.@DavidGeorge83 leads @a16z Growth, which has backed some of the most successful technology companies including Stripe, SpaceX, Waymo, Databricks, Figma, OpenAI, and Cursor. This conversation is a detailed look at how David built and runs the growth business. He shares how they win the most competitive deals, the principles behind its culture, and the framework he uses to evaluate companies. We discuss how a16z is investing across the AI stack -- from model providers to applications -- and why this platform shift creates a real window for startups to displace incumbents. Throughout the episode, David shares the models that guide his investing: why markets misprice consistent growth, what makes "pull" businesses so powerful, and why he likes to back a certain kind of founder he calls the "technical terminator." It’s fun to talk with students of the game, and David is certainly one of them. He's spent his career studying great companies, markets, and founders, and you can feel that depth in how clearly he connects patterns across cycles. Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 6:54 Enterprise AI 10:23 Lessons from Waymo 16:17 Technical Terminators 22:34 The "Glengarry Glen Ross" Rule 31:23 Winning Competitive Deals 42:24 The "Yankees" Mindset 46:13 Decision Making 51:12 Model Busters 53:42 Push vs. Pull Markets 1:10:23 How Startups Beat Incumbents 1:13:38 The Kindest Thing

One of the key pillars of the a16z approach is to provide founders with access, power, and resources typically only available to large companies. Today, doing that in the U.S. alone is no longer sufficient. As part of our newly announced a16z global initiatives, we will be helping our Growth companies succeed in this new, global reality. We’ll take the same playbooks and relationship-based approach that have helped our companies in the US and adapt them to international markets. I’m looking forward to working closely with Anne Neuberger in her new role as GP and Head of Global Affairs; Jen Kha and the Global Partnerships team; and our existing go-to-market and talent team, who have been building this foundation for years. More from me here: a16z.news/p/helping-our-port…

I am excited to announce Mind Robotics’ $500M financing, co-led by @Accel and @a16z!  Mind is focused on building the world’s leading industrial robotics platform, capable of performing dexterous, variable, and reasoning-intensive tasks. Existing industrial robotics can perform repeatable, dimensionally stable tasks, but a large share of industrial value-add work requires human-like dexterity, adaptation, and physical reasoning that classical robotics cannot address.  We are building AI-powered robots—models, hardware, and deployment infrastructure—that will perform real tasks, in real plants, at real scale.

.@assaf_rappaport, Yinon Costica, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik are in a league of their own. The way they care for their customers, team, and investors is unparalleled. (and I still think they’re underrated) It’s no surprise this team built a platform people genuinely love, even in one of the most skeptical industries in tech. One CISO told us they’d quit if Wiz were removed. Generational run. And it’s just the beginning as they join @GoogleCloud to combine powerful environmental context, frontier AI research, and multi-cloud DNA to secure AI end to end. Congrats on this exciting new era. @a16z is honored to have been a part of the last one. @justin_kahl @zanelackey

Happy @Stripe annual letter day! Stripe is definitely increasing the GDP of the internet: - In 2025, Stripe businesses generated $1.9T volume, equivalent to ~1.6% of global GDP - Stripe powers 5m businesses, including “all of the top AI companies, many of the largest blue-chip companies (90% of the Dow Jones Industrial Average), most of the biggest tech companies (80% of the Nasdaq 100), and a significant fraction of freshly minted startups (25% of all Delaware corporations are now created with Stripe Atlas).” - The 2025 new customer cohort is by far the “highest performing and fastest moving” Stripe has ever seen, growing around 50% faster than the 2024 cohort. The number of companies reaching $10 million ARR within 3 months of launch was double the 2024 count. - In 2025, 20% of Atlas startups charged their first customer within 30 days, up from 8% in 2020. - Businesses that accepted Stripe Capital offers grew 27 percentage points faster over the following year than comparable businesses. What started as “if you are a startup and you charge customers, you build on Stripe” has increasingly become “if you’re any company of consequence and you charge customers, you build on Stripe.” And now with this next wave, “if you are an AI company and charge customers, you build on Stripe.” We @a16z are thrilled to have been their partners since 2010 and even more excited to deepen our partnership in today’s announced tender.

There are hard problems, then there’s building a profitable used-car marketplace in a developing market. But the Kavak team has the rare trait of running towards hard problems, and we’re excited to lead their Series F as they continue enabling fair, transparent, and secure auto ownership for millions of people across Latin America and beyond. When Carlos and the team set out to transform the used-vehicle market in the region, much of the necessary infrastructure just didn’t exist. So Kavak built it all, essentially starting 10 companies in one. Ten years later, Kavak now operates profitably across Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and the GCC region. That brings us to why we’re making our first large, late-stage investment in the region now. The depth of AI adoption across the company is unlike anything else we’ve seen, and they have rearchitected themselves to be AI-native. Combining atoms (vehicle sales) with bits (AI agents), Kavak is well positioned to be one of the big beneficiaries of the AI revolution. By @DavidGeorge83, @santiago__rdz, and @GEVS94 @carlosjgarciao

Product cycles run 10-15 years—and AI's cycle is still just beginning. In this conversation with a16z's David George and Jen Kha on the state of markets, they cover: - Why December 2024 was the inflection point for coding - Why "there are no dark GPUs" - How AI revenue is growing faster than 100% year-over-year - Why OpenAI and Anthropic added nearly half the revenue of the entire public software industry in one year ...and more. 00:00 Introduction 02:25 2025 revenue data: 693% growth and why unicorns are real 04:25 Why AI companies outgrow SaaS while spending less 07:15 Adapt or die: Coding tools, org design, and electricity vs. blood 13:09 ARR per employee and what's behind the efficiency numbers 21:42 What Fortune 500 CEOs say vs. what's actually happening 28:24 CapEx, debt, and the AI infrastructure buildout 41:11 Private markets, power laws, and where value is concentrating @DavidGeorge83 @jkhamehl

SpaceX has acquired xAI, forming one of the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engines on (and off) Earth → spacex.com/updates#xai-joins…

Alex Immerman @aleximm Since we launched our first @a16z Growth fund seven years ago, we’ve backed companies that are just at the point of finding product-market fit all the way through to investing at IPO, and we recently announced our latest $6.75B Growth fund to continue to do so. We now manage over over $22B across five Growth funds and believe the opportunity to partner with growth-stage companies has never been greater. Through it all, Alex Immerman has been instrumental in what we’ve built, which is why I’m thrilled to announce that Alex is being promoted to General Partner on our Growth investing team at a16z. Alex has been an incredible force since joining the team seven years ago, partnering with founders across consumer internet, enterprise, fintech, crypto, and AI-powered software companies — supporting them from early traction through breakout scale. In the last six months alone, Alex led our new investments in Kalshi, EliseAI, and Revolut, and has partnered with many founders in his time here, including those from Waymo, Stripe, ElevenLabs, Hebbia, Roblox, Anduril, Flock Safety, and many more. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Alex for over a decade, dating back to our time at General Atlantic. Those who know Alex know he’s a hustler, in the best way, with great instincts. He has an endless motor, isn’t afraid to speak his mind, and is always willing to help. I’ve also enjoyed seeing Alex become a culture carrier on the Growth team and across the firm. In his work, Alex has brought deep strategic insight and rigor to every part of the investment process. He’s built strong founder relationships grounded in trust and long-term support, and helped shape our thinking about how great companies win — whether that’s moving beyond surface metrics to durable moats or evaluating what truly drives retention in new software paradigms. As a General Partner on Growth, Alex will continue leading investments and working closely with founders tackling some of the biggest opportunities in tech today, with an emphasis on category-defining companies at the intersection of AI, consumer, B2B, crypto, and the physical world. Please join me in congratulating “AI.” I’m proud to call him a partner and am excited for what’s ahead.

At Andreessen Horowitz, we just raised over $15B. With these new funds including American Dynamism ($1.176B), Apps ($1.7B), Bio Health ($700M), Infrastructure ($1.7B), Growth ($6.75B), and other venture strategies ($3B), we raised over 18% of all venture capital dollars allocated in the United States in 2025. Why did we raise the money and how do we plan to invest it? Read more from Ben Horowitz: a16z.news/p/we-raised-15b-wh…

I think David George is one of the great growth investors today. But I also think some of the hardest and most pressing questions have not been asked. - How does a $5BN fund do a 5x? - Why invest $300M into Adam Neumann? - You say, “diamonds in the rough”, and largest positions are SpaceX, Stripe and Anduril… what am I missing? This is one of the spiciest shows we have ever done. Spotify 👉 open.spotify.com/episode/78O… Youtube 👉 youtu.be/IxoGRY6TXwk Apple Podcasts 👉 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… My biggest takeaway from @DavidGeorge83 👇 Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:24 Why Everyone is Wrong: Mega Funds Does Not Reduce Returns 07:13 The Biggest Advantage of Staying Private for Longer 11:02 Is Public Market Capital Actually Cheaper Than Private Capital? 22:42 The #1 Investing Rule for a16z: Always Invest in the Founder's Strength of Strengths 30:23 Does Revenue Matter as Much in a World of AI? 30:54 Does Kingmaking Still Exist in Venture Capital Today? 43:48 Do Margins Matter Less Than Ever in an AI-First World? 47:01 My Biggest Miss: Anthropic and What I Learn From it? 48:15 Has OpenAI Won Consumer AI? Will Anthropic Win Enterprise? 52:50 The Most Controversial Decision in Andreessen Horowitz History 55:59 Why Did You Invest $300M into Adam Neumann and Flow? 59:17 Quick-Fire Round

Harvey has raised a $160M Series F, led by @a16z, with participation from @wndrco, @sequoia, @kleinerperkins, @conviction & @eladgil.