About Time to Build: Los Angeles
As part of LA Tech Week, join Andreessen Horowitz for an invite-only event featuring speakers from across the local startup and investor ecosystems.
Through a mixture of fireside conversations, small panels, and networking, we will explore what makes Los Angeles unique as a headquarters, how to successfully bridge the many industries rooted here, and what we can all do to keep Los Angeles thriving as one of the fastest growing tech hubs in the US.
Programming will be followed by an evening reception.
RSVP using the email address where you received this invitation. Confirmation details will be sent upon registration approval.
Agenda
Content Sessions
2:00–5:00PM PT
Conversation and panels on the State of LA, Investing in LA, Building Better Factories, Building Community Marketplaces, Building the Games of the Future, the Art of the Deal and more!
Reception
5:00–8:00PM PT
Speakers
Bio
Andrew Chen is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he invests in consumer technology, including social, marketplace, entertainment, and gaming experiences. Today, Andrew serves on the boards of All Day Kitchens, Clubhouse, Envoy, Hipcamp, Maven, Reforge, SandboxVR, Singularity6, Sleeper, Snackpass, and Substack.
Andrew is a prolific writer and leading voice on mobile, metrics, and user growth. For the past decade, he’s covered the topic on andrewchen.com. He is the author of The Cold Start Problem, which explores how new start-ups launch and scale by leveraging network effects. He is also a board member and instructor at Reforge, which offers selective growth-focused programs for experienced professionals in marketing, product, data, and engineering.
Prior to joining a16z, Andrew led the Rider Growth teams at Uber.
Andrew holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington.
Bio
Ariel Emanuel is Chief Executive Officer of Endeavor (NYSE: EDR), a global sports and entertainment company comprised of industry-leading brands including WME, IMG and UFC.
After co-founding the original Endeavor talent agency in 1995, Emanuel orchestrated the largest talent agency merger in history in 2009 when Endeavor joined forces with William Morris to form WME. WME now represents leading talent across books, culinary, digital, film, music, television and theater.
In 2012, WME forged a strategic partnership with Silver Lake, a global leader in private investments in technology. In 2014, WME and Silver Lake acquired premier sports, fashion, events and media company IMG, and in 2016, the company acquired UFC®, the world’s premier professional mixed martial arts (MMA) organization. One year later, Emanuel announced the formation of a holding company for his global portfolio, Endeavor. Since then, Endeavor has been named one of Inc.’s Fastest Growing Companies in America and one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. The company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021.
A graduate of Macalester College, Emanuel began his career at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and went on to become a senior agent at InterTalent and International Creative Management (ICM). Emanuel is an associate member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. Additionally, Emanuel has been named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, one of Fortune’s Businesspersons of the Year and one of Sport Business Journal’s 50 Most Influential People in Sports.
Bio
Connie Chan is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where she focuses on investing in consumer technology. Connie joined the firm in 2011 as a deal partner on the investment team before becoming a general partner in 2018. She serves on the boards of Cider, Whatnot, and KoBold.
Before joining Andreessen Horowitz, Connie worked at HP leading its webOS efforts in China. She started her career as a private equity investor at Elevation Partners, investing in media and entertainment.
Connie is well-known across Silicon Valley for her deep knowledge of the Chinese consumer technology landscape and is often tapped as an expert to translate how trends may move from Asia to the west.
Connie won a Sidney award for her writing on WeChat and is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. She received her B.A. in Economics and M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
Bio
Grant LaFontaine is the CEO and co-founder of Whatnot, the fastest growing marketplace in the US. Whatnot is a live and social commerce marketplace where you can buy, sell and go live selling things like Funko Pops, sports cards, luxury purses, sneakers and more.
Bio
Jonathan Lai is a general partner on the consumer team, investing in games, crypto, and social. Today, Jonathan serves on the board of Singularity 6, Elodie, Mainframe Industries, Overwolf, Mountaintop, and StarStock.
Before joining Andreessen Horowitz, Jonathan led the North America games investments team at Tencent. Prior, Jon was a senior product manager at Riot Games, the developers of League of Legends, where he shipped the Riot Games API before the company was acquired by Tencent. He started his career in investment banking for Morgan Stanley.
Jonathan graduated from Harvard University with an MBA and BA in Economics, and lives in the Bay Area with his family.
Bio
Marc Andreessen is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is an innovator and creator, one of the few to pioneer a software category used by more than a billion people and one of the few to establish multiple billion-dollar companies.
Marc co-created the highly influential Mosaic internet browser and co-founded Netscape, which later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. He also co-founded Loudcloud, which as Opsware, sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. He later served on the board of Hewlett-Packard from 2008 to 2018.
Marc holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Marc serves on the board of the following Andreessen Horowitz portfolio companies: Applied Intuition, Carta, Dialpad, Honor, OpenGov, and Samsara. He is also on the board of Facebook.
Bio
Minnie Ingersoll is a partner at TenOneTen and host of the LA Venture podcast. TenOneTen is a venture fund based in LA investing in early stage software and data companies.
Prior to TenOneTen, Minnie was the COO and co-founder of Shift Technologies (Nasdaq : SFT), an online marketplace for used cars. Minnie started her career as an early product manager at Google. She studied Computer Science at Stanford and has an MBA from HBS. In her spare time, Minnie surfs baby waves and raises baby people.
Bio
Sriram Krishnan is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he invests in early stage consumer startups. Today, Sriram serves on the boards of Bitski, Hopin, and Polywork.
Prior to joining a16z, Sriram held numerous senior product roles. Most recently, he led core consumer teams at Twitter where he was responsible for products including the home timeline, new user experience, search, discovery, and audience growth. Before this, Sriram created and oversaw various mobile ad products for both Snap and Facebook, including Snap’s Direct Response ads business and the Facebook Audience Network, one of the largest networks in display advertising.
Sriram started his career at Microsoft where he touched numerous projects related to Windows Azure. He is the author of “Programming Windows Azure” published by O’Reilly.
Sriram writes actively at @sriramk on Twitter and at sriramk.com. Along with his wife, he also co-hosts The Good Time Show on Clubhouse, a nightly show through which they interview innovators around tech and culture.
Bio
Timmu Tõke is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ready Player Me, a cross-game avatar platform for the metaverse used by 3000 companies. Ready Player Me makes avatars interoperable across thousands of virtual worlds and gives developers a plug-and-play avatar system to save time and generate revenue with avatars.
Bio
Turner is the founder of Banana Capital where he invests globally in technology companies as early as the pre-seed stage.
