Today, SpaceX begins trading publicly on Nasdaq under the ticker $SPCX. Congratulations to @elonmusk and the entire @SpaceX team from @a16z! Ad Astra 🇺🇸

we at a16z @speedrun believe in building global companies from day 0. And helping the best builders from abroad connect with Silicon Valley last week we hosted the first Israeli Founder Sprint at NY Week we brought a handful of the sharpest builders just embarking on their journey across the pond to NYC to meet customers, partners, fellow founders, investors, etc until the next Global Founder Sprint 🫡 cc @airwallex (our partner), @noyakremer @_CallMeMacy @tmhammer @asaf_ez

I think it's safe to say Excel is solved. The sign of an Excel rookie used to be manually using your mouse... now it's doing ANYTHING at all without AI. If you use Excel do yourself a favor and watch all 3 mins. It's a new world. Solving tasks in 20 mins that take teams days.

Many of y’all know that the a16z Speedrun team puts on Tech Week in NY/BOS and SF/LA each year. It’s where our startups do their GTM work, hiring, we meet founders, and bring together the ecosystem. Just concluded the east coast with 50,000 attendees and 2,000 events Incredible to see how much tech has grown in NYC, reflected in the numbers. Great start to our effort in Boston too Next up, SF/LA in a few months.

Lots of population decline/TFR discourse happening but we should factor in all the upcoming technologies: - longevity - artificial wombs - extending/rejuvenating fertility - generating embryos Plus much tech to drive down the cost of families - robotics - automating housing construction - AI teachers - etc Obv lots more that could both extend lifetimes, make it cheaper to have big families etc coming in the next few decades. Some will happen some may need more time. All feels inevitable though?

Short fantastic reminder of how spot on Kurzweil was - written in 1999, predicting AGI before 2050 simply extrapolating on Moore’s law versus neurons in the brain, before transformers and modern AI Just a ~2 hour short listen for folks who want a refresher from over 20 years ago

Techno-optimism is on full display at NY Tech Week trib.al/vK9fsTB

Last chance to sign up for our founder <> VC networking platform! intro.tech-week.com How it works: - Founders register and tell us what they're building - Investors browse and contact founders directly if they're interested in connecting. There are already 1,500 founders on the platform in AI Infra, deeptech, fintech, bio/health, consumer, and more. Plus hundreds of top VCs. This is only live during Tech Week, so if you're a founder or investor, register today!

Students are failing UC Berkeley CS classes at an alarming rate. More than 35% of students failed CS 10, a course described as “a gentle but thorough introduction to computer science.” In the past few semesters, less than 10% of students failed the class.

Very excited to invest in the highest potential consumer application of AI since ChatGPT.

The best founders don't end up in New York by accident. They come because this is where the hardest problems, the biggest customers, and the highest stakes are. The city demands you build something real. I've always believed the best opportunities live between fields of expertise — not inside any single industry, but at the intersections. No city in the world has more intersections than New York. Finance and media. Healthcare and technology. The customers who need AI to actually work — banks, hospitals, newsrooms, asset managers — are all here, within a few miles of each other. AI adoption is accelerating faster than any cycle I've seen. Per @PitchBook, AI is now 65% of NYC venture deal value, up from 16% six years ago. Early-stage funding hit $8.9B in 2025, up 50% in a year. Active unicorns: 32 in 2019, 159 today. The infrastructure of a generational tech hub is being built in real time. We're still early. The biggest deals haven't happened. The companies that define applied AI haven't been built. The founders who build them will be ambitious. They'll want to be where the problems are. They'll be here. NY @Techweek_ starts today. Come build 🗽

Historic moment happening via AI right now in the LA mayoral race - there’s been amazing use of AI video gen with viral new clips getting dropped every few days. It might literally let @spencerpratt win a major city election starting from behind More important this is very much the preview of what the future looks like. At the moment, you might know that election budgets are insane. They’ll raise $50-100m for a big city/state race, then immediately turn around and spend 90% of it on TV advertising, mail etc. why? The audience is the boomers that vote, not nerds But this will change and evolve. The voting population is getting more digitally savvy. AI videos generated by voters will dominate with ad spend meant to boost but not supplant the viral content. Daily viral AI video battleground. Gonna be wild. Voter generated content not UGC :) x.com/charliebcurran/status/…

it's officially day 1 of New York Tech Week! 🥳 We’re kicking off the week with the opening party hosted by gamma and a16z, alongside the a16z speedrun pitch day. Today’s lineup features tracks from ibm, deel, fenwick, pwc, vonage, and cloudflare, plus sessions with stripe, slack, and microsoft. here’s what’s happening on day 1: a16z & friends • 4:00 PM - Pitch Day (a16z speedrun) • 6:00 PM - Supper Club (Stripe x a16z) • 6:30 PM - Kickoff Party (Gamma x a16z) early morning & resets • 7:00 AM - Park Run (off labs) • 8:00 AM - Agents Meet (Walnut AI) • 8:30 AM - TechWalk (TechWalk) • 9:00 AM - House Mixer (Mercury) • 10:30 AM - Cafe Kickoff (Kamp) ai labs & tech giants • 10:30 AM - Quantum Computing (IBM) • 11:00 AM - AI PopUp (ElevenLabs) • 12:30 PM - AI Voice Lunch (Vonage) • 12:30 PM - Generative Computing (IBM) • 2:00 PM - Agent Engineering (IBM) • 3:30 PM - Context Engineering (IBM) • 4:00 PM - Kickoff (Deel) • 4:00 PM - AI Hypergrowth Hack (Mostest) • 5:00 PM - Multi-Model Workflow (Cloudflare) • 5:00 PM - AI at Work (Slack) • 5:30 PM - Rooftop Cocktails (IBM x Tech:NYC) • 7:00 PM - AI Founders (Microsoft) venture capital & pitch showcases • 9:30 AM - Women in AI (Fenwick) • 11:00 AM - Investor Lunch (Actuate) • 11:30 AM - Series A Raising (SVB) • 1:00 PM - AI Vibe-Coding (Mucker) • 2:30 PM - Search Panel (Mucker) • 2:30 PM - AI Finance Lunch (PwC) • 4:00 PM - M&A Panel (TRV x AWS) • 6:00 PM - Venture Night & Pitch (UATech) deep tech, defense & industry • 3:00 PM - Defense Panel (VC in DC) • 4:00 PM - US Manufacturing (Orrick) • 5:00 PM - RL Workshop (Adaptive ML) • 6:00 PM - Robotics Software (NY Robotics) full schedule at tech-week.com/newyork follow @techweek_ for live updates on New York Tech Week!

The thing is, it’s actually really good advice.

slide decks = adult picture books

New York has always been a city that builds. On Monday, I'm sitting down with NYC Council Speaker @JulieMenin in City Hall's Red Room to talk about what it takes to keep New York at the center of the AI economy — attracting the founders, investors, and talent who will define the next decade, and making sure the great companies of the future get built here. Honored to be part of New York @Techweek_ , and to have this conversation in one of the most iconic rooms in the city. June 1 | 12pm ET | City Hall, NYC Invite below.