Cultural Leadership Fund

The Cultural Leadership Fund
- Connect the greatest cultural leaders in the world to the best new technology companies.
- Enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry.
To accomplish this, we created a new fund with Limited Partners who are exclusively cultural leaders, with all of the fees and carry associated with this fund being donated to non-profit organizations that enable more African Americans to enter the technology industry.
In the early days of the technology industry, there was no thought about consumers, because consumers were not our customers. The first computer was sold to the United States government and in general we sold technology to technologists trying to build solutions to difficult problems. Tom Watson, the founder of IBM, famously said in 1943 that the worldwide market for computers was 5. While that seems impossible in retrospect, at the time computers were exceptionally expensive, hard to use, and difficult to sell. Logically, this meant that the industry built technology for people in priority order of how much money they had — first to governments, then to big business, then to small business and almost never to consumers. One could see this in popular culture as James Bond had all kinds of cool technology gadgets that consumers could only dream about.
This changed slightly with the advent of the PC, but the consumer market was still relatively small compared to the government and business markets. Once the Internet and then the smartphone hit the scene, the economics reversed themselves: technology became cheap, easy to use, and often free to distribute. As a result, new technologies now go to markets in priority of their size — first to consumers then to small businesses then to big businesses and finally to governments. And now James Bond just uses a smartphone.
As a result, consumer behavior — in other words, culture — has become central to successfully building, marketing, and selling new technologies.
In the meanwhile, one group of people has been responsible for more cultural influence than any other and perhaps all other groups combined. African Americans invented all modern forms of music from jazz to blues to rock and roll to hip hop. In the United States, most fashion, dance, and language innovation has come from this relatively small community. This is especially significant, because worldwide no culture influenced consumer behavior more than U.S. culture.
So, when we started the firm in 2009, it made logical sense to us that as software eats the world and technology’s primary target audience becomes consumers we would focus on this unique talent pool. In the early days, this meant hiring African Americans in the firm and backing the best African American entrepreneurs.
Still, we felt that we were leaving opportunity on the table in two important dimensions. First, we had not systematically partnered with the established cultural leaders and second, we were not increasing the number of African Americans entering the technology business. We created the Andreessen Horowitz Cultural Leadership Fund to address both issues.
The basic goals of the CLF are twofold:
- Connect the greatest cultural leaders in the world to the best new technology companies.
- Enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry.
To accomplish this, we created a new fund with Limited Partners who are exclusively cultural leaders including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Shonda Rhimes, Will and Jada Smith, Quincy Jones, Kevin Durant, Chance the Rapper, Nasir Jones, Will Packer, Charles Phillips, Edith Cooper, John Thompson, Robin Washington, Richelieu Dennis, Shellye Archambeau, and more. The fund was raised by our partner Chris Lyons. He will invest it in companies in the Andreessen Horowitz portfolio who are interested in partnering with the cultural leaders who invested in the fund. All of the fees and carry associated with the fund will be donated to non-profit organizations that enable African Americans to enter the technology industry. Together, we hope to unite cultural and technology leaders to facilitate a better future for everyone
Join the CLF Network
The CLF Network connects Black professionals to people and early-stage companies in tech. By joining the network, you'll have access to events, build meaningful relationships, and hear about open roles in our portfolio. You can sign-up for our newsletter, too.
Portfolio
Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described on this page are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. Exits include current and former a16z portfolio companies which have been acquired as well as companies which have undergone an initial public offering or direct public offering of shares. Certain publicly traded companies on this list may still be held in Andreessen Horowitz funds. A list of investments made by funds managed by a16z is available here: https://a16z.com/investments/. Excluded from this list are investments for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets. Further, the list of investments is updated monthly and as such may not reflect most recent a16z investments. Past results of Andreessen Horowitz’s investments, pooled investment vehicles, or investment strategies are not necessarily indicative of future results.
Popular CLF Content
Building a Better, Blacker Tech Pipeline
a16z Podcast: The Next Generation of Cultural Influencers in Tech
Introducing the Cultural Leadership Fund Non-Profit Partners
a16z Podcast: The Power of Restorative Justice
To see the full library of a16z Cultural Leadership Fund-related content, click here.