Consumer

Voice-First Apps, AI Moats, Never-Ending Games, and Anime. We asked over 40 partners across a16z to preview one big idea they believe will drive innovation in 2024. Here in our 3-part series, you’ll hear directly from partners across all our verticals, as we dive even more deeply into these ideas. What’s the why now? Who is already building in these spaces? What opportunities and challenges are on the horizon? And how can you get involved?

Despite the ease of product building, sustainable growth has become increasingly challenging as many traditional channels no longer deliver the same results. In these challenging times, we explore the remaining growth opportunities. How can we achieve a balance between efficiency, profitability, and growth? Which channels are still relevant and how can they be effectively mastered in 2023? Join us as we discuss these questions with three seasoned experts who have successfully navigated similar confusing times in the past: Gina Gotthilf, leading Latitud and renowned for her impressive tenure as the VP of Growth at Duolingo; Kieran Flanagan, a long-time SVP of Marketing at HubSpot; and Bryan Kim, Consumer GP at a16z, who held various leadership roles during Snap's hypergrowth phase up to its IPO.

Field Notes is a video podcast series on consumer tech by a16z. Connie Chan talks to former Vogue publisher Susan Plagemann of WME Fashion about editorial and social strategy.

Field Notes is a new video podcast series on consumer tech. Host Connie Chan and Poshmark cofounder Tracy Sun talk live-shopping, resale, and AI.

A few weeks ago, Apple released a stunning statistic: they’ve paid developers over $320B — yes, billion! — since the launch of the App Store in 2008, highlighting the cast opportunity in the marketplace. And around the same time, a16z Consumer Partner, Olivia Moore, compiled a list of the top apps across the US app store throughout 2022. In this episode, you’ll get to hear which apps made it to the top and what they have in common. Hint: the big winners were in social, but perhaps a new wave of social apps! We also get the scoop on what it really takes to not just hit #1, but stay there. This episode highlights numerous surprising examples ranging from a new-age Beanie Baby app, a viral talking dog, an app from 2012 that finally broke the top 10, and the Chinese app that’s been at #1 for a majority of 2023, and it’s not TIkTok! There are endless learnings about how new founders can take advantage of these opportunities.

To celebrate the LA community and the city's growth, A16Z recently hosted Time to Build Los Angeles, an event where we invited LA-based investors, founders, and operators from across a diverse range of industries to talk...

There's been a false dichotomy in technology and management lore over the past decade, between "brain" and "brawn", digital and physical, independence and interdependence, software culture versus industrial culture… Whether you're an early startup or a Fortune 500 company, today's leaders have to think completely differently, in terms of ecosystems; and they're often in the position of having to influence but not have control. So where and when to partner, when to go it alone?

The rise of developers -- as buyers, as influencers, as a creative class -- is a direct result of "software eating the world", since every company is a tech company (whether they know it or not). Developers are therefore the key to solving business problems and to thriving not just surviving, argues Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio, in his new book, Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century. Lawson shares hard-earned lessons learned, mindsets, and tactics -- from "build vs. buy" to "build vs. die", to the art and science ("mitosis") of small teams -- for leaders and companies of all sizes and kinds.

How come things like healthcare, education, and housing get more and more expensive, but things like socks, shoes, and electronics all get cheaper and cheaper? In this episode of Bio Eats World, a16z founder and internet...

The story of textiles IS the story, history, and evolution of technology and science (across all kinds of fields, from biology to chemistry); of commerce (as well as management, measurement, machines); but most of all, of civilization (vs. just culture) itself. That's what Virginia Postrel's new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World is all about. But it is in fact a story of innovation, of human ingenuity... which is also the theme of the a16z Podcast.

Millennials and Gen Z have been hard-hit by the one-two punch of the 2008 and 2020 financial crises. That experience has radically shaped their approach to finances and their mindset around credit and debt. This episode explores how fintech founders are now designing products tailored to the financial challenges of younger consumers, from managing and avoiding student loans to building credit to saving and budgeting apps.

In one of our special "2x" episodes of 16 Minutes (32ish minutes;) -- our show where we quickly cover the headlines and tech trends, offering analysis, frameworks, explainers, and more -- we cover the algorithm that powers TikTok, the short video-sharing platform that grabbed massive marketshare in cultures and markets never experienced firsthand by the engineers and designers in China, beating out other apps in the United States. Now, with talk of U.S. ownership/partnership for TikTok, what happens if the algorithm isn't included in the deal? And what can we learn from the "creativity network effects" flywheel of TikTok; for "algorithm friendly" product design; and more broadly, about the future of video?

This episode explores the process and economics behind creating an independent newsletter. In this candid conversation, host Lauren Murrow talks with four Substack writers—an artist, a technologist, a journalist, and a clinical researcher-turned-psychedelics scholar—about how to find and foster an audience, the calculus behind going paid versus unpaid, the pressure to produce, and financial benchmarks for making a living from newsletter writing.

For better or for worse, we tell the stories of entrepreneurs as one of the mythical hero's journey: that's there's a call, a test, a destination... But are we indulging in hero worship or failure porn? Where does and doesn't optimism come in for building? Storytelling IS business -- whether it's a company or a community or a product or a movement -- and is not just about the stories we tell others but the ones we tell ourselves.

A wide-ranging Q&A all about education, from the purpose, past, and present of education; the economics of education (student loans & the debt crisis, government funding, cost disease, accreditation capture); tradeoffs of "hard" and "soft" degrees; and whether or not to drop out and go straight to field or startup. What's the best advice for students and others contemplating change in their careers... how do you get noticed?

This episode is all about education and technology, a topic that’s especially top of mind this week as students in much of the country return to school—virtually. The intersection of learning and technology has been accelerated by the pandemic, but the debate around education's "disruption," and what that means for educators doing the hands-on work of teaching, has been swirling for years.

Communities are everything, but the word "members" is faceless. What if there's a better, more modern way to understand, support, and design for communities of all kinds -- whether open source, passion economy, or other groups coming together? Nadia Eghbal offers the latest research and insights from her new book, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software... but it's not all participatory, and it's not all public, either.

Gross margins are one of the most important financial metrics for any startup, but figuring out what does and doesn't go into them as a company grows is not as simple as it sounds. In this episode, we discuss why and when margins matter, and how they evolve along the way.

This episode is the second in a two-part series that examines the pandemic’s impact on real estate. This episode, Part 2, focuses on the fallout for renters and landlords.

This episode is the first in a two-part series that examines the pandemic’s impact on real estate. Part 1 focuses on prospective home buyers, sellers, and existing homeowners. Part 2 (streaming on 6/17) addresses renters and landlords. How has social distancing shaken up the market to buy? What’s the ripple effect of eviction freezes and a record number of homes in forbearance? And how can tech streamline the inefficient process of renting, buying, and selling a home?

Given recent events around George Floyd and far beyond, this special episode of the a16z Podcast features Shaka Senghor, a leading advocate for criminal justice reform (and bestselling author), and Terry Brown, a former...

Today’s episode is about a practical application of crypto — namely, the way it can “tokenize” fandom. More broadly, it’s about fan engagement, and the increasingly blurred lines between sports, culture and tech.

The Passion Economy -- where online platforms enable people to make a living off their unique interests and skills -- is a trend that's become increasingly relevant as the demand for virtual work grows.

Zoom has not only experienced unprecedented, rapid growth (from 10M to 200M daily active users) due to the coronavirus pandemic and shelter-in-place -- but is also seeing a shift in use cases from primarily enterprise to more consumer as well. At the same time, there have been several security issues and concerns around Zoom, including "zoombombing" porn; home-grown encryption; and key-management systems, servers, and engineers in China. What's hype/what's real in the headlines here? In this episode of 16 Minutes, a16z general partner David Ulevitch (former SVP/GM at Cisco), and operating partner for security Joel de la Garza (former CSO of Box) break it all down in 16+ minutes with Sonal Chokshi. What does it all mean for related tech trends in bottom-up SaaS -- from user onboarding and the flip side of "earning the right to be complicated" to pricing & packaging -- as well as for open source; and cloud security, particularly when it comes to video?

A robot lawyer that helps people automatically fight bureaucracy to get money back, find hidden money, or sue others/ go to small claims court. Also now helps people delay utility bills and rent payments that are eligible for an extension or waiver of late fees due to the coronavirus crisis.

A home care company and network of home care agencies that cares for elders and also puts caregivers at the center.

A hiring platform for nurses in the U.S. used by hospitals and health systems that helps hospitals find nurses faster, offers free continuing education to nurses everywhere, and puts nurses at the center.

The spike in online ordering and food delivery—a trend that's particularly relevant now—is evidence of how tech is fundamentally changing how and what we eat. In this conversation between Virtual Kitchen Co. CEO Ken Chong, Snackpass CEO Kevin Tan, a16z general parter Andrew Chen, and host Lauren Murrow, we discuss what's driving this transformation, as well as its implications for the future of dining and cooking. Is this the end of the traditional restaurant experience as we know it?

We discuss the rise of remote work amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, and the platforms powering our newly homebound workforce (and student body) including creative use cases for video conferencing and streaming.

The idea of "1000 true fans" argued that to be a successful creator, you don’t need millions of customers or clients, as long as you also have a direct relationship with those fans. But how is media changing today as a result, and what nuances do people often miss about the concept? And why are we apparently surrendering our attention (whether to TV, books, or whatever) for only $3 an hour?!

A new ecosystem is forming around the direct relationship between consumers, content creators, and the tools and business models to facilitate all that. We're not just seeing this phenomenon in newsletters and podcasting, but also in people setting up e-commerce shops, video streaming, and more. Are the stars and the incentives finally aligned?

This episode of our news show teases apart what was just a concept, what's near from the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2020). Board partner Steven Sinofsky (in conversation with Sonal Chokshi) takes us on a quick tour of the based on his annual field trip report from the floor.

In this 19th episode of our news show, where we cover recent headlines from our vantage point in tech, we cover the following news items: 1) Recent moves to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) software including the White House's recent guidance (and op-ed from the U.S. CTO) on AI in general, as well as limits to exports of specific AI software that went into effect this week -- with operating partner Frank Chen (whose talk was cited in an earlier White House report); 2) Recent activity on the topic of negative interest rates as well as quantitative easing, given recent remarks (and paper) from former chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke -- with general partner Alex Rampell, who covers all things fintech.

For most of us, nurses are essentially the face of the healthcare system. In this episode, we take a look at the role of that unsung hero of healthcare, the nurse, from an industry level.

This is the 14th episode of 16 Minutes, our weekly-ish news show where we quickly cover the top headlines of the week, the a16z Podcast way: what’s real, what’s hype from our vantage point in tech. This week, we cover the following news -- with a16z experts general partner Julie Yoo and market dev partner Venkat Mocherla from the bio team, and former CSO/ a16z security operating partner Joel de la Garza.

This is the 13th episode of 16 Minutes, our weekly-ish news show where we quickly cover the top headlines of the week, the a16z Podcast way: what’s real, what’s hype from our vantage point in tech. This week, we cover the following news -- with a16z experts general partner Connie Chan and D'arcy Coolican from the consumer team, and former CSO/ a16z security operating partner Joel de la Garza.

From Fortnite to Untitled Goose Game, next-generation video games are unlike anything we've seen before. These are the tech trends turning gaming into a massive, culture-defining phenomenon.

It used to be that the only way for humanity to grow — and progress — was through destroying the environment. But is this interplay between human growth vs. environment really a zero-sum game? Even if it were true in history, is it true today? If capitalism is not responsible for environmental degradation, than who or what is? And where does (and doesn’t) technology come in? @pmarca and @smc90 interview MIT economist @amcafee about all this and more, given his new book, More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources — and What Happens Next.

Hustlin’ Tech is a new show (part of the a16z Podcast) that introduces the technology platforms -- and mindsets -- for everybody and anybody who has the desire, the talent, and the hustle to do great things. Read more ab...

Hustlin’ Tech is a new show (part of the a16z Podcast) that introduces the technology platforms -- and mindsets -- for everybody and anybody who has the desire, the talent, and the hustle to do great things. Read more ab...

Hustlin’ Tech is a new show (part of the a16z Podcast) that introduces the technology platforms -- and mindsets -- for everybody and anybody who has the desire, the talent, and the hustle to do great things. Read more ab...

This is episode #5 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech -- and share our experts' views on these trends as well.

This is episode #3 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech -- and share our experts' views on these trends as well. This week we do a short but deep dive on esports, given recent news of the inaugural Fortnite World Cup champion, and how this all fits into the broader trends in gaming, social networks, and the future of entertainment.

The exploration for and mining of certain metals has driven huge epochs of human civilization, from copper and iron to gold and diamonds. In this conversation, Kurt House, CEO and co-founder of KoBold Metals; John Thomps...

Laurene Powell Jobs is, among many other things, founder and President of the Emerson Collective -- the social impact firm she founded to drive change and reform through philanthropy, investing, and policy solutions. So...

What does Apple's recent event — in which a range of new services was announced, from Apple News Plus to Apple TV Plus to the Apple card — mean for the company's overall strategy and tactics? In this another of a16z's 'h...

When people talk about trends in education technology, they often focus on how to disrupt higher education in the U.S., whether it's about breaking free of the "signaling" factor of elite educations or how to shift educa...

When people talk about autonomous vehicles, we hear everything from "we're much closer than you think" to "we're much further than you think". So where are we, really, in the widespread reality of autonomous vehicles tod...

It's clear that all kinds of commerce companies and consumer products have been disrupted -- or enabled -- by tech. Yet for certain categories, like consumer packaged goods (CPG), it seems like tech hasn't changed things...

Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) puts the latest and greatest developments in consumer technology on display in Vegas. But beyond the excitement and the hype, what's really here -- or not here -- to stay?...

The past and future of marketplace startups -- where are we? Ever since eBay popularized an internet meeting place for buyers and sellers of, well, just about everything, we’ve been waiting for 100 other at-scale marketp...

This episode of the a16z Podcast features the rare combination of a16z co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in conversation, together, with economist Tyler Cowen (chair of economics at George Mason University and...

We're just now beginning to truly see the the first 'real' robots enter the home, from Roombas to toys to companions to... well, much more. How are humans beginning to forge relationships with these robotic devices (/ent...

There’s all sorts of interesting tech trends happening right now, including AI, VR/AR, self-driving cars and drones (as well as interesting stuff happening in verticals like healthcare and finance) — and there’s a lot also happening in seemingly more “mature” tech revolutions, such as mobile and cloud. But where are we now, really, with these shifts… and how does that inform how we think about the next couple decades?

In another of our hallway conversation episodes, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky talk all about Tesla (building on this post) -- and more broadly, the nature of disruption overall. How disruptive is Tesla really, and what exactly are they disrupting -- from the dashboard to car makers to vendors to energy source to autonomy overall?

In this hallway-style conversation episode of the a16z Podcast, Benedict Evans and a16z board partner Steven Sinofsky discuss Apple’s September 2018 keynote event and share their thoughts on the new innovations -- and le...

The "death of retail" in the face of e-commerce and tech disruption is a very real phenomenon, but what about the flip side of that story -- that is, retail thriving despite all odds?

The rise of zero-sum thinking -- which has come snapping back recently -- slows and even halts progress, observes Marc Andreessen. Because you're then dividing up a smaller piece, adds Ben Horowitz, instead of growing the pie altogether. This is true not just in economics, politics, and tech, but also in business relationships (and life), too.

We now live in a world where connecting the dots between intel and modeling threats has become infinitely more complex: not only is the surface area to protect larger than ever, but the entry points and issues are more d...

“The rules of the game are different in tech,” argues — and has long argued, despite his views not being accepted at first — W. Brian Arthur, technologist-turned-economist who first truly described the phenomenon of “positive feedbacks” in the economy or “increasing returns” (vs. diminishing returns) in the new world of business… a.k.a. network effects. A longtime observer of Silicon Valley and the tech industry, he’s seen how a few early entrepreneurs first got it, fewer investors embrace it, entire companies be built around it, and still yet others miss it… even today. In this hour-long episode of the a16z Podcast, we (Sonal Chokshi with Marc Andreessen) explore many of these questions with Arthur. His answers take us from “the halls of production” to the “casino of technology”; from the “prehistory” to the history of tech; from the invisible underground autonomy economy to the “internet of conversations”; from externally available information to externalized intelligence; and finally, from Silicon Valley to Singapore to China to India and back to Silicon Valley again. Who’s going to win; what are the chances of winning? We don’t know, because it’s a very different game… Do you still want to play?

Signaling and credential inflation -- not learning -- can explain why education pays in the labor market, and why we shouldn't invest (any more) in it, argues Bryan Caplan, economics professor at George Mason University...

Focusing only on the technical, "crunchy, wonky stuff" behind policies or products sometimes misses the humanity at the center of why we're doing the thing in the first place. Because systems -- whether algorithms and ar...

Now that we've finally reached the age of the truly autonomous commercial small drone -- and in this case, a self-flying camera -- what happens when you take the pilot out of the loop? And what becomes possible that wasn...

Once upon a time it was inconceivable that a company in Silicon Valley could make content that was any good; the running joke, shares Marc Andreessen, "was like, what are we gonna do -- we're gonna film a router instruct...

There was a lot of hype about VR ad then it seemed to go pretty quiet. So where are we right now? Bigscreen founder Darshan Shankar and a16z general partner Chris Dixon take the pulse on VR, AR, and mixed reality -- espe...

There's a new wave of bike-sharing in town. And this wave looks a little different than previous waves -- from docked rows of government-funded bikes to dockless fleets of bicycles where users can find and unlock bikes t...

As cars become more like iPhones and less like just, well, cars -- everything changes, from data to mapping to interfaces to security and more. How so? Where are we anyway, given all the hype around when self-driving car...

In this hallway conversation of the a16z Podcast, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky discuss CES 2018 and share insight on what they took from this year's show. How much can you discern each company's "big picture" strat...

We’re so used to thinking of “community” as our friends, families, and neighbors. But what a community is, and who it is made of, has changed thanks to the internet, and without our noticing it. What happens when online...

What capabilities do enterprise companies really want from their computers? Twenty years ago, those capabilities might've been bundled into a mainframe. Ten years ago, it might've been the PC. Today, as more and more bus...

Many of the big tech policy issues of the day play out more so at the state and local level, not just federal level. The decisions that cities and states make every day -- from autonomous vehicles to bike sharing -- may...

We've already talked quite a bit about the Algorithms, Machines, and People lab at U.C. Berkeley (AMPLab) -- all about making sense of big data -- so what happens when the entire world moves towards artificial intelligen...

We've already talked about why bitcoin matters. But as the set of cryptocurrencies -- and networks and "tokens" enabled by the underlying blockchain -- grow (Ethereum being one of the fastest-growing ones), where do we g...

In this episode, Wei Luo, founding COO of DeepMap -- who build HD maps for autonomous vehicles -- and David Rumsey, founder of the David Rumsey Map Collection (one of the largest paper private map collections in the worl...

Beyond the overly simplistic framing of trade as “good” or “bad” — by politicians, by Econ 101 — why is the topic of trade (or rather, economies and people adjusting to trade) so damn hard? A big part of it has to do with not seeing the human side of trade, let alone the big picture across time and place… as is true for many tech innovations, too.

We tend to talk about tech and parenting through devices and artifacts -- screen time, to code or not to code -- but actually, there's a bigger, macro picture at play there: game theory, economic incentives, culture, and...

In business, mistakes of omission may be just as bad as (if not worse than) mistakes of commission -- simply because of the loss in potential upside: new companies, new products, new opportunities for growth. Or even in...

What is "infrastructure" actually? In the 19th and 20th century, that usually meant the transportation systems supporting roadways, airports, trains... but we don't even really know yet what it might potentially mean in...

"When a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, shit happens." It's true of people, it's true of companies, and it's even more true of countries. It's also the fundamental insight captured by ancient Greek his...

Jeff Jordan, JD Moriarty, Sonal ChokshiThere are the things that you carefully plan — the who (the bankers); the what (the pricing); and the when. But then there are the things that you don’t plan: like a financial crisis.

This episode of the a16z Podcast takes us on a quick tour through the themes of economics/historian/journalist Marc Levinson‘s books — from An Extraordinary Time, on the end of the postwar boom and the return of the ordinary economy; to The Great A&P, on retail and the struggle for small business in America; all the way through to The Box, on how the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger.

Is a network — whether a crowd or blockchain-based entity — going to replace the firm anytime soon? Not yet, argue Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson in the new book Machine, Platform, Crowd. But that title is a bit misleading, because the real questions most companies and people wrestle with are more “machine vs. mind”, “platform vs. product”, and “crowd vs. core”. They’re really a set of dichotomies. We (Frank Chen and Sonal Chokshi) discuss all this and more with Brynjolfsson and McAfee, who also founded MIT’s Initiative on the Global Economy — and previously wrote the popular The Second Machine Age and Race Against the Machine. Maybe there’s a better way to stay ahead without having to run faster and faster just to stay in place like Alice in a tech Wonderland.

Turnabout is fair play: That's true in politics, and it's true at Andreessen Horowitz given our internal (and very opinionated!) culture of debate -- where we often agree to disagree, or more often, disagree to agree. So...

In this lively conversation -- from our recent a16z Tech Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. -- Axios' Dan Primack interviews a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen about the two major narratives dominating discussions about the...

In this hallway-style episode of the podcast, a16z partners Connie Chan and Kyle Russell discuss recent announcements at Facebook's annual developer conference, F8, in the context of trends such as: messaging and QR code...

In this episode of the a16z Podcast recorded at our inaugural Summit, Jonathan Downey, CEO of Airware, Grant Jordan, CEO of Skysafe, and Kyle Russell, partner at a16z, discuss our future with “eyes in the sky.”

Humans have always wanted to enhance themselves -- from getting nutrition just-right to optimizing their performance, whether in sports or health or work. And food is a big part of all that.

Imagine, for a moment, an alternative universe: One where Netflix got disrupted by some other streaming-content company that made its DVD rental business irrelevant. But that's just a counterfactual. What happened instea...

Evolution and technology have allowed our human species to manipulate the physical environment around us — reshaping fields into cities, redirecting rivers to irrigate farms, domesticating wild animals into captive food sources, conquering disease. But now, we’re turning that “innovative gaze” inwards: which means the main products of the 21st century will be bodies, brains, and minds. Or so argues Yuval Harari, author of the bestselling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind and of the book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, in this episode of the a16z Podcast.

Thanks to freeways, cities became something to get through instead of something to get to. Now, as the next transportation revolution -- from rivers to trains to cars to autonomous cars -- promises to change the face of...

WaveForms AI is training an end-to-end audio language model with the goal of solving the speech Turing test — an AI that feels like talking to a human.

An external "AI brain." Big swings in biopharma. Infinite games. A nuclear resurgence. "Faceless" creators. Google search challengers. Battlefield AI. We asked 50 a16z partners to preview one big idea that will spur innovation in 2025.

AI voice assistants for the freight industry. Customers are using Happyrobot for both inbound and outbound calls, including load updates, check calls, and carrier sales negotiations. 

[untitled] is building the new operating system for musicians. Users can upload, organize, and even edit their music on mobile with AI-powered features.

I’ve been using ChatGPT like a daily journal to translate my innermost thoughts and feelings into a readily understandable format. I've been blown away by the results.

As the market-leading AI scribe for veterinarians, Scribenote automates burdensome documentation requirements.

We crunched the data to find out: Which gen AI apps are people actually using? And which are they returning to, versus dabbling and dropping?

Artists are at the forefront of the AI platform shift. As new high fidelity tools emerge along the creative stack, technology is extending the impact of filmmakers, designers, animators, illustrators, photographers, and multimedia artists.

Now is the time to reinvent the phone call. Thanks to gen AI, humans will spend time on the phone only when a call has value to them.

The stakes are high. The opportunities are profound. From the creation of new medicines to bolstering national defense, this is our vision for the AI-enabled future.

There’s likely a whole category of non-AI companies and products that can FINALLY exist *because of the productivity gains of AI.*

AI-native consumer products should consider user retention a core metric, and the following boosters can help founders build it.

Thousands of new AI-native companies are vying for attention. We crunched the data to find out: Which generative AI products are people actually using?

We predict an Era of Abundance — lives will be enriched through new channels for creativity, along with new paths to self discovery and belonging.

2023 was a breakout year for AI video. At the start of the year, no public text-to-video models existed, and there's a lot to come.

Generative AI offers founders an opportunity to completely reinvent workflows — and will spawn a new cohort of fully AI-native companies.

What will it take for AI to go mainstream with consumers? Effective model aggregation, a better UI, and a powerful platform for creators. Enter Poe.

Every new platform changes how and where transactions happen. Now, we believe gen AI will be the latest revolution in marketplaces.

Smart energy grids. Voice-first companion apps. Programmable medicines. AI tools for kids.
We asked over 40 partners across a16z to preview one big idea they believe will drive innovation in the coming year.

In April, the first viral AI cover dropped. More innovation in music and generative AI is coming, and here's what it might look like.

Insights from leaders at OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, Databricks, Character.AI, Roblox, insitro, and Figma on where we are, where we're going, and the open questions for building the next wave of AI.

Jeff Jordan reminisces about his decision to back the start-up Instacart, as the grocery giant prepares to go public.

To see how people are interacting with generative AI, we used data to rank the top 50 GenAI web products by monthly visits.

Thanks to generative AI, the much-discussed topic of “self-driving money” finally has a chance to achieve its potential.

Chatbots have been around for decades, but this time is different. Today’s bots are making inroads into our social lives.

In a world of retweets, upvotes, and right swipes, studies show that many of us still feel lonely. Thanks to generative AI, we potentially have a new solution: companion chatbots.

"When we reviewed their initial ramp-up plan, our jaws dropped."

At a16z, marketplaces represent one of our favorite business models. Our annual Marketplace 100 provides insight into the latest consumer marketplace trends across industries.

General Partner Connie Chan on how leading brands are using AI and other technology to combine the serendipitous discovery of offline shopping with the infinite options of online shopping.

Travel is a trillion-dollar industry stuck in the past. The last major breakthrough came in the 1990s, with the emergence of online travel agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com and Expedia to aggregate inventory. Unless you h...

When a new social app starts to "work," it feels like magic, but often looks like a black box.

The a16z Marketplace 100 stacks up the largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. In this, our fourth annual ranking, the data revealed some of the most interesting takeaways to date.

If leveraged well, AI has the potential to greatly enhance students’ abilities to think critically and expand their soft skills.

We’ve entered the age of generative AI. When new technology captures consumer attention so quickly, it begs the question: Is there real value here?

Temu is one of the most downloaded ecommerce apps in the US. Learn the elements of this social shopping app’s retail model and why it’s winning the moment.

A Super App is a multiuse application that can perform the functions of many programs in one. Learn about current examples of Super Apps.

From entertainment franchise games to the precision delivery of medicines, small modular reactors to loads of AI applications, here are 40+ builder-worthy pursuits for 2023.

There's much more to generative AI than heroic avatars and tongue-in-cheek art. The potential applications are widespread, from drug discovery and therapy to writing, game development, education, ecommerce, and more. Las...

Online platforms are passionately hoping that paid membership models may be a new answer to existing advertising revenue ceilings. After all, at $3-5 per member a month, the revenue is sure to add up — or does it?

It’s no secret today’s young people prefer searching for recommendations on video apps over text-based search engines. Even the executives at Google know this. SVP Prabhakar Raghavan recently said that according to the c...

As we enter the third school year of the Covid era, a disturbing new normal is settling over the country. Students continue to be chronically absent; nearly 50,000 Los Angeles public school students failed to show up on...

It’s time for your startup to fundraise. You prepare a deck, practice your pitch, and start reaching out to investors. If a first meeting goes well, it often ends with a request to share your “data room.” But what is a d...

Imagine you’re running a marketplace startup — let’s call it ACo — that allows consumers to sell spare items they have around the house. You notice after a few months that only 25% of your new sellers are coming back eac...

Creator economy is a buzzy, often catchall term used to describe independent contractors. But in reality, most of the innovation has revolved around passion-project content (Substack for writing, Teachable for courses, e...

Early in the COVID pandemic, my colleague D’Arcy Coolican and I penned “COVID-19 and the Great Rehiring”. The premise of the piece was that the magnitude of the disruption to employment during the pandemic would require...

The a16z Marketplace 100 series explores the startups and trends behind largest and fastest-growing marketplace companies. See the complete ranking at a16z.com/marketplace-100

The Marketplace 100 is rooted in numbers—the data behind companies' growth and GMV. But spreadsheets ultimately convey an incomplete view of a startup’s success. The core of every company is the people building it and co...

The a16z Marketplace 100 series explores the startups and trends behind largest and fastest-growing marketplace companies. See the complete ranking at a16z.com/marketplace-100.

The a16z Marketplace 100 series explores the companies and trends behind largest and fastest-growing marketplace companies. See more at a16z.com/marketplace-100.

We worked hard this year to help tease apart what was hype/ what was real when it came to the buzz and noise around tech trends in the news this year (!) on our podcast show “16 Minutes.” To do so, we went beyond the hea...

From gaming to edtech, marketplaces to social+, these were the most-read consumer tech posts of the year.

We all shop for different reasons. We shop out of necessity and utility, of course. But for some of us, shopping also evokes joy, comfort, validation, even stress relief. And increasingly, I believe we’ll shop as a form...

An innovative new wave of social networks has arrived—from audio-first apps to social gaming to the countless consumer apps built with social in their DNA.

Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

There’s one rule of thumb that’s proven true over and over again: the best version of every consumer product is the one that’s intrinsically social.

The back-to-school season has been a challenging process for teachers, parents, and students across the country. While some have embraced the freedom of learning at their own pace (in their own space), many have struggle...

Today’s episode, part two in our two-part series on the Creator Economy, focuses on the new potential revenue streams and fan-engagement models opened up by emerging decentralized technology. It's a new type of fan club,...

AI has enormous potential to disrupt markets that have traditionally been out of reach for software. These markets – which have relied on humans to navigate natural language, images, and physical space – represent a huge...

In normal times, every company operates against some hypothetical growth model—a data-driven framework that describes how your product grows and how you acquire new users. These, of course, are not normal times. In the f...

Lots of outstanding programs and resources exist to help founders learn about building tech startups. We wanted to create a course detailing what’s different about building in crypto.

Primary care was meant to be the front door to the healthcare system: the one-stop-shop we rely on for all of our general healthcare needs, and to help us navigate the rest of the convoluted care delivery ecosystem.

Every Western institution was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, despite many prior warnings. This monumental failure of institutional effectiveness will reverberate for the rest of the decade, but it's not too ear...

As the shelter-in-place restrictions have tethered many people to their homes, livestreaming—broadcasting user-created video in real time—has skyrocketed. Platforms like Twitch, Caffeine, YouTube Live, and Facebook have...

This week, we published the a16z Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. See the full index and analysis here, and visit a16z.com/marketpl...

This week, we published the a16z Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. See the full index and analysis here, and visit a16z.com/marketpl...

This week, we published the a16z Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. See the full index and analysis here, and visit a16z.com/marketpl...

More than a decade ago, Wired editor Kevin Kelly wrote an essay called “1,000 True Fans,” predicting that the internet would allow large swaths of people to make a living off their creations, whether an artist, musician,...

You can’t let anyone define you. That’s a mantra Ambassador Susan Rice lives by. From becoming the youngest assistant secretary of state to her role as US Ambassador to the United Nations, she’s learned what it means to...

Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday in Chinese culture, is traditionally celebrated with family gatherings, fireworks, a national TV show with over a billion viewers, and gifted red envelopes (stuffed with money). For...

Get ready for seamless video shopping, more audio-first experiences, software creeping into our physical world, and the rise of super apps.

The Passion Economy is growing by the day. From writers launching newsletters on Substack to influencers-turned-designers on Pietra, more people are taking advantage of digital platforms to make money off their unique sk...

This is a written version of a presentation I gave live at the a16z Summit in November 2019. You can watch a video version on YouTube.

Banking on the Future: Why our most hated institutions will become our most beloved

Platforms vs. Verticals and the Next Great Unbundling

This post, part 1 of 2, explains how platforms can help influencers monetize through digital goods and ecommerce. Part 2 will focus on platform memberships sold directly to end users.

Many skeptics thought the internet would never reach mass adoption, but today it’s shaping global culture, is integral to our lives -- and it's just the beginning. In this conversation from our 2019 innovation summit, Ke...

In the future, we’re all going to be shopping on video apps like TikTok. Whether you’re buying instant noodles or high-end sweaters, it has become increasingly clear that short video clips are the future of ecommerce. Th...

I sometimes think that if you could look in the safe behind Jeff Bezos’ desk, instead of the sports almanac from Back to the Future you’d find an Encyclopedia of Retail, written in maybe 1985. There would be Post-It note...

Editor’s note: It’s Summit Week at a16z, so each day we’re re-sharing some of our favorite talks from the last few years. a16z Summit is an annual, invite-only event bringing together thinkers, builders, and innovators t...

Editor’s note: It’s Summit Week at a16z, so each day we’re re-sharing some of our favorite talks from the last few years. a16z Summit is an annual, invite-only event bringing together thinkers, builders, and innovators t...

China's mobile payment ecosystem, the largest in the world, is built upon QR codes. But that technology extends far beyond shopping to ease friction throughout daily life. On a recent trip to China, I personally interact...

The top-earning writer on the paid newsletter platform Substack earns more than $500,000 a year from reader subscriptions. The top content creator on Podia, a platform for video courses and digital memberships, makes mor...

I love reading -- learning new things, taking in new information -- whether via books, podcast, video, news, comics, or other form. And while I very much enjoy the feel and smell of physical books, lately, I’m far more l...