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AI + a16z
30 episodes
How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Cybersecurity | Truffle Security & Socket
Ep 104 · Aug 7, 2026 · 24 min
Joel De La Garza is joined by Dylan Ayrey, co-founder and CEO of Truffle Security, and Feross Aboukhadijeh, founder and CEO of Socket, to discuss one of the biggest shifts happening in cybersecurity: AI models are no longer just finding vulnerabilities—they're exploiting them. As frontier models become increasingly capable of hacking, software security, supply chain attacks, and cyber defense are entering a fundamentally new era. The conversation explores AI-powered hacking, software supply chai…
Inside vLLM: The Engine Powering Open-Source AI
Ep 103 · Aug 6, 2026 · 47 min
Elena Burger and Matt Bornstein are joined by Simon Mo, co-founder and CEO of Inferact, the open-source inference engine powering many of today's most advanced AI applications. Together, they explore how open-source AI evolved from a research project into critical infrastructure, why inference has become one of the most important layers of the AI stack, and what it takes to bring frontier intelligence to developers around the world. The conversation covers vLLM's origins, the rise of open-weight…
Building Self-Accelerating AI with Mirendil
Ep 102 · Jun 24, 2026 · 41 min
Matt Bornstein speaks with Mirendil cofounders Behnam Neyshabur and Harsh Mehta about their vision for building self-accelerating AI. After leading research efforts at Google and Anthropic, the founders started Mirendil around a simple question: what happens when AI systems can meaningfully contribute to their own development? Rather than focusing solely on AI as a tool for productivity, they argue that the most important application may be accelerating scientific and technological progress itse…
Ideogram’s Open-Weights Image Model and the Future of AI Design
Ep 101 · Jun 15, 2026 · 43 min
Yoko Li and Justine Moore speak with Ideogram founder and CEO Mohammad Norouzi about image generation models, design workflows, and the evolving relationship between AI and creative work. The conversation covers Ideogram's decision to release an open-weight model, the challenges of generating text and layouts within images, and why controllability has become an increasingly important area of research. They discuss prompting, customization, editing, and the tradeoffs between general-purpose model…
Building Search for AI Agents with Exa CEO Will Bryk
Ep 100 · Jun 4, 2026 · 50 min
Sarah Wang speaks with Exa cofounder and CEO Will Bryk about building search infrastructure for the AI era. The conversation covers Exa’s origins, why traditional search engines were not designed for AI agents, and how search changes when the user is no longer a human but an autonomous system. They discuss retrieval, agent workflows, coding agents, data access, and why search may become a foundational layer for the emerging agent economy. Along the way, Bryk shares his views on AI-native product…
AI Agents and the Fight for Customer Data
Ep 99 · Jun 2, 2026 · 51 min
Martin Casado speaks with George Fraser, cofounder and CEO of Fivetran, about the future of data infrastructure in the age of AI. The conversation covers Fivetran’s merger with dbt, the changing role of data platforms, and why Fraser believes many companies are overestimating the threat AI poses to enterprise software. They discuss open data access, the backlash against AI agents accessing systems of record, and why businesses still need centralized data foundations even as agent-based workflows…
Ben Horowitz on AI Infrastructure, Economics and The New Laws of Software
Ep 98 · May 19, 2026 · 30 min
Recorded live at the a16z Fintech Connect conference in Deer Valley, Alex Rampell speaks with Ben Horowitz, cofounder and general partner at a16z, about how AI has rewritten the fundamental rules of software competition, why crypto infrastructure will become essential in an AI-dominated world, and what the future holds for venture capital. Follow Alex Rampell on X: https://twitter.com/arampell Follow Ben Horowitz on X: https://twitter.com/bhorowitz Check out everything a16z is doing with artific…
AI Infrastructure, Distribution, and the Next Wave of Software
Ep 97 · May 12, 2026 · 39 min
Sophie Buonassisi speaks with Jennifer Li, general partner at a16z, about why infrastructure is becoming one of the most important areas in AI. They discuss how the shift to AI-native systems is reshaping everything from storage and compute to developer tooling and orchestration. The conversation explores early insights from companies like ElevenLabs, why distribution has become the defining advantage in AI, and how founders can think about product, research, and go-to-market in a rapidly evolvi…
From Vector Databases to Knowledge Engines: The Next Layer of AI
Ep 96 · May 5, 2026 · 46 min
Peter Levine speaks with Ash Ashutosh, CEO of Pinecone, about the launch of Nexus and the shift from vector databases to knowledge engines. As agents become the primary users of software, they discuss why traditional retrieval systems break down and how AI systems need to evolve to support machine-to-machine interactions. The conversation explores how agents currently spend most of their time retrieving and reasoning over data, why that approach is inefficient, and how moving reasoning closer to…
Why We Need Continual Learning
Ep 95 · Apr 28, 2026 · 19 min
Elena Burger speaks with Malika Aubakirova, partner on the AI infrastructure team at a16z, about why today’s AI systems struggle to learn over time. They discuss the limits of in-context learning, the case for continual learning, and how models may need to evolve from static systems into ones that learn from experience. Resources: Follow Malika on X: https://x.com/MaikaThoughts Follow Elena on X: https://x.com/VirtualElena Read more on Why We Need Continual Learning: https://a16z.com/why-we-need…
The Agent Era: Building Software Beyond Chat with Box CEO Aaron Levie
Ep 94 · Apr 21, 2026 · 60 min
Erik Torenberg, Steve Sinofsky, and Martin Casado speak to Aaron Levie, CEO at Box, about what happens to enterprise software when agents become the primary users. They discuss why coding agents succeed where other knowledge work agents struggle, what abstraction layers mean for the workforce, and how data access and systems of record must change in an agent-first world. Follow Aaron Levie on X: https://twitter.com/levie Follow Steve Sinofsky on X: https://twitter.com/stevesi Follow Martin Casad…
Rethinking Git for the Age of Coding Agents with GitHub Cofounder Scott Chacon
Ep 93 · Apr 8, 2026 · 47 min
Matt Bornstein speaks with Scott Chacon, cofounder of GitHub and CEO of GitButler, about why Git's user interface has barely changed since 2005, how GitButler is rethinking version control for both humans and AI agents, and what the "next GitHub" might actually look like. They cover parallel branches, agent-optimized CLI design, the future of code review, and why the best engineers of the future will be the best writers. Resources: Follow Scott Chacon on X: https://twitter.com/chacon Follow Matt…
How AI Is Reshaping IT Services from the Inside
Ep 92 · Apr 1, 2026 · 34 min
Joe Schmidt speaks with Peter Doyle, CEO of Treeline, about why the $100B managed service provider market is a decade behind modern technology and how Treeline is building a new model that combines human technicians with AI and automation. They discuss the company's growth strategy, why pure play software struggles in services categories, and what the forward deployed engineer trend tells us about AI adoption. Resources: Follow Peter Doyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwdoyle/ Fo…
Patrick Collison on Stripe’s Early Choices, Smalltalk, and What Comes After Coding
Ep 91 · Mar 24, 2026 · 53 min
Michael Truell, CEO of Cursor, sits down with Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe and an investor in Anysphere, to talk about Collison's history with Smalltalk and Lisp, the MongoDB and Ruby decisions Stripe still lives with 15 years later, why he'd spend even more time on API design if he could do it over, and whether AI is actually showing up in economic productivity data. This episode originally aired on Cursor's podcast. Follow Patrick Collison on X: https://twitter.com/patrickc Follow Michael T…
OpenClaw: Why the Internet Isn't Built for AI Agents
Ep 90 · Mar 19, 2026 · 47 min
Yoko Li, Guido Appenzeller, and Joel de la Garza discuss OpenClaw, the open source personal AI assistant that's forcing a rethink of how identity, permissions, and security work on the internet. They cover why setting up Gmail integration took seven hours, what happens when an agent asks for domain-wide access to every email in your company, and why consumer websites like DoorDash and Amazon have no incentive to make their services agent-friendly. Resources: Follow Yoko Li on X: https://twitter.…
What's Missing Between LLMs and AGI - Vishal Misra & Martin Casado
Ep 89 · Mar 17, 2026 · 48 min
Vishal Misra returns to explain his latest research on how LLMs actually work under the hood. He walks through experiments showing that transformers update their predictions in a precise, mathematically predictable way as they process new information, explains why this still doesn't mean they're conscious, and describes what's actually required for AGI: the ability to keep learning after training and the move from pattern matching to understanding cause and effect. Resources: Follow Vishal Misra…
Replit's CEO on Vibe Coding, Wealth Building, and What Most People Get Wrong About AI
Ep 88 · Mar 10, 2026 · 1 hr 39 min
Jack Neel speaks with Amjad Masad, CEO at Replit, about how AI is making it easier than ever to build and ship software without a technical background. They discuss Replit's rise from a browser-based coding tool to a platform generating $250 million in annual revenue, why Masad turned down a $1 billion acquisition offer, and his case for why AI represents empowerment rather than existential risk. This episode originally aired on The Jack Neel Podcast. Resources: Follow Amjad Masad on X: https://…
Jack Altman & Martin Casado on the Future of VC
Ep 87 · Mar 3, 2026 · 53 min
Jack Altman sits down with Martin Casado, General Partner at a16z, to unpack the shifting dynamics of venture capital and why media matters more than ever. They cover a16z’s evolution from generalists to specialized platforms, the rise of AI infrastructure, and why today’s fiercest battles are often for talent, not market share. Timecodes: 0:00 Introduction 0:27 Importance of Media for VC 3:50 Evolution of a16z 7:00 Specialization 10:32 Value of Distribution 13:16 Staying Power in Infrastructure…
AI’s Capital Flywheel: Models, Money, and the Future of Power
Ep 86 · Feb 24, 2026 · 58 min
a16z's Martin Casado and Sarah Wang join Latent Space hosts Alessio Fanelli and Swyx to discuss what makes this AI investment cycle unlike anything in the history of venture capital. They cover why the lines between venture and growth, apps and infrastructure are blurring, how frontier model companies can raise more than the aggregate of everyone built on top of them, and why the industry-wide gap between perception and reality has never been wider. Follow Alessio Fanelli on X: https://x.com/Fan…
Durable Execution and the Infrastructure Powering AI Agents
Ep 85 · Feb 19, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min
Raghu Raghuram, Managing Partner at a16z, and Sarah Wang, General Partner at a16z, speak with Samar Abbas, CEO of Temporal, about how durable execution became the infrastructure layer behind some of the world’s most widely used AI agents. They cover why long-running agents require state management and recoverability, how Temporal powers OpenAI’s Codex and Snap’s Story processing, and why the shift from interactive to background agents is creating distributed systems challenges at a scale that di…
Evals, Feedback Loops, and the Engineering That Makes AI Work
Ep 83 · Feb 17, 2026 · 44 min
Martin Casado speaks with Ankur Goyal, founder and CEO of Braintrust, about where engineering actually matters in AI and where it doesn't. They cover the open source vs closed source model cycle, why Chinese models are gaining ground faster than spending suggests, whether AI demand will eventually saturate, and the Bash vs SQL benchmark that challenges the "just give it a computer" approach to agents. Follow Martin Casado on X: https://twitter.com/martin_casado Follow Ankur Goyal on X: https://t…
Sam Altman on Sora, Energy, and Building an AI Empire
Ep 82 · Feb 10, 2026 · 48 min
Sam Altman has led OpenAI from its founding as a research nonprofit in 2015 to becoming the most valuable startup in the world ten years later. In this episode, a16z Cofounder Ben Horowitz and General Partner Erik Torenberg sit down with Sam to discuss the core thesis behind OpenAI’s disparate bets, why they released Sora, how they use models internally, the best AI evals, and where we’re going from here. Follow Sam on X: https://x.com/sama Follow OpenAI on X: https://x.com/openai Learn more abo…
Why This Isn't the Dot-Com Bubble | Martin Casado on WSJ's BOLD NAMES
Ep 81 · Feb 3, 2026 · 29 min
Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins of the Wall Street Journal sit down with a16z General Partner Martin Casado on WSJ’s Bold Names to ask whether the AI spending boom is a bubble waiting to burst. Martin explains why the fundamentals differ dramatically from the dot-com era—when WorldCom had $40 billion in debt versus today's tech giants with hundreds of billions on their balance sheets—and why a speculative valuation correction shouldn't be confused with systemic collapse. They also discuss where…
Martin Casado on the Demand Forces Behind AI
Ep 80 · Jan 27, 2026 · 28 min
In this feed drop from The Six Five Pod, a16z General Partner Martin Casado discusses how AI is changing infrastructure, software, and enterprise purchasing. He explains why current constraints are driven less by technical limits and more by regulation, particularly around power, data centers, and compute expansion. The episode also covers how AI is affecting software development, lowering the barrier to coding without eliminating the need for experienced engineers, and how agent-driven tools ma…
How Mintlify Is Rebuilding Documentation for Coding Agents
Ep 79 · Jan 23, 2026 · 45 min
Mintlify is a documentation platform built by cofounders Han Wang and Hahnbee Lee to help teams create and maintain developer docs. In this episode, Andreessen Horowitz general partners Jennifer Li and Yoko Li speak with Han and Hahnbee about how coding agents are changing what “good docs” mean, shifting documentation from a human-only resource into infrastructure that powers AI tools, support agents, and internal knowledge workflows. They share Mintlify’s early journey, including eight pivots,…
Inferact: Building the Infrastructure That Runs Modern AI
Ep 78 · Jan 22, 2026 · 44 min
Inferact is a new AI infrastructure company founded by the creators and core maintainers of vLLM. Its mission is to build a universal, open-source inference layer that makes large AI models faster, cheaper, and more reliable to run across any hardware, model architecture, or deployment environment. Together, they broke down how modern AI models are actually run in production, why “inference” has quietly become one of the hardest problems in AI infrastructure, and how the open-source project vLLM…
How Should AI Be Regulated? Use vs. Development
Ep 77 · Jan 20, 2026 · 47 min
To Regulate AI Effectively, Focus on How It’s Used A conversation with Martin Casado on learning from past computing platform shifts, understanding marginal risk in AI, and why open source matters for US competitiveness. One of the core pillars of our roadmap for federal AI legislation makes clear AI should not excuse wrongdoing. When people or companies use AI to break the law, existing criminal, civil rights, consumer protection, and antitrust frameworks should still apply. Enforcement agencie…
Michael Truell: How Cursor Builds at the Speed of AI
Ep 76 · Jan 13, 2026 · 28 min
When four MIT grads decided to build a code editor while everyone else was building AI agents, they created the fastest-growing developer tool ever built. Cursor CEO Michael Truell joins a16z’s Martin Casado to discuss the deliberate constraints that led to breakthroughs: why they rejected the "democratization" narrative to focus on power users, how their 2-day work trials test for agency over credentials, and the strategic decision to own the editor when conventional wisdom said it was impossib…
Dylan Patel on the AI Chip Race - NVIDIA, Intel & the US Government
Ep 74 · Jan 6, 2026 · 1 hr 40 min
Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in Intel is one of the biggest surprises in semiconductors in years. Two longtime rivals are now teaming up, and the ripple effects could reshape AI, cloud, and the global chip race. To make sense of it all, Erik Torenberg is joined by Dylan Patel, chief analyst at SemiAnalysis, joins Sarah Wang, general partner at a16z, and Guido Appenzeller, a16z partner and former CTO of Intel’s Data Center and AI business unit. Together, they dig into what the deal means for Nv…
Feed Drop from The Generalist: Why a16z's Martin Casado believes the AI boom still has years to run
Ep 73 · Dec 30, 2025 · 1 hr 22 min
This episode is a special replay from The Generalist Podcast, featuring a conversation with a16z General Partner Martin Casado. Martin has lived through multiple tech waves as a founder, researcher, and investor, and in this discussion he shares how he thinks about the AI boom, why he believes we’re still early in the cycle, and how a market-first lens shapes his approach to investing. They also dig into the mechanics behind the scenes: why AI coding could become a multi-trillion-dollar market,…
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