a16z Podcast

a16z Podcast: Innovation vs. Invention at Google I/O

Benedict Evans, Connie Chan, Steven Sinofsky, and Kyle Russell

Posted May 19, 2016

Innovation or invention? Platform or app? Vertical or horizontal? Strategy or tactic? Does the smartphone eat VR? And (not to get all existential about it or anything but), what is an app, really?

a16z partners Benedict Evans, Connie Chan, Kyle Russell, and board partner Steven Sinofsky explore these tensions in this episode of the podcast as they share some quick reactions to Google I/O, Google’s annual developer conference, where the company announced a number of new platform products — for VR to messaging to the smart home.

Maybe most new things are really old things, but maybe those distinctions don’t matter as artificial intelligence leaps into how we live our lives, automating (and anticipating) things in a new way…