a16z Podcast: What Technology Wants, Needs, Does
Frank Chen, Vijay Pande, Alex Rampell, and Marc Andreessen
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 special “turnabout” episode of the a16z Podcast, co-founder Marc Andreessen, who is most often in the hot seat being interviewed, got the chance to instead grill fellow partners Frank Chen (who covers AI and much more), Vijay Pande (who covers healthcare for the bio fund), and Alex Rampell (who covers all things fintech).
None of the partners had any idea what Marc would ask them. Putting them in the hot seat at our recent a16z Tech Policy Summit, in Washington, D.C., Marc asked them policy questions such as the implications for tech of the American Health Care Act or AHCA (which itself was being hotly debated that exact same day, just a few miles away); the role of regulatory arbitrage; and what happens to companies big and small if Dodd-Frank is repealed.
Oh, but they also covered so much more: the pros and cons of using tech to “discriminate” for better risk pooling; the role of genetics in addiction (can/should it be used to determine risk?); the opioid crisis (can tech help?); applying AI as a “salve” for everything (what’s hyped, what’s real, what’s easy, what’s hard?); the line between redlining and predatory lending (and where/when did sentiment flip?); and the ethics of artificial intelligence (beyond the ole Trolley Problem). Throw in a classic nature vs. nurture debate, a bit of 2-D vs. 3-D, and some fries (yes)… and the future arrives in this episode in 35 minutes or less.
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Frank Chen heads our Early Stage Venture (ESV) Programs team and is responsible for developing company-building enablement products.
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Vijay Pande is the founding general partner of the Bio + Health team at Andreessen Horowitz, focused on the cross-section of biology and computer science.
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Alex Rampell is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm’s $1 billion Apps practice.
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Marc Andreessen is a Cofounder and General Partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
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More About This Podcast
The a16z Podcast discusses the most important ideas within technology with the people building it. Each episode aims to put listeners ahead of the curve, covering topics like AI, energy, genomics, space, and more.