We’ve had some incredible guests join us on the a16z podcast this year, ranging from moonshot entrepreneurs, to top creators, to some of the most forward thinking technologists – all of which are busy shaping the future right before our eyes…

We have so much more in store for 2023 and cannot wait for you to see who we bring on as guests. But before we turn the page, we wanted to recap some of the most interesting, thought-provoking segments from our 2022 roster. Here are 8 of our favorite clips, covering topics from AI to space to the metaverse… and beyond.

Catch the full playlist here.

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

The predecessor to the office was Florence’s Uffizi Gallery – an admin building to the Medici mercantile empire. That was in… 1560. In the centuries to come, work was revolutionized, with perhaps the most well-known inflection of Ford Motors adopting the 40-hour work week in 1926. The cubicle? We have Robert Propst to thank for that, entering the picture in 1968. 

It wasn’t until the 80s when the Internet appeared on the scene and wifi released in 1997, forever changing the way people live and work. Since then, companies have continued to adopt many of the practices from the 20th century, despite the possibilities being fundamentally different.

COVID sent a shock into that system, forcing many people to adopt a distributed model and despite much debate about what the future holds, this episode will highlight the many ways that companies are continuing to adapt.

Will companies shift toward more asynchronous work? How will a distributed model shift the way we hire? How will companies attract top talent, and is remote the only benefit that matters? What workers and companies will come out on top of this sea change?

And of course… is the office dead? We’ll address these questions, and much more!

Topics covered:

• 00:00 – History of remote work
• 3:27 – Is the office dead?
• 7:05 – Async vs sync
• 16:18 – Building culture remotely
• 27:15 – Attracting top talent
• 31:16 – The evolution of benefits
• 36:04 – Remote work vs work
• 39:29 – Location-based pay
• 46:36 – Open salaries
• 51:23 – Vetting top talent
• 55:32 – The need to adapt
• 58:39 – Rewriting the rules
• 1:03:09 – Infrastructure gaps

Resources: 

GitLab’s Remote Handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/

Deel’s Salary Insights Tool: https://www.deel.com/salary-insights

Deel’s State of Global Hiring report: https://www.deel.com/state-of-global-hiring-2022

Deel:

• Deel’s website: https://www.deel.com/
• Deel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/deel
• Alex on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bouazizalex

SafetyWing

• SafetyWing’s website: https://safetywing.com/
• SafetyWing on Twitter: https://twitter.com/safetywing
• Sondre on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SRasch

GitLab: 

• GitLab’s website: https://about.gitlab.com/
• GitLab on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gitlab
• Darren on Twitter: https://twitter.com/darrenmurph

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In this episode, we tackle three carbon removal projects of varying scale, business models, and technical challenges.

• Biomass pyrolysis via Charm Industrial
• An electrochemical process via Travertine
• Mineralization via 44.01

We cover these companies through the lens of their founders – Peter Reinhardt (CEO of Charm Industrial), Laura Lammers (CEO of Travertine), and Karan Khimji (COO of 44.01) – who share the fascinating stories of how they stumbled into this industry, how their processes work, whether they can economically scale, and ultimately why each of them is dedicating their time and energy to this field.

This episode also closes out our carbon removal mini series, where we’ve seen a unique convergence of attention, capital, policy, and creativity being applied. With that combination, it’s rare that humans don’t surprise one another in progress.

 

Resources: 

Charm Industrial:

• Charm Industrial’s website: https://charmindustrial.com/
• Charm Industrial on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CharmIndustrial
• Peter on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/reinpk

Travertine:

• Travertine’s website: https://www.travertinetech.com/
• Laura on Twitter: https://twitter.com/limestonedr

44.01:

• 44.01’s website: https://4401.earth/
• 44.01 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/4401earth
• Karan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kdkhimji

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

In part 1 of our carbon removal series, we talked to Nan Ransohoff — Head of Climate at Stripe — about what it might take to jumpstart the market of carbon removal solutions. But what happens when there is a true, thriving market of buyers and sellers? How will suppliers effectively reach the right buyers, and as more solutions become available, how will buyers effectively vet the options?

In part 2, we address these questions and more, together with Brennan Spellacy, co-founder & CEO of Patch – a growing marketplace for carbon credits. 

We also cover many evolving market dynamics, like the potential differences between two sets of tons delivered, the opportunity and challenge of effectively educating buyers, the integration of software like Patch’s API, verification solutions and their current limitations, how even the voluntary market is being held accountable for their carbon claims, and the role that Patch is playing to help develop this nascent industry.

By the way, if you like this episode, be sure to look out for part 3 of our series where we get into the nitty gritty of 3 emerging carbon removal solutions — ranging from biomass pyrolysis to carbon mineralization.

 

Resources: 

Patch’s website: https://www.patch.io/

Follow Patch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/usepatch

Follow Brennan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bspellacy_

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

 

What happens when there’s demand for a solution that doesn’t quite exist yet?

Today, we bring on Nan Ransohoff to talk about this exact problem as it relates to carbon removal, and how Frontier — the initiative out of Stripe that she is leading – is using a nearly $1B advanced market commitment fund to try to jumpstart this market.

If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered.

Throughout the episode, we discuss the multivariate carbon equation and why emission reductions are not enough, the difference between offsets and permanent removal, who’s paying for tons today, what solutions already exist and how Frontier is vetting them, moving down the cost curve, where policy fits in, and ultimately what success might look like in this nascent industry.

This is part 1 of our 3-part series on carbon removal. Look out next week for part 2 and part 3, where we dive into a growing marketplace for carbon and showcase several carbon removal solutions.

 

Resources: 

Frontier’s website: https://frontierclimate.com/

Nan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/nanransohoff

Nan’s article: https://nanransohoff.com/A-mental-model-for-combating-climate-change-846be1769d374fa1b5b855407c93da66

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In today’s episode, we have a special treat. Flexport’s co-CEO and Founder, Ryan Petersen, chats with a16z Growth Editor Das Rush. They start with the question of why Ryan has chosen – of all the problem spaces to work on – improving the resiliency of the supply chain. They cover just how complex the supply chain is in the era of ecommerce, evolving customer expectations, and ultimately how we can rearchitect our supply chain to meet them. Given the holiday shopping coming up, you won’t want to miss this.

Timestamps:

​​0:00 – Introduction

1:24 – Why the supply chain?

3:31 – Land and expand

6:38 – The most interesting company?

9:24 – The impact of ecommerce

14:05 – Building resiliency

 

Resources: 

Ryan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/typesfast

Flexport’s website: https://www.flexport.com/

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

When Neal Stephenson coined “the metaverse” three decades ago, his book Snow Crash was found on the shelves of “science fiction”. While the book remains in that category, many of its concepts are now found in reality…

Fast forward to 2022, where numerous companies are now building toward their version of the metaverse, including Neal himself – working on Lamina1 – a blockchain company oriented toward creators. 

While the present metaverses don’t perfectly mimic that from Stephenson’s early imagination, we get the unique opportunity to discuss the various design decisions that he’s making, but also the intersection between the metaverse and gaming, the involvement that AR/VR might play, the evolving role of IP, how artificial intelligence fits in, what he’s building and why, and where he gets all of his ideas from.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction

1:20 – Tech’s highest impact position

4:35 – What is the metaverse?

6:46 – Interoperability

8:52 – Incentive alignment

13:06 – Immersion requirements

16:30 – VR engineering challenges

20:09 – Skeuomorphism

24:17 – Commercial VR/AR applications

27:26 – AI and gaming

30:51 – The value chain

38:13 – Right of refusal

42:05 – Good and bad tech

46:05 – Fighting “free”

49:16 – Building Lamina1

58:07 – Neal’s design designs

1:03:40 – Inspiration for Snow Crash

1:09:16 – Looking ahead from 2022

1:11:59 – Science fiction writing

1:13:46 – Carbon removal

 

Resources: 

Neal’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/nealstephenson

Lamina1’s website: https://www.lamina1.com/

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Today, we have an episode with Chris Power, the founder and CEO of Hadrian. Hadrian is a company trying to build the most efficient factories on the planet. 

In this conversation, we’ll introduce the audience to advanced manufacturing, and expose them to the reality that it’s a remnant of the first space race. We also cover the challenge of manufacturing, the importance of visibility in complex systems, the killer app for space, how simplifying the world of atoms can be done through bits – and ultimately, what kind of experimentation that may unlock.

Timestamps: 

0:00 – Introduction

1:28 – What is advanced manufacturing?

4:18 – When a hatch is jammed at the ISS

6:11 – What’s happened since Space Race 1?

8:56 – A retiring workforce

13:20 – What is at stake?

21:03 – Onshoring manufacturing

24:06 – Is capital enough?

24:43 – Fixing the problem with technology

28:55 – Convincing the old guard

31:20 – Building a new culture

34:45 – Experimenting with hardware

37:24 – The value of observability

41:47 – The cost of timeliness

46:09 – Hadrian’s key risks

49:22 – Why Hadrian pivoted

52:22 – What talent is needed

57:31 – Why focus on space first?

1:03:38 – The killer app of space

1:10:36 – Who inspires Chris?

 

Resources: 

Hadrian’s website: https://www.hadrian.co/

Chris’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/2112Power

 

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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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In this episode, we’ll explore the concept of The Network State with Balaji Srinivasan. As the world becomes more digital, it also becomes more distributed. This is obvious on the individual level – how you order goods, the way you chat with friends, and the news you consume… all from a handheld computer. It’s also becoming more obvious at the company level. The pandemic shook the world into remote work and many companies have decided that maybe work can be done in ways they never imagined. But what about the state – whatever that means? Could the network rival the state? 

In this episode we’ll explore what a nation state even is and how it may be challenged by a new Leviathan: the network. We also cover the difference between a nation and a state, how constants become variables, the cloud continent, digital power, your identity stack, calibrating risk, polycentric law, cloud regulations, building fast with atoms, founding vs inheriting, the powerful vs the powerless, and just about everything in between.

Timestamps: 

0:00 – Introduction

2:41 – Nation vs state

14:38 – Constants becoming variables

16:12 – The cloud continent

20:10 – The three leviathans

30:00 – Digital power

37:20 – The identity stack

53:22 – Cloud first, land last

55:49 – Diplomatic recognition

1:01:47 – Root access to land

1:06:35 – Calibrating risk as society

1:16:13 – Regulatory harmonization

1:28:15 – Polycentric law

1:34:49 – Building fast with atoms

1:38:57 – Looking to history

1:42:00 – Founding vs inheriting

1:50:46 – The one commandment

2:17:33 – The powerful vs powerless

2:28:46 – The competition for people

2:33:45 – Historical lines

2:42:23 – v3 of governance

 

Resources: 

Balaji’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/balajis

Balaji’s website: https://balajis.com/

The Network State: https://thenetworkstate.com/

 

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Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

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. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.