [22:39]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah, it works.
- [22:40]
David Ulevitch
Yeah, it works. And you know, it makes our life easy. My focus on American dynamism, it's very simple. You know, Martin's job, focus on infra and being the best you can be, figure out what we need. And then it really is a dynamic that I think these, the sort of death by committee kind of venture firms just cannot adapt to.
- [23:00]
Ben Horowitz
No, definitely.
- [23:01]
David Ulevitch
You've talked in a recent podcast about how the media landscape has shifted, how reputation can shape markets. We had Alex Karp here earlier today. He is phenomenal about going direct to his customers. How do you think that shift? It seems like we're seeing that shift in some ways in the government. Emil, Michael, going on X directly. How would you coach founders and Even maybe coach people that are in the government where narrative and trust is paramount in terms of communicating and thinking about media and communications.
- [23:40]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah. So look, I think that the media world has changed. And, you know, it can be confusing because I think that you don't need to think about in terms of necessarily old media and new media in that everybody's in the same game, but the rules of the game have changed. And what I mean by that is, in the old world, the key to a media strategy was defense. And the reason that the key was defense is there's a limited number of channels. Those channels have very strict formats. So if you're in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, you can get a few quotes in and then you'll be characterized on the rest of what you say. If you're on cnn, you get like a short and hostile conversation with a bright light in your face and so forth. And then because there was a limited number of channels, if you said something wrong, you couldn't erase it. It was kind of like on the permanent record. And there are kind of many cases of these old school gaffes like Howard Dean and so forth, where you can never erase and you can never get over it and so forth. In the new kind of world, there's unlimited channels, there's unlimited formats. And so the key to winning isn't not making a mistake, it's being interesting. Like, if you don't say anything that's interesting, it's not going to get any pickup because there's too many other interesting things out there. So people like Alex Karp and Donald Trump and so forth, who are just like a entertaining show. Like, Alex was super entertaining out here. I was, like, captivated. I didn't know what he was going to say next. I don't know if he knew what he was going to say next, but it was really. He is very entertaining. And that wins. And then if you make a mistake, you just do 10 podcasts tomorrow and flood the zone. And it doesn't matter whether the channel is the Wall Street Journal or a podcast or whatever, it's all the same thing now, like, because that's the way you're overwhelmed with media. And so to win, you have to be interesting. And then, you know, that doesn't mean you can just be all over the place and not be on message. Alex is always very, very, very consistently pro America. Like, that's the thing that you can always count on him to be. And that's his main message. But. And that's great. And he's interesting about it. He's got a great knowledge of history and all these kinds of things and so forth.
- [26:07]
David Ulevitch
Awesome. Okay, so we have placed the largest bet in American history on the proposition that this country will win the next century of technology. So what? And I, And I do feel very optimistic. I think you and I are both optimists. I think our firm is broadly very optimistic. In fact, I would say that's. That's. That's ultimately even a core value of the firm is being optimistic about the future.
- [26:30]
Ben Horowitz
Yeah.
- [26:31]
David Ulevitch
And what keeps you up at night? What worries you? What. What would you ask of the audience, some of whom are founders, some of whom are policymakers, some of whom are implementers. What. What worries you and keeps you up at night? And what can we do to help?
- [26:46]
Ben Horowitz
So, actually, my biggest worry is kind of the perception of technology in America. So there was a interesting kind of poll that went out that showed that, like, I think over 70% of people in China are optimistic about AI and kind of less than 30% in America or something like that. We're optimistic about AI, and it's really. Because we always talk about all the bad things. You know, we're very focused on the dangers of AI here and not on the positive things. And it's interesting, I just spoke to someone from Japan who was like, you know, the whole Japanese startup ecosystem is restarting because everybody's so fired up about AI. We're all very positive on it. We love robots. You know, we can't. The Japanese love robots, by the way. And I think we really need to focus. Somebody asked me the other day, well, what good can AI do? And I was like, well, we're gonna. Not just. We can. We're gonna end traffic deaths, we're gonna cure cancer, we're gonna end poverty as we know it. Like, those are pretty good things. We need to think about that as much as we think about the AI overlords or mass surveillance or. Or any of these other things that we worry about. I think that the positive uses of the technology are extremely positive. The negative ones aren't there, but we can manage them in the same way we've managed, you know, kind of the negative of every technology, starting with fire, which has very bad consequences. You can burn down your village. It's horrible, but it does a lot of, you know, it also heats the house and cooks your food and does some very wonderful, wonderful things. And. And I think we have to get back to that.
- [28:29]
Podcast Host
Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating, or review and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow us on X16Z and subscribe to our substack@a16z.substack.com thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, 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. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a16z.com disclosures.