Packy, Excellent article. Great story. I will reread it again. I have been following A16Z for a long time. I remember when Ben spoke on a podcast more than 10 years back about his investment thesis and how he met Doug Cutting from Hadoop ( If my memory serves right). Also, on the same podcast, Ben talked about how he met Ali from Databricks (in fact it was not even called Databricks then). He mentioned about a startup in Berkeley that they are investing and wanted to keep it confidential. It came to be Databricks later. What a sea change in the last 12-13 years !!
Well-written, enjoyed this piece and appreciate their approach - a lot to be learned from observing. Love the firm > fund description. The best companies tend to be focused on building for the long-term + abundance + self-reinforcing flywheels (mirroring Nature)... over short-term/scarcity/'pipe'
Your framing of their focus on Technology (as everything) and Power as part of that feedback loop reminded me of my Pillars of Power Framework. Simply - Technology, powered by low-cost, abundant Energy funded by controlled Money = Power.
Packy, I had unsubscribed from your Substack long ago. Reading this made me subscribe again. Keep writing more such stuff.
Welcome back!
Packy, Excellent article. Great story. I will reread it again. I have been following A16Z for a long time. I remember when Ben spoke on a podcast more than 10 years back about his investment thesis and how he met Doug Cutting from Hadoop ( If my memory serves right). Also, on the same podcast, Ben talked about how he met Ali from Databricks (in fact it was not even called Databricks then). He mentioned about a startup in Berkeley that they are investing and wanted to keep it confidential. It came to be Databricks later. What a sea change in the last 12-13 years !!
Woah!! Bringing the receipts from way back!
Yes, I missed the boat too, I should have joined this company : (
Well-written, enjoyed this piece and appreciate their approach - a lot to be learned from observing. Love the firm > fund description. The best companies tend to be focused on building for the long-term + abundance + self-reinforcing flywheels (mirroring Nature)... over short-term/scarcity/'pipe'
Your framing of their focus on Technology (as everything) and Power as part of that feedback loop reminded me of my Pillars of Power Framework. Simply - Technology, powered by low-cost, abundant Energy funded by controlled Money = Power.
Pillars of Power Framework: https://aquavis.substack.com/p/pillars-of-power
Example application - the Trump Admin Agenda: https://aquavis.substack.com/p/pop-us-and-the-trump-agenda-6-months
Example application - the Arctic: https://aquavis.substack.com/p/pop-the-arctic-and-its-rising-importance
Example application - Space: https://aquavis.substack.com/p/pop-space-and-the-new-frontier
What a great book 😩
Doesn’t quite look like Marc. Hmmm not sure why
This framing is underrated.
Less about judging from the outside, more about understanding why smart operators keep doubling down.
That’s usually where the real signal is.
Nice artical, I gain a lot of inspiration from it