Kinda disagree with the Kalshi example. Tarek got the idea interning at Goldman in 2016, when clients wanted to bet on Brexit and the election and the desk had to cobble together options bundles that only sort of tracked it. Luana did Bridgewater, Citadel and Five Rings. They were pretty much finance people.
The difference is they weren't the banks. Goldman was making money on those clunky hedges, so why would they fix it? Feels like that's the actual pattern, not that domain experts can't disrupt their own industry.
I’m curious to hear what a16z thinks about the advantages of being a solo founder who can ship a product that scales from an investment perspective. What is the value prop of venture capital to this archetype when the software product is increasingly bootstrappable?
Not every team or solo founder will be able to do this of course, but I’m curious what the VC world thinks about founders in this category.
Kinda disagree with the Kalshi example. Tarek got the idea interning at Goldman in 2016, when clients wanted to bet on Brexit and the election and the desk had to cobble together options bundles that only sort of tracked it. Luana did Bridgewater, Citadel and Five Rings. They were pretty much finance people.
The difference is they weren't the banks. Goldman was making money on those clunky hedges, so why would they fix it? Feels like that's the actual pattern, not that domain experts can't disrupt their own industry.
Agree 100% our soloprenuer model from 2025 is proving itself out perfectly.
Does “skeptical on international founders” mean anyone who is not from the US?
I’m curious to hear what a16z thinks about the advantages of being a solo founder who can ship a product that scales from an investment perspective. What is the value prop of venture capital to this archetype when the software product is increasingly bootstrappable?
Not every team or solo founder will be able to do this of course, but I’m curious what the VC world thinks about founders in this category.