As psychedelics have shifted from drugs of abuse and recreation to powerful drugs for treating neuropsychiatric conditions -- such as depression, addiction, and PTSD -- how we can maximize their therapeutic benefits while minimizing their adverse side effects?

with @jeffiel @davidu @smc90 The rise of developers -- as buyers, as influencers, as a creative class -- is a direct result of "software eating the world", since every company is a tech company (whether they know it or not). Developers are therefore the key to solving business problems and to thriving not just surviving, argues Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio, in his new book, Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century. Lawson shares hard-earned lessons learned, mindsets, and tactics -- from "build vs. buy" to "build vs. die", to the art and science ("mitosis") of small teams -- for leaders and companies of all sizes and kinds.

with @mmasnick @smc90 All about section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in "one of the clearest-but-still-nuanced explainers I've heard" (per WIRED)

with @pmarca @vijaypande If software’s eating the world -- and more specifically, bringing costs down and increasing productivity through entire industries -- why have some industries, like healthcare, been so resistant?

with @GretchenAMcC @smc90 In a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other”... so it's unprecedented that for the first time, the Oxford English Dictionary did NOT name a word of the year. But do we really need the dictionaries to tell us what our words of the year are? From remote work portmanteaus to scientific discourse in a pandemic (for better and for worse) to social movements and more -- we take a whirlwind tour through the words of the year, exploring misplaced analogies, shifting metaphors, and even the evolution of interfaces and spaces.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel tells the story of not just the vaccine’s development, but the machine that made the vaccine: the platform, the technology, and the moves behind the vaccine’s development. Aired on Bio Eats World right after FDA EUA.

Special omnibus episode combining two previous episodes on the a16z Podcast network, discussing the relevance, considerations, and problems/ solutios of the Paycheck Protection Program (or PPP) from the Small Business Administration (and the role of government stimulus/ pandemic relief for the economy) and where tech comes in.

with @DCoolican @illscience @laurenmurrow The intersection of social networks and finance—as well as shifting attitudes around what we share about money online—have given way to an ambitious new wave of financial products. Fintech partner Anish Acharya, formerly a product manager at Credit Karma, consumer partner D’Arcy Coolican (who himself is a former founder in this space), and host Lauren Murrow discuss why the “holy grail” of social plus finance is both so challenging and, potentially, so rewarding. This episode is part of Social Strikes Back, a new series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they’re shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

with @martin_casado @armon @smc90 As companies evolve -- especially from product to sales to scaling operations -- so must the leaders. But can the same person transition across all these phases? When and when not; what are the qualities, criteria, and tradeoffs to be made? Two enterprise startup CTOs share a glimpse into their journeys on the question of to CEO or not to CEO; managing their psychology and tactics for managing transitions; and much more.

What happens if we treat food as a medicine in the healthcare system?

This episode features Q&As with two artists who are exploring crypto-powered auction sites and marketplaces – this is part of our ongoing series on the creator economy. The big picture is that emerging "tokenization" models, especially non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are creating new ways for collectors and investors to buy, sell, and trade digital art. More broadly, these innovations open the door to the tokenization of any products or collectibles that can be captured and owned digitally.  Marketplaces powered by NFTs open up new revenue streams for creators, because anytime digital work is resold or their tokens traded on these platforms, no matter how many times, the creator gets a percentage of those secondary sales. It's all transparent and governed by code on the blockchain, and it’s a big shift in creator economies. Our first guest is one of the biggest names in crypto art, and one of the most mysterious. Murat Pak is the artist and industrial designer who created the AI-powered image sharing site Archillect. Pak has made it a policy to separate their personal identity from their online work, and prefers to keep their quote-unquote real identity hidden, so we conducted this interview by email and converted Pak’s answers to audio using text-to-speech software. As Pak has expressed in other interviews, it's really the work that matters. And we do know a lot about the work, Pak has sold more than 60 pieces of digital art this year on the auction site SuperRare, for more than $350,000. And that’s just one of the several platforms on which Pak’s work is sold.  In this Q&A, Pak talks with a16z's Zoran Basich about NFTs. These "non-fungible tokens" are unique assets that are not interchangeable. Dollar bills are fungible — each dollar bill is worth exactly the same as every other one. But works of art, for example, or any collectible, can be non-fungible — their value varies based on the market for that particular asset. With crypto, these assets carry digital ownership rights that can be easily exchanged. We start by discussing the whole concept of digital art, and why anyone would pay for something that (seemingly) can be easily copied. Our second interview is with Signe Pierce, a visual, digital, and performance artist whose work has appeared in major galleries in Paris, Los Angeles, and New York. She’s currently featuring her artwork on the creator marketplace Foundation. On that site, in addition to auction-style NFT markets, the price of tokens associated with individual works of art is something like you’d see on a stock market – the pricing is real-time, and dynamic and fluctuates according to demand by buyers, who might be investors, collectors, or fans. Signe discusses why she went from working exclusively with galleries to trying crypto marketplaces, how this move affects her work and her business, and how crypto could change the way she engages with her fans. She also offers advice for creators interested in getting into the world of crypto. She starts off by talking about how social media popularity several years ago opened her eyes to the idea of new monetization models for creators.  Stay Updated: Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg   Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

with @vintweeta @jorgecondebio @smc90 Given our early and ongoing coverage of coronavirus in this feed, we share a recent episode of 16 Minutes breaking down the 4 D's and what to know about recent news around the vaccines.

with @ibjade @Tocelot @laurenmurrow True cloud-native games—those exclusive to and solely playable within the cloud—are poised to revolutionize gameplay and unlock new avenues of hyper-personalized storytelling and socializing. In this episode, Jade Raymond, VP of Stadia Games and Entertainment, and a16z partner Jonathan Lai, formerly of Riot Games and Tencent, talk about the challenges in building cloud-native games, their potential to upend prevailing business models and pricing, and most importantly, the spontaneous, social, super-shareable experiences that true cloud streaming will reveal. Through the rise of user-generated content, AI, and the cloud, they believe we're inching ever closer to the Metaverse. This episode is part of Social Strikes Back, a new series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they’re shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.

Lakes v. warehouses, analytics v. AI/ML, SQL v. everything else... As the technical capabilities of data lakes and data warehouses converge, are the separate tools and teams that run AI/ML and analytics converging as well?

with Matt Abrahams & smc90 Whether participating in a meeting, doing a panel, conducting a live event, presenting a talk, or even hosting a podcast, these are expert best practices for moderating and managing discussions across modes and mediums. (Including how to manage unruly discussions, anxiety, presence in virtual environments, and more.)

with @vpostrel @smc90 The story of textiles IS the story, history, and evolution of technology and science (across all kinds of fields, from biology to chemistry); of commerce (as well as management, measurement, machines); but most of all, of civilization (vs. just culture) itself. That's what Virginia Postrel's new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World is all about. But it is in fact a story of innovation, of human ingenuity... which is also the theme of the a16z Podcast.

Just having data is not enough: it takes an entire system of tools and technology to extract value from data. a hallway style conversation between Ali Ghodsi, CEO and Founder of Databricks, and a16z general partner Martin Casado explore the evolution of data architectures.

with @tzhongg @conniechan Gen Z—those born between 1995 and 2010—now makes up 35 percent of the population and represent $143 billion dollars in spending power. This episode is all about how brands can better understand, collaborate with, and resonate with this hugely influential segment of consumers.  Our guest, Tiffany Zhong, is the 24-year-old CEO of Zebra IQ, a company that helps brands interpret the wants of Gen Z consumers and helps Gen Z creators turn their content into businesses.

with @gustavs @conniechan @smc90 We've talked a lot about podcasting, so where are we going with the future of audio, more broadly? Can we borrow from the present and future of video (e.g., TikTok) to see what's next in audio; can we borrow from the past of audio (i.e., radio) to see what's next for audio experiences (more blending of music, talk, podcasting)? Where do all these mediums converge and where do they diverge, when it comes to user experience, product design, recommendations, discovery, machine learning?

Today’s episode is a conversation about four big trends in the tech world. Any one of these trends would be notable on its own, but we cover all four in this hallway-style chat, as a16z General Partner Chris Dixon talks with Sep Kamvar (professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and now cofounder of cryptocurrency platform Celo); and Elad Gil (investor and the cofounder of health technology company Color Genomics, and formerly at Twitter and Google). This is a wide-ranging survey of some of the major shifts in technology right now, but it’s really a meta-story of how innovation happens, which is most definitely not in a straight line. So here are the trends they cover: *crypto; *AI and machine learning (including GPT-3); *full stack startups (which Chris first wrote about in 2014); *and collaborative web/collaborative enterprise/social (including RTC or real-time communication within the browser), which is where the conversation begins.