Fuld transskription af Building Inside a16z: Anish Acharya on Conviction, Theses, and Firm-Craft

The business culture is one that I don't know if it embraces failure, 00:01:30.955 --> 00:01:32.315 but it certainly doesn't punish it. 00:01:32.325 --> 00:01:34.375 You kind of follow up no matter what happens. 00:01:34.905 --> 00:01:38.025 It's a high trust, you know, part of the economy 'cause so many of 00:01:38.025 --> 00:01:39.625 the outcomes are positive sum. 00:01:40.005 --> 00:01:41.035 So we can do things. 00:01:41.035 --> 00:01:43.495 There's a give, there's a take, there's a leap of faith. 00:01:43.505 --> 00:01:47.945 So it's, it's just this really, really magical place, um, in my mind. 00:01:47.965 --> 00:01:51.815 And, you know, I went from a guy who had left his job at Amazon, you 00:01:51.815 --> 00:01:55.015 know, building a company in Toronto, spending the summer here trying 00:01:55.015 --> 00:01:56.315 to get investors to meet with me. 00:01:56.315 --> 00:01:57.065 Most wouldn't. 00:01:57.075 --> 00:01:59.755 A few like David Lee was really generous. 00:01:59.755 --> 00:02:02.655 The guys at First Round, even though I had no business spending time with 00:02:02.655 --> 00:02:06.425 them, you know, they did it anyway, and they gave us all the hard feedback. 00:02:06.435 --> 00:02:09.985 You know, we came back to them when we had gotten product market fit and, you know, 00:02:09.985 --> 00:02:14.695 I just went through the whole journey of, you know, learning, shipping, uh, 00:02:14.705 --> 00:02:18.125 establishing myself, and then eventually we sold the first company to Google. 00:02:18.475 --> 00:02:20.015 You know, we had two million monthly actives. 00:02:20.075 --> 00:02:21.545 It was a really exciting time. 00:02:22.025 --> 00:02:25.095 And, and that's when I felt like, okay, I finally made it. 00:02:25.115 --> 00:02:26.363 And then, of course, you get to Google, 00:02:26.663 --> 00:02:26.833 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm-hmm. 00:02:26.935 --> 00:02:29.165 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: you have this incredible imposter syndrome, and you're 00:02:29.165 --> 00:02:32.485 like, "These people are so brilliant, and I'm working on this social thing, and 00:02:32.735 --> 00:02:35.835 I don't really understand the strategy, but that must not be, must be because I, 00:02:35.865 --> 00:02:37.355 I'm not smart enough to really get it." 00:02:37.355 --> 00:02:40.635 And then, you know, two years later, you realize they too are going through product 00:02:40.705 --> 00:02:42.555 market fit challenges just as we did. 00:02:43.359 --> 00:02:43.689 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:02:44.255 --> 00:02:44.775 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: so it's just-- 00:02:44.839 --> 00:02:45.169 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:02:45.195 --> 00:02:47.435 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: a, you know, I think it's, uh, it's 00:02:47.435 --> 00:02:50.525 informed my career and my experience as an investor in many ways. 00:02:50.525 --> 00:02:52.875 You know, one is sort of giving people chances. 00:02:52.905 --> 00:02:54.455 Two is the

long memory. 00:02:54.545 --> 00:02:58.035 Um, I remember the investors who treated me well, and I remember a couple who 00:02:58.035 --> 00:03:02.255 treated me really poorly, and, uh, and I'll never forget that experience. 00:03:02.255 --> 00:03:05.075 And hey, now I'm a person who can kind of, uh, give it back. 00:03:05.075 --> 00:03:06.445 So, uh, yeah. 00:03:06.445 --> 00:03:09.685 So it's, it's, it's been extraordinary to be on the journey, and I'm really, 00:03:09.715 --> 00:03:11.255 um, grateful to be a part of this place. 00:03:12.095 --> 00:03:13.265 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, that's amazing. 00:03:13.285 --> 00:03:17.985 I mean, you, um, synopsized Silicon Valley very well, and I was talking to a founder 00:03:17.985 --> 00:03:22.305 yesterday who, they're in the Netherlands, and they're building this cloud AI 00:03:22.495 --> 00:03:26.195 compute company, and they're saying, "Hey, like, should we move to San Francisco? 00:03:26.195 --> 00:03:28.895 We feel like the activation energy and the opportunity 00:03:28.895 --> 00:03:30.195 there is just so much greater." 00:03:30.585 --> 00:03:30.895 And I was 00:03:30.895 --> 00:03:33.315 like, "You're-- Well, you're reading the tea leaves correctly, and when 00:03:33.315 --> 00:03:37.215 you get here, it's a serendipitous, uh, surface area that just happens. 00:03:37.225 --> 00:03:38.485 Things happen faster. 00:03:38.785 --> 00:03:41.535 You know, coffees beget coffees and introductions, and before 00:03:41.535 --> 00:03:42.305 you know it, you have… 00:03:42.565 --> 00:03:44.565 You're, you're meeting investors, you're meeting customers, and it's 00:03:44.565 --> 00:03:48.285 just really a special place that's hard to describe if you're not here. 00:03:48.285 --> 00:03:50.255 But when you are here, you know, it's great." 00:03:50.455 --> 00:03:50.717 So 00:03:51.017 --> 00:03:52.827 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: And look, I, I also think there are moments that t- 00:03:52.917 --> 00:03:56.277 like, I would argue that maybe five or six years ago, pre-AI, was a moment in 00:03:56.277 --> 00:03:59.887 time at which you could build a company in more places because, you know, the, 00:03:59.987 --> 00:04:02.927 the, um, the knowledge was more diffuse. 00:04:03.077 --> 00:04:06.067 A lot of it was, for example, fintech, which I spent a lot of time working on. 00:04:06.207 --> 00:04:06.607 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yep 00:04:06.617 --> 00:04:08.637 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: knowledge of financial services is obviously, 00:04:08.637 --> 00:04:11.277 a lot of it is in New York, a lot of it is international, a lot of 00:04:11.277 --> 00:04:13.007 it is actually very default local. 00:04:13.287 --> 00:04:16.177 So there's, you know, a company like New Bank probably wouldn't have made 00:04:16.177 --> 00:04:17.587 sense to build in San Francisco. 00:04:17.837 --> 00:04:20.787 So there are all these reasons and tailwinds for perhaps building 00:04:20.787 --> 00:04:23.747 internationally, but this moment is like the two thousand and eight to two 00:04:23.747 --> 00:04:26.517 thousand and eleven moment, the moment that you and I were building in early 00:04:26.517 --> 00:04:30.807 in our careers, where the knowledge and the sort of the people and the culture 00:04:30.807 --> 00:04:34.307 is so extreme and so centralized, and then because things are changing 00:04:34.307 --> 00:04:38.127 so quickly, if you're a month ahead, you're a year ahead in regular time. 00:04:38.497 --> 00:04:42.137 So the value of just being able to run into someone and have a quick conversation 00:04:42.317 --> 00:04:46.317 today versus read about it on X in a month or LinkedIn in three months or 00:04:46.317 --> 00:04:48.127 whatever, it's just really, really high 00:04:48.831 --> 00:04:49.151 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yep. 00:04:49.251 --> 00:04:49.571 Yep. 00:04:49.641 --> 00:04:50.021 Totally. 00:04:50.021 --> 00:04:52.511 Couldn't agree more, and I'm so happy to be here, and always trying 00:04:52.511 --> 00:04:53.761 to convince other founders to come. 00:04:53.761 --> 00:04:57.691 So I guess that's the Daniel Lurie, uh, uh, advertisement for San Francisco. 00:04:58.421 --> 00:04:58.931 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: That's right. 00:04:58.931 --> 00:04:59.911 Thank you, Daniel. 00:05:00.321 --> 00:05:00.511 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: yeah. 00:05:00.681 --> 00:05:01.111 Thank you, Daniel. 00:05:01.401 --> 00:05:04.681 Um, let's talk about, you know, you after your… 00:05:04.721 --> 00:05:10.421 I believe it was your second startup, you were a GM at Credit Karma and 00:05:10.471 --> 00:05:12.691 grew the business to very large scale. 00:05:13.181 --> 00:05:17.491 Um, uh, I think something around 100 million, uh, users, if that's correct. 00:05:18.045 --> 00:05:18.225 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm-hmm. 00:05:18.291 --> 00:05:19.651 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: me, what do you s- what do you… 00:05:19.801 --> 00:05:22.401 You know, and today you lead consumer, and you've done a lot of… 00:05:22.431 --> 00:05:25.071 You led s- uh, software and SaaS before that at Andreessen. 00:05:25.451 --> 00:05:29.141 How does that experience leading a consumer company or a fintech 00:05:29.161 --> 00:05:31.521 company at such scale contribute to what you're building or 00:05:31.521 --> 00:05:32.601 what you're investing in today? 00:05:34.146 --> 00:05:35.426 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, I think that the number one 00:05:35.566 --> 00:05:39.066 thing is the, you know, the, the strongest, most powerful force in 00:05:39.086 --> 00:05:41.406 the universe is inertia, I believe. 00:05:41.946 --> 00:05:44.346 And that's why zero to one is such a miraculous… 00:05:44.406 --> 00:05:48.026 It's like a, it's like the, the miracle of birth or something because it's 00:05:48.086 --> 00:05:51.426 taking something that is default and everything is default, sort of just in 00:05:51.547 --> 00:05:55.246 stasis, and just changing the

fundamental trajectory and direction of it. 00:05:55.826 --> 00:05:59.326 With that said, the way that I often look at companies at the Series A is I 00:05:59.387 --> 00:06:02.727 say, "Well, let's just assume whatever is happening today sort of happens forever." 00:06:03.226 --> 00:06:06.087 The strengths get stronger, the weaknesses are always present. 00:06:06.166 --> 00:06:09.346 You know, these businesses have physics and gravity, so CACs go up 00:06:09.407 --> 00:06:12.106 and customer quality tends to go down. 00:06:12.247 --> 00:06:15.727 Um, but I just so strongly believe in inertia, and Credit Karma was 00:06:15.806 --> 00:06:18.747 like that as well, where they kinda had their thing that they were 00:06:18.806 --> 00:06:20.266 known for, they were winning in. 00:06:20.286 --> 00:06:23.806 And look, while I'm very proud of my work there, so much of it is the sort 00:06:23.846 --> 00:06:27.567 of working on the thing that you're so, so good at and you're dominant in just 00:06:27.626 --> 00:06:31.926 compounds, and you just have to find new ways to keep kinda going after that thing. 00:06:32.246 --> 00:06:35.366 So an interesting lesson for me was that, you know, there's, there's often 00:06:35.486 --> 00:06:40.666 more ways to kind of extend and to build around the value you've established, 00:06:40.727 --> 00:06:44.486 and that's almost always the rational choice versus trying to reestablish 00:06:44.526 --> 00:06:46.086 product market fit in a different area. 00:06:46.587 --> 00:06:49.526 And it's very interesting 'cause as product people and as founders, 00:06:49.566 --> 00:06:52.706 we're so tantalized by the idea of building the next thing or the new 00:06:52.746 --> 00:06:56.046 thing, but it's almost always more rational to find a new way to extend 00:06:56.087 --> 00:06:57.206 your lead in your existing thing 00:06:58.143 --> 00:06:59.873 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: For a new investor, let's say an 00:06:59.873 --> 00:07:02.523 investor or someone looking to come into the business, do you think 00:07:02.573 --> 00:07:06.713 it's required to be an operator or a founder or is there a, a required 00:07:06.723 --> 00:07:08.173 background to come into the business? 00:07:09.149 --> 00:07:09.739 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I don't think so. 00:07:09.739 --> 00:07:12.739 I mean, some of the best investors have historically had, uh, 00:07:12.739 --> 00:07:14.379 certainly non-founding backgrounds. 00:07:14.379 --> 00:07:18.249 You know, I think Mike Moritz was a journalist and, you know, I, I 00:07:18.249 --> 00:07:23.529 think Gurley was a sort of cover journalist, right, for public names. 00:07:24.049 --> 00:07:27.359 So there's been some great counter examples, but I do think the kind of 00:07:27.389 --> 00:07:31.339 the ethos of our firm is one where, you know, people who have been on 00:07:31.349 --> 00:07:34.079 the intellectual journey, and more importantly, the emotional journey of 00:07:34.089 --> 00:07:38.139 being a founder are kind of advantaged, and I think never more so than now. 00:07:38.169 --> 00:07:41.779 So I don't know if you have to have been a founder or been a operator, 00:07:42.139 --> 00:07:45.129 but I do think being technical, um, and often being founder 00:07:45.203 --> 00:07:45.493 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:07:45.809 --> 00:07:48.469 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: you understand the technology in great detail. 00:07:48.799 --> 00:07:51.269 Being technical is something that everybody can do because these 00:07:51.269 --> 00:07:52.979 technologies are so accessible now. 00:07:53.309 --> 00:07:56.819 You know, I commit myself to trying every new thing that comes out and having a 00:07:56.819 --> 00:07:58.309 point of view on it and really trying it. 00:07:58.309 --> 00:08:01.199 You know, shipping something with it, even if it's small, posting about it. 00:08:01.469 --> 00:08:04.109 So going deep enough that I can establish a point of view, and 00:08:04.109 --> 00:08:07.879 that's why I feel technical in this product cycle, and I do think that 00:08:07.879 --> 00:08:09.429 is a requirement of every investor 00:08:10.387 --> 00:08:12.438 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, makes sense, understand like how the 00:08:12.438 --> 00:08:15.768 stack works, how it all fits together and the mechanics to be successful 00:08:15.778 --> 00:08:17.128 or understand the failure points. 00:08:17.468 --> 00:08:20.238 You came into Andreessen focused on fintech. 00:08:20.518 --> 00:08:23.318 Um, you spent some time investing in SaaS quite a bit and have led 00:08:23.318 --> 00:08:25.748 some great investments there, and now are leading consumer, 00:08:25.978 --> 00:08:28.098 specifically focused on consumer AI. 00:08:28.648 --> 00:08:28.658 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm-hmm. 00:08:28.928 --> 00:08:31.148 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: and Andreessen does such a great job of 00:08:31.188 --> 00:08:34.758 moving and jiving with the market and leading the market in many ways, like 00:08:34.758 --> 00:08:36.768 American dynamism and other, crypto 00:08:36.778 --> 00:08:37.198 certainly. 00:08:37.528 --> 00:08:42.698 How does a firm of A-Andreessen's size decide where, um, you 00:08:42.698 --> 00:08:43.728 know, where you're investing? 00:08:43.728 --> 00:08:46.508 How quickly are you making these thesis decisions? 00:08:46.768 --> 00:08:49.208 Um, and then, you know, how do you actually understand 00:08:49.208 --> 00:08:52.818 what's within a GP's mandate or potentially a sector area mandate? 00:08:52.858 --> 00:08:54.748 Give us a little bit of that inside baseball. 00:08:55.472 --> 00:08:57.162 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I mean, there's a few things to talk about here. 00:08:57.162 --> 00:08:59.792 So, you know, one thing I'll say is that you've heard this 00:08:59.802 --> 00:09:02.622 quote, which is, "Courage is in shorter supply than genius." 00:09:03.372 --> 00:09:06.772 So, uh, and I'll tell you where I lived this, this experience,

00:09:06.772 --> 00:09:07.962 which is twenty twenty-two. 00:09:07.972 --> 00:09:11.772 You know, a-about mid twenty twenty-two was when this sudden reconciliation 00:09:11.914 --> 00:09:15.532 came, and the exuberance of twenty twenty-one started to feel, you 00:09:15.532 --> 00:09:18.832 know, like maybe we had overextended ourselves, and everybody was feeling 00:09:18.832 --> 00:09:20.452 bad about some of the deals they did. 00:09:20.452 --> 00:09:23.742 And, you know, founders were feeling bad about the prices they raised at, 00:09:23.742 --> 00:09:25.656 and we were all collectively feeling bad 00:09:25.956 --> 00:09:26.486 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: industry 00:09:26.786 --> 00:09:27.272 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: community. 00:09:27.552 --> 00:09:28.016 That's right. 00:09:28.432 --> 00:09:29.096 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: across the industry. 00:09:29.096 --> 00:09:29.546 This is not 00:09:29.632 --> 00:09:31.742 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: A lot of GPs who had raised fund ones were 00:09:31.742 --> 00:09:34.772 not gonna raise a fund two, so there was just a lot of stuff happening. 00:09:34.772 --> 00:09:39.122 And I remember really distinctly both Mark and Ben sort of sitting down with the GP 00:09:39.122 --> 00:09:43.472 group and saying: Look, moments like this happen, but we have to invest through it. 00:09:43.492 --> 00:09:47.372 You cannot hesitate to make the next investment because a lot of venture, 00:09:47.392 --> 00:09:51.172 it's, you know, it, it's important to be in every vintage and important to 00:09:51.182 --> 00:09:55.802 actively invest and important to, you know, know that the vintages can often 00:09:55.802 --> 00:09:59.242 drive more significant outcomes than even the companies within the vintage. 00:09:59.242 --> 00:10:00.672 Of course, that is important as well. 00:10:01.022 --> 00:10:03.682 So we just needed to keep investing, and sort of at the time, it was like: 00:10:03.682 --> 00:10:04.792 Well, what are we gonna invest in? 00:10:04.792 --> 00:10:06.152 It's mid twenty twenty-two. 00:10:06.462 --> 00:10:10.152 A lot of the fintech stuff had kind of compressed, and we were all waiting. 00:10:10.152 --> 00:10:13.882 But we'd had that push from Mark and Ben, which I think was tremendously helpful. 00:10:14.192 --> 00:10:16.592 And then, of course, when the ChatGPT moment happened in 00:10:16.592 --> 00:10:18.882 November, you know, it was huge. 00:10:18.892 --> 00:10:23.192 So I-- that push of just, like, "Hey, continue to have conviction 00:10:23.502 --> 00:10:26.732 and invest despite the fact that you may not have felt great about 00:10:26.732 --> 00:10:29.692 the way you'd operated twelve months ago, and be really intellectually 00:10:29.692 --> 00:10:31.012 honest with yourselves and LPs." 00:10:31.022 --> 00:10:34.262 It doesn't mean we're not gonna learn lessons, but it also doesn't mean that 00:10:34.262 --> 00:10:37.622 we're going to like, you know, put our pencils away or whatever they

say. 00:10:37.642 --> 00:10:39.702 So I think that's one important point. 00:10:39.712 --> 00:10:42.872 You know, that's, that's perhaps a, a point about the kind of emotional journey. 00:10:42.872 --> 00:10:47.542 And then look, on the intellectual, we try not to prescribe what we invest in 00:10:47.542 --> 00:10:49.792 from a sector basis or a market basis. 00:10:50.042 --> 00:10:53.082 I just think: How can we know if we knew we'd be building the companies? 00:10:53.552 --> 00:10:57.742 Um, so really, founders have to be the ones that show us what are the markets. 00:10:57.742 --> 00:11:01.662 And, and we have a somewhat non-scientific way of doing this, which is if there's 00:11:01.662 --> 00:11:05.262 two or three really smart people working on a problem that feels like it's in 00:11:05.272 --> 00:11:07.132 the same general area, it's a market. 00:11:07.532 --> 00:11:07.982 That's it. 00:11:08.040 --> 00:11:08.150 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Hmm. 00:11:08.382 --> 00:11:10.592 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: And if it's a market, we commit ourselves to 00:11:10.632 --> 00:11:14.242 studying every company, understanding all of them in nu-- sort of nuanced 00:11:14.242 --> 00:11:17.612 detail, meeting all the founders, and trying to be a part of the best 00:11:17.612 --> 00:11:19.562 one, and then supporting that one. 00:11:19.572 --> 00:11:21.762 You know, whether they end up as the number one, the number two, or 00:11:21.762 --> 00:11:25.582 the number three, like, we are sort of unquestioningly, um, helping 00:11:25.582 --> 00:11:28.252 them get to scale and, and make all the moves that they need to. 00:11:28.252 --> 00:11:29.702 So that's the way we do it. 00:11:29.702 --> 00:11:33.232 We're not sort of thematic investors, quote-unquote, you know, and nor are 00:11:33.232 --> 00:11:38.012 we a firm that I think is, uh, overly discouraged by times of, you know, o-of 00:11:38.012 --> 00:11:39.622 sort of compression in the industry. 00:11:40.324 --> 00:11:40.684 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:11:40.974 --> 00:11:45.534 Your comments about like the importance of the wisdom of people 00:11:45.544 --> 00:11:49.584 being older than us in the industry and having seen multiple cycles to be 00:11:49.612 --> 00:11:50.182 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:11:50.634 --> 00:11:52.734 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: to be able to drive forward is super important. 00:11:53.094 --> 00:11:53.474 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm-hmm 00:11:53.698 --> 00:11:55.188 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: how do Emerging managers and solo 00:11:55.188 --> 00:11:58.638 GPs get , some of the wisdom and, and mentorship from outside to 00:11:58.638 --> 00:12:01.728 think about, how do you execute, through the different market cycles? 00:12:01.788 --> 00:12:02.648 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: And dude, that's, that's the 00:12:02.648 --> 00:12:03.778 magic of-- I mean, two things. 00:12:03.778 --> 00:12:06.578 One is that people are willing to meet you, like again, 00:12:06.588 --> 00:12:07.628 the magic of our community. 00:12:07.898 --> 00:12:12.178 The other is so much of it, we now have a culture where everything is on-- in 00:12:12.238 --> 00:12:13.808 conversations like this are made public. 00:12:14.378 --> 00:12:17.858 So eighty percent of what I hear are the same things that anyone can hear if they 00:12:17.858 --> 00:12:21.928 just go and listen to all of our general partners on all the pods that they do. 00:12:21.998 --> 00:12:26.178 Um, and it's very different from fifteen or twenty years ago where, you know, if 00:12:26.188 --> 00:12:30.188 you happen to have a way to Chris Dixon, you might learn the come for the tool, 00:12:30.188 --> 00:12:32.098 stay for the network sort of framework. 00:12:32.418 --> 00:12:35.038 And then Chris was one of the first sort of intellectually generous 00:12:35.078 --> 00:12:36.668 people to blog about it, cool. 00:12:37.028 --> 00:12:40.578 But if somebody, you know, s- nobody sent you the blog, you just didn't know. 00:12:40.608 --> 00:12:42.998 And then, you know, over time it's become more and more diffuse. 00:12:42.998 --> 00:12:45.198 If you didn't speak English, you couldn't read the blog, even 00:12:45.198 --> 00:12:46.548 if it was widely distributed. 00:12:46.888 --> 00:12:50.628 And now it feels like especially post-AI, all of the like-- a lot of the like 00:12:50.648 --> 00:12:53.578 information is kind of out there in every language, highly accessible if 00:12:53.578 --> 00:12:54.608 you just care enough to look for it 00:12:55.306 --> 00:12:57.446 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: You mentioned through the last diatribe about 00:12:57.546 --> 00:12:59.566 how, Andreessen is very much a team. 00:12:59.616 --> 00:13:01.046 You're not solo GPs. 00:13:01.476 --> 00:13:06.716 Talk about how do you make investment decisions within the team or the firm 00:13:07.016 --> 00:13:08.756 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: so we've historically been single decision 00:13:08.756 --> 00:13:13.526 maker, which is, I think, terrifying for a lot of, uh, a lot of firms. 00:13:13.526 --> 00:13:17.026 It certainly wasn't the way it was when I was at Google and, you 00:13:17.026 --> 00:13:18.316 know, for good reason, I think. 00:13:18.316 --> 00:13:21.376 Just sort of you wanna make sure that there's some cons-- I understand the 00:13:21.376 --> 00:13:25.676 rationale behind having some consensus in the room, and there's all kinds of 00:13:25.736 --> 00:13:29.566 versions of this, which is, you know, only two people have to be a four 00:13:29.566 --> 00:13:34.246 out of five, or the majority have to agree, or the, you know, the aggregate 00:13:34.256 --> 00:13:36.206 score has to be beyond a threshold. 00:13:36.646 --> 00:13:40.526 But the truth, I think, is that the sort of view of like, look, you're 00:13:40.526 --> 00:13:44.046 gonna be entirely empowered to make a decision and then entirely accountable. 00:13:44.546 --> 00:13:47.166 And for us, it's an important

process step that you get feedback 00:13:47.166 --> 00:13:49.696 from your partners, but otherwise, you can generally make the call. 00:13:50.056 --> 00:13:52.866 And I think as we've expanded the surface area of the number of people 00:13:52.866 --> 00:13:57.016 who can write checks at Andreessen, we perhaps have a tiny bit more structure. 00:13:57.046 --> 00:14:00.756 But I think that ethos of if somebody feels really passionately about a deal, 00:14:00.756 --> 00:14:04.246 especially somebody who's not a GP, if somebody gets to the point of conviction 00:14:04.246 --> 00:14:07.786 where they say, "Look, I'm gonna quit if we don't do this deal," like that's 00:14:07.786 --> 00:14:11.386 a lot of, you know, that, that's really extending yourself professionally as 00:14:11.386 --> 00:14:14.326 a young investor, and it's something that we should take signal from. 00:14:15.150 --> 00:14:15.490 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yep 00:14:15.766 --> 00:14:17.156 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I also think that there's, you know, 00:14:17.156 --> 00:14:18.556 in the industry, we sort of… 00:14:19.946 --> 00:14:24.496 I-In rooms like that where consensus is necessary, it selects for people 00:14:24.496 --> 00:14:28.626 who are good at pitching their ideas, not people that are necessarily 00:14:28.626 --> 00:14:30.976 good at selecting great businesses. 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:32.200 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm-hmm 00:14:32.266 --> 00:14:33.656 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: you know, there's a certain style of investor, 00:14:33.656 --> 00:14:36.926 we've all met them, where they just sort of know it when they see it, and 00:14:36.926 --> 00:14:39.766 they have a hard time articulating it, and they're right a lot. 00:14:40.406 --> 00:14:43.116 So, like that sort of investor, you wanna find a way to support 00:14:43.116 --> 00:14:46.516 them, um, and they, you know, a-and they can be successful here 00:14:47.357 --> 00:14:48.557 . jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Have you figured out how to support 00:14:48.597 --> 00:14:52.452 that investor ? In my experience it's, it's, you know, you're sitting 00:14:52.452 --> 00:14:56.362 in a partner meeting, everybody's debating, there's potentially some 00:14:56.362 --> 00:15:00.012 loud voices going on, and you need to push through that to get the deal done 00:15:00.102 --> 00:15:00.212 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Well, in our case, you often don't, you know? 00:15:00.212 --> 00:15:03.282 In our case, if you feel really strongly and you've got, you know, the courage 00:15:03.322 --> 00:15:06.122 to say, "Hey, I really wanna be a part of this," then, you know, you're 00:15:06.132 --> 00:15:08.732 given a shot, and because we don't… 00:15:09.052 --> 00:15:11.092 You know, it's not like three deals and you're out or 00:15:11.092 --> 00:15:12.582 anyth-anything silly like that. 00:15:12.592 --> 00:15:15.912 There's just-- there's a lot of, like, room to kinda maneuver and find yourself. 00:15:16.242 --> 00:15:19.252 I think also, you know, for all the folks who are not GPs and supporting 00:15:19.252 --> 00:15:23.562 GPs right now, like, to me, the thing that establishes the most trust is when 00:15:23.982 --> 00:15:27.532 a junior investor has higher standards for me than I even have for myself. 00:15:27.642 --> 00:15:29.292 They're like, "This deal's not good enough for us." 00:15:29.292 --> 00:15:31.632 You know, 'cause all the incentives drive in the other direction. 00:15:31.632 --> 00:15:34.052 They should try to get the most deals done and try to put their name 00:15:34.052 --> 00:15:35.712 on things and maintain optionality. 00:15:35.712 --> 00:15:39.382 And so when they themselves are, are like, "Look, we need to actually have 00:15:39.382 --> 00:15:42.772 a really high bar here," and they're very intellectually honest and they're, 00:15:42.832 --> 00:15:47.162 they're sort of assessing, not marketing, to me, that is a very, very fast path 00:15:47.172 --> 00:15:49.852 to building trust and for them earning the right to write their own checks 00:15:50.688 --> 00:15:53.278 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: People feel like we all know what a16z 00:15:53.278 --> 00:15:56.638 is and how it operates, but what is something that people misunderstand 00:15:56.648 --> 00:15:58.918 about what a16, how it operates? 00:15:59.912 --> 00:16:00.992 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm, that's a good question. 00:16:00.992 --> 00:16:04.262 I, I'd say that, you know, the, the two things that surprised me the most, you 00:16:04.262 --> 00:16:08.542 know, one when I joined was just how extraordinarily involved Mark and Ben are. 00:16:08.972 --> 00:16:12.142 You know, anything you need from Mark and Ben as a founder of a company, no 00:16:12.142 --> 00:16:15.562 matter how small in the portfolio, you can get them on the phone in the same day. 00:16:16.152 --> 00:16:16.302 You 00:16:16.438 --> 00:16:16.788 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Wow 00:16:16.902 --> 00:16:18.192 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: like, they're really, really in it. 00:16:18.192 --> 00:16:19.772 Their heads are in it, their hearts are in it. 00:16:19.772 --> 00:16:23.132 I think that-- I don't wanna speak for them, but to me, it shows up as 00:16:23.132 --> 00:16:26.722 a sense of stewardship for Silicon Valley in the way that people 00:16:26.722 --> 00:16:28.732 like Ron Conway have done as well. 00:16:29.122 --> 00:16:29.212 I 00:16:29.294 --> 00:16:29.924 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Incredible 00:16:30.262 --> 00:16:31.322 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: you know, I sort of came in and said, 00:16:31.322 --> 00:16:32.882 "Hey, how involved can they be?" 00:16:32.912 --> 00:16:35.692 Um, and, and the answer is extraordinarily involved. 00:16:36.162 --> 00:16:40.082 I think the other thing is, even though at face value the firm is large, the firm's 00:16:40.082 --> 00:16:44.082 especially taken the model that they had for ten years when it was very small, 00:16:44.082 --> 00:16:49.634

which is, you know, five or six investors with a larger set of operating partners. 00:16:49.892 --> 00:16:53.642 Everybody's technical, everybody's built a company, everybody's a specialist, 00:16:53.642 --> 00:16:56.862 not a generalist, and replicated across these different domains. 00:16:57.242 --> 00:17:02.032 And, like, the truth is, American dynamism is very different from, you know, machine 00:17:02.032 --> 00:17:06.202 intelligence infrastructure, and you need different teams of specialists, 00:17:06.202 --> 00:17:08.992 but the experience that you get as a founder in either of those domains is 00:17:08.992 --> 00:17:11.802 the same experience you would have got working with Mark and Ben ten years ago. 00:17:12.344 --> 00:17:12.584 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Hmm. 00:17:13.384 --> 00:17:13.764 Wow. 00:17:14.214 --> 00:17:17.464 That shows their, uh, their, their conviction to their business as 00:17:17.464 --> 00:17:19.684 entrepreneurs and to supporting the community around them. 00:17:19.894 --> 00:17:20.824 That's, that's great 00:17:20.888 --> 00:17:22.098 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: And a belief in software, man. 00:17:22.128 --> 00:17:24.558 I mean, the defining belief of this firm, it's, it's been two things. 00:17:24.558 --> 00:17:28.458 It's, it's just that, you know, technology is kind of this catalyst for human 00:17:28.458 --> 00:17:32.078 flourishing and, and market economies, and we're gonna have more, not less. 00:17:32.078 --> 00:17:34.408 And the other is that founders make the best CEOs of their 00:17:34.408 --> 00:17:36.048 companies now and forever. 00:17:36.828 --> 00:17:37.128 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yep. 00:17:37.288 --> 00:17:38.918 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: and I think those maybe those are consensus 00:17:38.918 --> 00:17:40.128 ideas now, but they weren't always 00:17:40.952 --> 00:17:41.262 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Right. 00:17:41.362 --> 00:17:45.042 Let's shift a little bit and talk about, um, your experience navigating 00:17:45.042 --> 00:17:48.912 multiple platform evolutions from mobile, 00:17:48.952 --> 00:17:53.602 SaaS, uh, you know, crypto and, and more fintech, you know, 00:17:53.762 --> 00:17:56.902 and now you're investing at, at the forefront of consumer AI. 00:17:57.132 --> 00:18:01.492 You know, what's the pattern that you've learned to trust about how the early 00:18:01.492 --> 00:18:06.062 winners in these new platform shifts look, um, you know, in the early days 00:18:06.062 --> 00:18:07.842 versus kind of looking back in hindsight? 00:18:09.514 --> 00:18:10.464 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, it's a good question. 00:18:10.464 --> 00:18:14.974 I think that the, the mistake that often gets made is people believe that 00:18:14.984 --> 00:18:17.604 the incumbents are gonna win it all. 00:18:17.614 --> 00:18:21.014 Like, everything is described as an extending innovation initially. 00:18:21.544 --> 00:18:24.174 Mobile was described as an extending innovation. 00:18:24.204 --> 00:18:26.844 Even a lot of the, I mean, uh, you know, the Web 2.0 00:18:26.844 --> 00:18:28.524 stuff was believed to be that. 00:18:29.084 --> 00:18:32.514 Certainly, fintech was, you know, the, the, the incumbents are so 00:18:32.514 --> 00:18:36.084 advantaged with all the financial regulatory infrastructure they have. 00:18:36.084 --> 00:18:40.474 And then AI, we can't stop talking about are the labs gonna just win it all? 00:18:40.474 --> 00:18:44.614 And I get that the labs are native to the cycle, but they're sort of incumbent-y in 00:18:44.614 --> 00:18:46.354 the, you know, in, in how large they are. 00:18:46.404 --> 00:18:50.664 Um, and if you kind of look at what happens in these product cycles, first of 00:18:50.664 --> 00:18:54.754 all, companies that existed long before the product cycle tend to actually get 00:18:54.784 --> 00:18:56.404 better in their existing categories. 00:18:56.834 --> 00:18:59.994 So if you look at what happened to Microsoft at-- during the time of 00:18:59.994 --> 00:19:03.584 Google Search being introduced, it's not like Windows went away, you know? 00:19:03.824 --> 00:19:06.764 It's not like all the areas-- It's not like Office went away. 00:19:07.074 --> 00:19:09.674 Microsoft actually made those products a lot better and made those 00:19:09.704 --> 00:19:12.884 businesses a lot better, but they were utterly irrelevant in search. 00:19:13.514 --> 00:19:13.524 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Hmm 00:19:13.824 --> 00:19:16.314 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: So the sort of new startups tend to dominate 00:19:16.314 --> 00:19:20.014 these emerging categories, and the existing incumbents tend to just 00:19:20.014 --> 00:19:21.644 extend their lead in their markets. 00:19:21.894 --> 00:19:25.184 I think the way to ensure you're not too overlapping with the incumbents, 00:19:25.184 --> 00:19:26.924 though, is to take an extreme strategy. 00:19:27.444 --> 00:19:30.174 Like, I think there's-- I'm a big fan of exploring the extremes. 00:19:30.704 --> 00:19:33.304 And if you look at some of the extremes, just think about things 00:19:33.304 --> 00:19:37.534 that are possible today that weren't possible, but also culturally impossible 00:19:37.534 --> 00:19:40.024 for incumbents to do, and I'll give you a great example: companion. 00:19:40.364 --> 00:19:43.854 You know, consumer companions, you know, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, 00:19:43.854 --> 00:19:46.904 you know, and there's some spectrum between, you know, friendship, 00:19:46.904 --> 00:19:48.814 functional, sexuality, all of that. 00:19:49.134 --> 00:19:52.454 But if you think of what, l-let me say Google and Apple, they've got 00:19:52.464 --> 00:19:56.644 1,000 committees of, like, lawyers and compliance people and comms people who 00:19:56.644 --> 00:19:58.234 would never let something like that ship. 00:19:58.244 --> 00:20:02.154 In fact, their whole job is to take the humanity out of the software, and this 00:20:02.154 --> 00:20:05.968

whole product is based on, like, maximally infusing the humanity into the software. 00:20:06.574 --> 00:20:10.174 So in that world, I think a startup is just advantaged because as a PM at 00:20:10.174 --> 00:20:13.354 Google, you're like, "Oh my God, I, I don't even know how to think about this." 00:20:13.354 --> 00:20:16.464 You know, there's no chance that I can be inspired by reading about the 00:20:16.464 --> 00:20:19.994 startup in TechCrunch and build it at Google so I can get my L3 promotion. 00:20:20.650 --> 00:20:20.930 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:20:21.090 --> 00:20:21.390 Yeah. 00:20:21.790 --> 00:20:22.590 Wow, I love that. 00:20:22.650 --> 00:20:26.220 And, and when you see, let's say, three companies, five companies, 10 companies 00:20:26.220 --> 00:20:28.460 coming in building AI companions, 00:20:28.750 --> 00:20:30.450 how do you tell the difference between… 00:20:30.460 --> 00:20:32.820 And how do you identify those early ones that have the magic 00:20:32.820 --> 00:20:34.250 to be the successful one? 00:20:34.440 --> 00:20:37.460 Or do you make multiple investments and kinda see how, 00:20:37.550 --> 00:20:39.000 how the execution decides that? 00:20:39.924 --> 00:20:42.274 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: We don't-- So we invest in one company per category. 00:20:42.404 --> 00:20:44.944 So we try to hold ourselves to a high standard of we would never 00:20:44.944 --> 00:20:46.684 invest in, you know, Uber and Lyft. 00:20:46.684 --> 00:20:47.474 We invest in Lyft. 00:20:48.202 --> 00:20:48.522 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yep 00:20:49.054 --> 00:20:50.784 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: with that said, I think that these markets tend 00:20:50.784 --> 00:20:53.964 to fragment, especially in a time that is very expansionary, right? 00:20:54.134 --> 00:20:54.884 Like right now. 00:20:55.254 --> 00:20:59.224 So if you look at image models, you know, three years ago, it looked like Midjourney 00:20:59.234 --> 00:21:02.934 was both the consumer image generation product and they had the best model. 00:21:03.514 --> 00:21:07.314 Then you look at something like BFL, they came along and released their own model. 00:21:07.664 --> 00:21:10.448 Then you look at Ideogram, I think they have a really exciting new 00:21:10.494 --> 00:21:11.854 model actually coming out today. 00:21:11.884 --> 00:21:13.194 They released their own model. 00:21:13.448 --> 00:21:16.464 Kria, one of my companies, just released their own model a few weeks ago. 00:21:16.494 --> 00:21:18.574 And you might ask, "Hey, are these companies all competing?" 00:21:18.574 --> 00:21:21.794 Well, it turns out that all the models are specialized in different directions. 00:21:22.144 --> 00:21:25.274 So Ideogram is really good at graphic design generation. 00:21:25.324 --> 00:21:28.734 Um, Kria is really good at sort of Midjourney-like aesthetically 00:21:28.734 --> 00:21:30.164 opinionated generation. 00:21:30.184 --> 00:21:34.034 BFL is actually sort of models that

can be fine-tuned to do whatever you want. 00:21:34.434 --> 00:21:37.634 So now we actually have all of these sort of sub-markets within what 00:21:37.684 --> 00:21:39.284 initially appeared to be a big market. 00:21:39.334 --> 00:21:43.034 Um, so, you know, on one hand, we only invest in companies that are, uh, 00:21:43.144 --> 00:21:44.564 not directly competing with another. 00:21:44.574 --> 00:21:47.014 On the other, like the markets tend to be very, very expansive. 00:21:47.404 --> 00:21:51.784 Look, in terms of how we tell, um, for consumer, we have a kind of thesis 00:21:51.784 --> 00:21:53.124 which is like weird and working. 00:21:53.474 --> 00:21:56.894 We say weird-- the weird part because we wanna really train ourselves to be 00:21:56.894 --> 00:22:00.734 non-judgmental because almost every big consumer outcome looks silly or 00:22:00.734 --> 00:22:02.574 embarrassing or like a toy initially. 00:22:03.114 --> 00:22:06.634 So we're not, we're non, sort of non-judgmental, non-emotional 00:22:06.634 --> 00:22:08.014 about what the thing is. 00:22:08.034 --> 00:22:12.304 Um, and then working, you know, we look at the same metrics that many do, 00:22:12.314 --> 00:22:16.434 which is sort of, you know, growth and percentage paid and retention, of course, 00:22:16.444 --> 00:22:18.164 is super important and all those things. 00:22:18.164 --> 00:22:21.394 And, you know, y- all of that data kind of feeds into just a, 00:22:21.394 --> 00:22:24.024 you know, a leap of faith, and that's really what we do, right? 00:22:24.626 --> 00:22:27.576 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Do you consider yourself more of a data-driven 00:22:27.576 --> 00:22:29.866 investor or a gut-driven investor? 00:22:30.166 --> 00:22:33.016 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: So for me, and I think maybe for many people, you tend 00:22:33.016 --> 00:22:37.136 to make a decision within ten minutes, um, which is sort of when you're in the 00:22:37.136 --> 00:22:39.496 room with someone, you feel the momentum. 00:22:39.526 --> 00:22:42.966 And now let me kinda qualify that process, which is you feel the momentum 00:22:42.966 --> 00:22:44.806 from or you often don't, you know. 00:22:44.806 --> 00:22:46.726 And there's many things that go into the momentum. 00:22:46.726 --> 00:22:50.176 I'm not talking about someone necessarily who's just very salesy, but their kind 00:22:50.176 --> 00:22:54.216 of ability to articulate a crisp vision for the future and more importantly, 00:22:54.216 --> 00:22:55.686 what are all the steps to get there? 00:22:55.696 --> 00:22:59.206 And hey, what are all the paths that you would naively go down that they've 00:22:59.206 --> 00:23:02.116 considered and or have gone down and now they've sort of discarded. 00:23:02.116 --> 00:23:05.636 And so there's just like a depth of thinking and also a depth of 00:23:05.636 --> 00:23:08.966 obsession with the domain that you can tend to feel right away. 00:23:09.406 --> 00:23:11.856 And then I think what the data often does is it's more 00:23:11.866 --> 00:23:14.706 disqualifying than qualifying, right? 00:23:14.706 --> 00:23:18.306 Which is, hey, okay, my-- it feels like this person has really 00:23:18.306 --> 00:23:21.656 explored this aspect of the, you know, the sort of unit economics. 00:23:21.656 --> 00:23:21.866 Okay. 00:23:21.866 --> 00:23:22.506 Oh, here's the data. 00:23:22.516 --> 00:23:23.426 Well, that's a mismatch. 00:23:23.426 --> 00:23:24.526 Let me, like, pull that thread. 00:23:24.986 --> 00:23:28.246 So a lot of what the data does is help us ask the right next question 00:23:28.666 --> 00:23:31.836 versus, hey, we're just gonna, you know, bet the graph every time 00:23:32.966 --> 00:23:33.266 . Yeah. 00:23:33.276 --> 00:23:33.296 H- 00:23:34.216 --> 00:23:34.856 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Fascinating. 00:23:34.966 --> 00:23:35.556 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: think about it, dude? 00:23:35.556 --> 00:23:36.816 I mean, you've done some great investments. 00:23:36.816 --> 00:23:38.386 Have, uh, how would you characterize yourself? 00:23:40.972 --> 00:23:44.232 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: I would say generally I think you're 00:23:44.232 --> 00:23:48.432 right, like the intuition comes first, and the intuition is what ma-- or the 00:23:48.432 --> 00:23:52.042 gut, I guess, is the one that makes you double-click and want to go farther. 00:23:52.522 --> 00:23:55.922 And I agree with you that it is, it does have to do with the… 00:23:56.052 --> 00:23:59.732 the person does need to have the ability to articulate the vision and the 00:23:59.732 --> 00:24:03.872 conviction and why they are doing it, and why they are the best person to do this. 00:24:04.422 --> 00:24:08.812 And so I think th-the human dynamics of this come across quickly, 'cause on any 00:24:08.812 --> 00:24:13.022 given day you have to choose between which, you know, five companies do you 00:24:13.022 --> 00:24:16.392 actually spend time on, which are the ones you're, you know, double-clicking on. 00:24:17.202 --> 00:24:17.672 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Totally 00:24:18.342 --> 00:24:19.052 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: I mean, I agree with you. 00:24:19.052 --> 00:24:22.072 If the data's not there and doesn't support it, then you, you pull 00:24:22.072 --> 00:24:26.112 out, I wonder, I mean, who are the investors that, , that maybe don't 00:24:26.112 --> 00:24:29.372 have so deep of intuition or gut and they're purely looking at data? 00:24:29.472 --> 00:24:31.232 They're prob- I guess they're probably growth investors, 00:24:31.252 --> 00:24:32.412 'cause in early stage like 00:24:32.536 --> 00:24:33.126 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I think that's right. 00:24:33.176 --> 00:24:33.496 Yeah. 00:24:33.536 --> 00:24:33.726 Yeah. 00:24:33.726 --> 00:24:34.926 There's not that much data to… 00:24:34.946 --> 00:24:37.906 Well, also the data-- Look, I think the data-- The question I think we should 00:24:37.906 --> 00:24:41.046 ask for an early-stage investor with

the data is: What are the assumptions? 00:24:41.356 --> 00:24:44.096 What are the key assumptions needed to get to the other side for this business? 00:24:44.096 --> 00:24:46.946 And the other side might be the series B, the series C, whatever. 00:24:47.206 --> 00:24:49.756 And then what does the data tell us about those assumptions? 00:24:49.756 --> 00:24:50.747 Which have been de-risked? 00:24:50.936 --> 00:24:52.436 Which are going in the wrong direction? 00:24:52.716 --> 00:24:54.076 So it's, it's very meta. 00:24:54.076 --> 00:24:54.366 You know? 00:24:54.376 --> 00:24:56.616 Our-- Obviously, we're not gonna do, "Hey, what's the present 00:24:56.616 --> 00:24:58.056 value of future cash flows?" 00:24:58.096 --> 00:24:58.516 Uh, yeah. 00:24:58.576 --> 00:25:00.586 It's just that it doesn't make any sense to do that. 00:25:00.586 --> 00:25:01.026 So I agree. 00:25:01.026 --> 00:25:04.276 It's a sort of tool to inform intuition, and if it's not, then 00:25:04.276 --> 00:25:05.416 you're probably a growth investor 00:25:06.082 --> 00:25:06.692 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Looking back 00:25:06.742 --> 00:25:06.922 , anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: mm-hmm. 00:25:07.218 --> 00:25:08.968 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: are you able to determine when there is a genuine 00:25:08.978 --> 00:25:11.578 platform shift versus a hype cycle? 00:25:11.818 --> 00:25:14.488 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I mean, what do you think are hype cycle product cycles? 00:25:15.946 --> 00:25:17.476 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Well, I mean, one of them would've been 00:25:17.506 --> 00:25:21.146 obviously AR/VR, and looking back at that, that was obviously a hype cycle. 00:25:21.166 --> 00:25:24.386 At the time, though, the big companies were spending billions of dollars 00:25:24.386 --> 00:25:26.296 building new, new, new products. 00:25:26.816 --> 00:25:27.186 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:25:27.376 --> 00:25:29.526 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: could be maybe AI wearables. 00:25:29.526 --> 00:25:30.316 Um, you know, 00:25:30.502 --> 00:25:30.632 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm-hmm. 00:25:30.636 --> 00:25:35.716 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: uh, glasses, pins, um, trying to understand, 00:25:35.716 --> 00:25:39.486 like, are there true platform shifts here that, you know, big com- that, that 00:25:39.486 --> 00:25:41.026 smaller companies should be building into? 00:25:42.080 --> 00:25:44.730 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I mean, I don't know how to tell and, and 00:25:44.730 --> 00:25:46.980 actually think it's very difficult to know because there's so many 00:25:46.990 --> 00:25:52.300 idiosyncratic technical and cultural factors that will drive whether something 00:25:52.330 --> 00:25:54.700 ends up sort of sustaining or not. 00:25:54.730 --> 00:25:57.260 And, you know, like many of these things are just too early. 00:25:57.600 --> 00:26:01.170 So I think the AR thing is really happening with the Ray-Ban glasses 00:26:01.170 --> 00:26:03.860 and,

you know, we finally have the kind of the brain that you've always 00:26:03.860 --> 00:26:05.050 wanted to put in those glasses. 00:26:05.450 --> 00:26:07.460 And then Vision Pro, I've got a Vision Pro. 00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:10.224 You know, when you experience it, it's incredible, but there's no 00:26:10.270 --> 00:26:13.170 apps for it 'cause it's a whole different platform to build for. 00:26:13.170 --> 00:26:15.400 And I think now with coding agents, you might see this sort 00:26:15.400 --> 00:26:19.180 of explosion of apps for these long-tail platforms like Vision Pro. 00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:20.860 So I don't know, dude, if… 00:26:20.940 --> 00:26:24.180 You know, I, I think most of it, even when it, you know, doesn't sort of end 00:26:24.180 --> 00:26:29.930 up sustaining, there's some nugget of important wisdom there or insight there 00:26:29.930 --> 00:26:32.930 that tends to live on and, you know, I think all these things have to be taken 00:26:32.930 --> 00:26:34.720 very seriously and explored as such 00:26:35.968 --> 00:26:36.858 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, that is true. 00:26:36.858 --> 00:26:40.338 And if anything, like looking back on the investments that I've, I've made 00:26:40.348 --> 00:26:42.408 wrongly, it's usually a timing issue, 00:26:42.728 --> 00:26:42.988 right? 00:26:42.988 --> 00:26:45.868 It's like the timing of the technology wasn't yet there. 00:26:45.908 --> 00:26:47.588 And to your point, you know, AR… 00:26:47.728 --> 00:26:50.484 Gosh, ARKit was launched like 10 years ago, and 00:26:50.784 --> 00:26:51.314 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:26:51.358 --> 00:26:52.918 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: it may be actually coming to fruition. 00:26:52.934 --> 00:26:55.214 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Oh, dude, being too early is the most 00:26:55.214 --> 00:26:56.684 painful form of failure, you know? 00:26:56.778 --> 00:26:57.328 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Ugh, it's the 00:26:57.594 --> 00:27:01.124 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: It's like five years later, you're just that crazy person 00:27:01.124 --> 00:27:05.224 saying, "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it," and it's not at all satisfying, you know? 00:27:05.248 --> 00:27:06.288 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, totally. 00:27:06.868 --> 00:27:11.308 Um, is there an investment that you passed on, that still sticks with you and, 00:27:11.438 --> 00:27:13.328 What have you learned from those passes? 00:27:14.918 --> 00:27:17.188 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, I think that, um, the, the category 00:27:17.198 --> 00:27:21.498 for me that's historically been hard is good founder, bad idea. 00:27:22.466 --> 00:27:22.886 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Mm-hmm. 00:27:22.916 --> 00:27:23.346 Yes 00:27:23.878 --> 00:27:25.658 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: or, or even maybe more challenging is kind 00:27:25.658 --> 00:27:28.188 of good founder, synthetic idea. 00:27:28.968 --> 00:27:32.418 And that's from my own probably personal experience, which is, you know, my first 00:27:32.418 --> 00:27:36.088 company, I had an idea-- we had an idea that I think was really authentic and 00:27:36.238 --> 00:27:40.638 organic and, you know, we loved working on it, and our intentions were very pure. 00:27:40.668 --> 00:27:42.578 You know, loss was not an option. 00:27:42.708 --> 00:27:43.668 Quitting was not an option. 00:27:43.668 --> 00:27:44.548 Retreat was not an option. 00:27:44.548 --> 00:27:45.388 We'd burn the boats. 00:27:45.828 --> 00:27:49.278 I think for my second company, in reflection, uh, though I suppose now 00:27:49.278 --> 00:27:52.378 we're retired maxing and not supposed to be reflecting, uh, though, though 00:27:52.378 --> 00:27:56.078 if I could for a moment, I'd say I think part of the miss for me was, 00:27:56.108 --> 00:27:59.158 um, not carefully enough considering what I really wanted to work on. 00:27:59.588 --> 00:28:02.708 I wanted to work on an idea that was important with a capital I that, you know, 00:28:02.758 --> 00:28:06.708 investors approved of and were excited about, and that was exactly backwards in 00:28:06.708 --> 00:28:08.548 terms of how you come up with a new idea. 00:28:08.708 --> 00:28:12.288 Um, ' cause investors are sort of everything that's in distribution 00:28:12.288 --> 00:28:13.868 with investors is already being built. 00:28:14.488 --> 00:28:16.918 Um, and everything that's out of distribution is, like, where the 00:28:16.918 --> 00:28:19.318 alpha is, and that's what I should have been working on as a founder. 00:28:19.678 --> 00:28:22.478 So I think when I now meet a founder who's kinda on that journey from 00:28:22.478 --> 00:28:26.778 the synthetic, uh, to the organic idea, sometimes I'm more skeptical 00:28:26.778 --> 00:28:28.298 'cause I probably see myself in them. 00:28:28.468 --> 00:28:32.013 Um, I've learned to kinda get past that now, and when there's a person 00:28:32.088 --> 00:28:37.258 who's a quick study, um, and this is why meeting a person twice is so much 00:28:37.258 --> 00:28:40.428 more powerful, you know, and three or four times that much more so. 00:28:40.428 --> 00:28:43.228 Like, you really have to have met them just so you can see 00:28:43.228 --> 00:28:44.508 how their thinking has evolved. 00:28:44.898 --> 00:28:47.628 And if the thinking is evolving quick enough, um, and the person 00:28:47.638 --> 00:28:50.098 is great, it doesn't matter if the idea is bad or synthetic. 00:28:50.128 --> 00:28:51.288 That's been a big lesson for me. 00:28:52.102 --> 00:28:52.492 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:28:52.532 --> 00:28:53.012 Interesting. 00:28:53.022 --> 00:28:56.872 M-must you meet people in person or is remote and Zoom okay? 00:28:58.244 --> 00:28:58.724 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I don't know. 00:28:58.724 --> 00:29:00.774 I mean, I think in person makes a big, big difference. 00:29:00.774 --> 00:29:01.024 You know? 00:29:01.104 --> 00:29:02.824 I mean, you're getting in business together 00:29:02.864

--> 00:29:05.264 i, I think that the kind of the, I don't know who said this, but the 00:29:05.664 --> 00:29:10.074 more complex the conversation, the higher fidelity you need, and nothing 00:29:10.074 --> 00:29:13.274 is higher fidelity than in person, and nothing that is more complex or 00:29:13.274 --> 00:29:16.444 important than who are you gonna build your business with for 10, 15, 20 years 00:29:16.498 --> 00:29:18.168 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: A16z's been wr- uh, published, 00:29:18.168 --> 00:29:22.578 uh, the Abundance Agenda, which is a big optimistic frame, uh, and 00:29:22.600 --> 00:29:22.960 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:29:23.218 --> 00:29:25.458 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: on the opportunities of what could possibly 00:29:25.458 --> 00:29:27.778 go right across AI, both in consumer 00:29:27.778 --> 00:29:28.428 and enterprise. 00:29:28.708 --> 00:29:31.038 Can you kinda synopsize that for us 00:29:31.088 --> 00:29:32.818 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: yeah, abundance agenda was our work from a 00:29:32.818 --> 00:29:35.998 few years ago where, you know, the, the observation was every time you have 00:29:35.998 --> 00:29:39.908 a product cycle like this, consumers tend to be the biggest beneficiaries. 00:29:40.188 --> 00:29:44.188 You know, eighty percent of the surplus that's generated is captured by consumers. 00:29:44.478 --> 00:29:47.424 So if you just think of the kind of, you know, th-think of the arc 00:29:47.508 --> 00:29:51.518 of the consumer, think of all of the luxuries that are now commodities. 00:29:51.538 --> 00:29:52.858 And I'll, I'll give you a simple example. 00:29:52.858 --> 00:29:55.638 You know, one of the reasons that Disneyland was so popular in the fifties 00:29:55.638 --> 00:29:59.198 was most people would never be able to take a plane anywhere, certainly 00:29:59.198 --> 00:30:00.488 not internationally in their life. 00:30:00.988 --> 00:30:05.428 You know, so their best way to see New Orleans or Paris or any of these 00:30:05.428 --> 00:30:06.888 places was to go to Disneyland. 00:30:07.218 --> 00:30:11.228 And now you have, you know, Gen Zs and, and millennials who have visited a 00:30:11.228 --> 00:30:12.568 hundred countries before they're thirty. 00:30:12.568 --> 00:30:13.478 That's awesome, you know? 00:30:13.878 --> 00:30:14.688 Think of therapy. 00:30:14.948 --> 00:30:18.728 You know, therapy, um, was a huge luxury and very expensive and sort of 00:30:18.728 --> 00:30:20.418 out of reach, and now it's a commodity. 00:30:20.428 --> 00:30:21.328 Think of computers. 00:30:21.618 --> 00:30:23.878 The idea that everyone would have a personal computer like, 00:30:23.878 --> 00:30:24.858 you know, in their pocket. 00:30:24.858 --> 00:30:25.458 Are you kidding me? 00:30:25.458 --> 00:30:26.198 That was insane. 00:30:26.218 --> 00:30:27.108 What would you use it for? 00:30:27.108 --> 00:30:28.597 And it would be extraordinarily expensive. 00:30:29.148 --> 00:30:33.678 So the whole history

of product cycles and technology is one of consumer surplus. 00:30:34.068 --> 00:30:37.558 And then if you ask ourselves, okay, what are the aspects of the consumer that, 00:30:37.878 --> 00:30:41.478 you know, have maybe not experienced surplus or actually seeing, uh, that, 00:30:41.498 --> 00:30:42.838 that thing go in the other direction? 00:30:43.178 --> 00:30:47.683 It's like healthcare, it's education, it's a lot of creative pursuits. 00:30:47.988 --> 00:30:51.998 Um, and I think AI is uniquely suited to helping us make progress in those 00:30:51.998 --> 00:30:55.768 areas, both sort of qualitative progress, you know, when it comes 00:30:55.768 --> 00:30:57.248 to things like creative pursuits. 00:30:57.248 --> 00:30:58.998 Think of yourself when you were five or six. 00:30:59.218 --> 00:31:02.318 You didn't go to kindergarten, and they said, "You know, Jacob, you're terrible 00:31:02.318 --> 00:31:03.769 at drawing, but you're great at painting." 00:31:03.978 --> 00:31:06.448 You were just great at everything you were interested in, and there 00:31:06.448 --> 00:31:09.338 was this beautiful self-expression that was a part of that. 00:31:09.558 --> 00:31:12.608 And then as you kinda got older, you, you decided that you, you know, 00:31:12.608 --> 00:31:15.548 you were good at music and bad at visual art and all this other stuff. 00:31:15.548 --> 00:31:17.778 And now you can just sort of create anything that you're interested 00:31:17.778 --> 00:31:20.768 in to the taste, the sort of level of taste and sophistication 00:31:20.768 --> 00:31:21.968 you have, which is really cool. 00:31:22.248 --> 00:31:25.688 So that-that's like a qualitative sort of emotional experience aspect of human 00:31:25.688 --> 00:31:28.938 life, but I think it's part of what I would broadly describe as abundance. 00:31:28.938 --> 00:31:31.518 And then, you know, more specifically, you look at something like healthcare. 00:31:31.928 --> 00:31:34.408 Healthcare costs are just growing exponentially, and it feels 00:31:34.408 --> 00:31:35.808 like this intractable problem. 00:31:36.218 --> 00:31:40.298 But forty-five percent of US healthcare costs are administrative, and those costs 00:31:40.308 --> 00:31:43.108 should, you know, we should be able to drive them dramatically down with AI, 00:31:43.118 --> 00:31:44.942 like down fifty, sixty, seventy percent. 00:31:45.388 --> 00:31:48.548 And when that happens, you see deflationary healthcare costs. 00:31:48.828 --> 00:31:51.488 To me, actually, as an aside, that's the way we change the 00:31:51.488 --> 00:31:53.328 narrative in society about AI. 00:31:53.758 --> 00:31:55.668 You know, forget about op-eds and all of that. 00:31:55.668 --> 00:31:58.038 What we need to do is make important things cheap, and 00:31:58.038 --> 00:32:00.298 nothing is more important and more expensive than healthcare 00:32:01.328 --> 00:32:01.638 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: so 00:32:01.732 --> 00:32:02.032 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yes 00:32:02.148 --> 00:32:04.708 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: From the consumer investor frame, talking about 00:32:04.708 --> 00:32:06.698 healthcare, you see them as the same. 00:32:06.738 --> 00:32:09.068 You're saying we're gonna invest in anything that touches 00:32:09.088 --> 00:32:10.408 an end consumer at scale? 00:32:11.256 --> 00:32:12.226 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I mean, we'd like to, yeah. 00:32:12.466 --> 00:32:15.096 We, we certainly will at the firm level, and then, you know, we can get 00:32:15.106 --> 00:32:18.476 organized internally a little bit about things that I think depend on, you know, 00:32:18.476 --> 00:32:21.776 regulatory or the healthcare ecosystem. 00:32:21.826 --> 00:32:23.236 You know, we'll work with our bio team. 00:32:23.596 --> 00:32:26.756 Things that are more consumer-oriented, you know, we ourselves will lead. 00:32:26.766 --> 00:32:29.406 But, you know, we're a part of Function Health and really proud to be. 00:32:29.716 --> 00:32:31.626 I'm really interested right now in peptides. 00:32:31.656 --> 00:32:35.366 Our crazy Kevin, uh, has got me and Mazzio's got me onto this whole, 00:32:35.366 --> 00:32:38.176 like, peptides rat hole, which I think is actually fascinating. 00:32:38.176 --> 00:32:40.926 There's so many interesting tailwinds for that. 00:32:40.926 --> 00:32:43.756 So I think the consumer's life is gonna be transformed in a big way. 00:32:43.756 --> 00:32:46.406 I think we're gonna see a four-day workweek, for example. 00:32:47.006 --> 00:32:49.706 Um, I'll tell you how the abundance agenda has kind of evolved. 00:32:49.706 --> 00:32:52.286 There's two ideas I think that are really important for the consumer 00:32:52.286 --> 00:32:53.696 right now that are kind of happening. 00:32:54.216 --> 00:32:57.276 You know, one is, um, coding agents. 00:32:57.326 --> 00:33:01.526 And the n- the sort of impact to consumers of coding agents is that everyone can 00:33:01.526 --> 00:33:04.876 make software in the same way that YouTube made it so everyone can make content. 00:33:05.266 --> 00:33:07.876 You know, if you look at the YouTube moment, you would have asked, "Hey, 00:33:07.876 --> 00:33:09.046 we already have enough content. 00:33:09.046 --> 00:33:10.826 We've got four major channels. 00:33:10.826 --> 00:33:13.446 We've got two hundred things on the, you know, the dish, and 00:33:13.636 --> 00:33:15.166 why do we need more content?" 00:33:15.416 --> 00:33:18.526 And now you look at YouTube, and it's like, you know, the news is talking 00:33:18.526 --> 00:33:21.126 about things they saw on YouTube, and YouTube shows are bigger than 00:33:21.136 --> 00:33:24.786 traditional news shows, and MrBeast gets more streams than the Super Bowl. 00:33:25.066 --> 00:33:29.246 So this incredible sort of explosive new growth area has occurred because 00:33:29.246 --> 00:33:32.446 of the platform, because you made it easy for anyone to create content. 00:33:32.456 --> 00:33:33.766 The same thing's happening

for software. 00:33:34.126 --> 00:33:37.016 You know, software used to actually have to be very specialized, 00:33:37.016 --> 00:33:38.456 obviously, as a programmer to do it. 00:33:38.796 --> 00:33:41.826 But now you actually look at software and say, if you don't have to be specialized, 00:33:41.826 --> 00:33:43.146 what types of software gets built? 00:33:43.526 --> 00:33:46.206 I actually think that one of the kind of interesting second-order effects 00:33:46.206 --> 00:33:50.866 is that because most consumer software captures culture and technology, and 00:33:50.866 --> 00:33:54.436 I think that often, um, women are more plugged in culturally than men are. 00:33:54.436 --> 00:33:56.716 You know, if you look at who uses TikTok, who uses Instagram. 00:33:57.026 --> 00:33:59.886 So I think we're gonna see this explosion in consumer apps actually 00:33:59.886 --> 00:34:02.626 being built by women, maybe for women, maybe for all of us. 00:34:03.106 --> 00:34:03.666 But I think that's 00:34:03.666 --> 00:34:07.036 like one really exciting trend, sort of software is having its YouTube moment. 00:34:07.366 --> 00:34:10.656 And then the other is around, you know, the e-enabling technologies, 00:34:10.696 --> 00:34:12.286 OpenClaw and general agents. 00:34:12.286 --> 00:34:15.686 But I think that the kind of insight is that you actually have all 00:34:15.686 --> 00:34:19.276 of these parts of the consumer's life that are suboptimal, and the 00:34:19.286 --> 00:34:21.716 reason is either that the consumer doesn't have enough information 00:34:21.716 --> 00:34:22.826 or they don't have enough time. 00:34:23.166 --> 00:34:25.696 And think of, you know, w- Jacob and I are dear friends 00:34:25.696 --> 00:34:26.846 with this guy, Chris Hutchins. 00:34:27.136 --> 00:34:28.996 You know, Chris has an awesome pod, which everyone should 00:34:28.996 --> 00:34:30.256 check out, called All The Hacks. 00:34:30.506 --> 00:34:32.626 But Chris is famous for optimizing his life. 00:34:32.636 --> 00:34:35.546 You know, he, uh, w- maybe we would tease him and say he doesn't value his 00:34:35.546 --> 00:34:39.746 time, but every single aspect of his life is sort of optimized and financially 00:34:39.746 --> 00:34:41.746 optimized, experientially optimized. 00:34:41.746 --> 00:34:43.726 Everything is just sort of just so. 00:34:44.046 --> 00:34:47.246 And now you can bring that same experience to every consumer with things 00:34:47.246 --> 00:34:50.556 like OpenClaw plus a set of skills for their healthcare, their money, their 00:34:50.566 --> 00:34:51.996 bachelor parties, their whatever. 00:34:52.406 --> 00:34:54.746 And I think that those are two very, very cool trends that are 00:34:54.746 --> 00:34:55.866 gonna play out for the consumer. 00:34:56.624 --> 00:34:57.084 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Totally. 00:34:57.144 --> 00:34:59.024 Have you opened up your life to Open Claw? 00:35:00.054 --> 00:35:00.794 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Oh, yeah, man. 00:35:00.914

--> 00:35:01.584 Yeah, yeah. 00:35:01.774 --> 00:35:03.194 Though I will say I have… 00:35:03.444 --> 00:35:07.004 Though I will say I'm personally more excited about coding than productivity, 00:35:07.434 --> 00:35:12.414 so I probably spend 80% of my time in, uh, Codex and Claude Code and Cursor, 00:35:12.432 --> 00:35:12.772 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah, 00:35:12.784 --> 00:35:16.704 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: and 20% in my Hermes installation, which is cool. 00:35:16.814 --> 00:35:19.624 Well, I think the, the way to do it, by the way, as an aside is I've got… 00:35:19.634 --> 00:35:20.734 You don't need a Mac Mini. 00:35:20.764 --> 00:35:22.314 You give it, you give it its own laptop. 00:35:22.314 --> 00:35:25.234 I have an old laptop that it runs on for me, and you give it… 00:35:25.294 --> 00:35:28.734 I signed up for a new Gmail account, a new iCloud account so it can text, 00:35:29.174 --> 00:35:32.874 like new credentials for Vercel and for Convex and for everything. 00:35:32.924 --> 00:35:36.084 So you sort of wanna give it its own identity, and you treat it like 00:35:36.084 --> 00:35:40.944 a, you know, sort of untrustworthy, you know, member of your family. 00:35:41.668 --> 00:35:43.078 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: You've been pretty public in saying, "Hey, the 00:35:43.078 --> 00:35:45.378 SaaS pocalypse is not gonna happen." 00:35:45.428 --> 00:35:48.758 , And you just, did a great job elaborating on the new opportunities 00:35:48.758 --> 00:35:52.798 in AI talk about, what do we see in SaaS, , is it still a growth vector, 00:35:53.008 --> 00:35:54.998 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I mean, software stocks had the best month 00:35:55.238 --> 00:35:59.448 over the last thirty days that they've had since twenty twenty, I think. 00:36:00.268 --> 00:36:04.318 Um, you know, I was looking yesterday at CrowdStrike and ServiceNow, and, 00:36:04.378 --> 00:36:07.308 you know, CrowdStrike has doubled since February, and ServiceNow is 00:36:07.308 --> 00:36:08.808 up thirty-five percent, I think. 00:36:09.618 --> 00:36:13.238 So, you know, the, the sort of the, the very, uh, certain-- the 00:36:13.238 --> 00:36:15.988 prediction with a lot of certainty around SaaS apocalypse has not 00:36:16.028 --> 00:36:17.448 really played out in the near term. 00:36:18.028 --> 00:36:22.058 Um, if you look at the kinda spectrum of what SaaS does, I think that the 00:36:22.058 --> 00:36:26.568 companies that are perhaps most at risk are pure visualization layers, you know, 00:36:26.568 --> 00:36:28.088 and perhaps some systems of record. 00:36:28.088 --> 00:36:30.988 And I think the companies that are least at risk are things that capture 00:36:31.328 --> 00:36:35.898 liability, regulatory payments, you know, complex integrations. 00:36:36.298 --> 00:36:39.418 Also, just think generally, software spend is not that high 00:36:39.418 --> 00:36:40.658 of a proportion of business spend. 00:36:40.658 --> 00:36:41.848 It's ten percent, right?

00:36:42.318 --> 00:36:45.308 So if you sorta look at what you have with coding agents today and you're a 00:36:45.308 --> 00:36:49.128 CEO, and suddenly somebody gives you this magic machine called CloudCode that can do 00:36:49.138 --> 00:36:53.778 anything, are you really gonna say, "Hey, let me aggressively go after ten percent 00:36:53.778 --> 00:36:57.918 of my spend, ten percent of my COGS, and replace all these really sensitive systems 00:36:57.918 --> 00:36:59.538 like Salesforce, the deal and all?" 00:36:59.568 --> 00:37:00.678 Of course, you're not gonna do that. 00:37:00.678 --> 00:37:03.058 You're gonna say, "Hey, let me take the thing that our company specializes 00:37:03.058 --> 00:37:06.398 in, and let me build all the features that I never got to build because my 00:37:06.398 --> 00:37:08.018 exec said it would take too much time." 00:37:08.388 --> 00:37:12.638 So just think kinda the human incentives point in a different direction than the 00:37:12.638 --> 00:37:15.528 SaaS apocalypse predicted, and we're sort of seeing that in public markets. 00:37:15.828 --> 00:37:18.038 Look, with that said, I think some of the SaaS companies have got… 00:37:18.038 --> 00:37:21.668 We've talked about the SBC thing a lot, stock-based compensation. 00:37:21.948 --> 00:37:22.058 You 00:37:22.118 --> 00:37:22.498 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:37:22.548 --> 00:37:24.848 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: are questions around are these the 00:37:24.848 --> 00:37:27.498 companies that are gonna actually capture the SaaS opportunities? 00:37:27.528 --> 00:37:29.478 But I certainly don't think that SaaS is going away. 00:37:30.182 --> 00:37:31.192 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Let's shift a little bit and 00:37:31.192 --> 00:37:32.792 talk about liquidity and venture. 00:37:32.832 --> 00:37:35.172 You know, companies are staying private longer. 00:37:35.222 --> 00:37:39.292 How do you think about path to DPI, 00:37:39.342 --> 00:37:41.902 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: well, I think the, the magic that smaller 00:37:41.902 --> 00:37:44.192 funds have is that they can sell. 00:37:44.722 --> 00:37:48.922 So I think as an individual investor, as a solo GP, as a smaller fund, as someone 00:37:48.922 --> 00:37:53.212 who's getting started, I would say that the best practice I've seen is be willing 00:37:53.212 --> 00:37:58.212 to buy and sell, um, you know, mu-much as you would in the public markets. 00:37:58.832 --> 00:38:01.362 And I think that, that sort of idea of taking something off the 00:38:01.362 --> 00:38:05.032 table along the way in some of your winning positions is the best way to 00:38:05.200 --> 00:38:06.912 have the sort of sucker insurance. 00:38:07.602 --> 00:38:10.472 Um, now, look, I think it's much, much more difficult at very big 00:38:10.482 --> 00:38:13.452 funds because it creates signaling problems, and it's also sort of like 00:38:13.702 --> 00:38:15.592 a cultural mismatch with what we do. 00:38:15.602 --> 00:38:17.542 We're sort of ride a die all the way through. 00:38:18.092 --> 00:38:20.232 But I definitely think for smaller funds, they should be 00:38:20.232 --> 00:38:21.902 generating DPI along the way. 00:38:21.902 --> 00:38:25.222 And, and look, I think we're all being held to a higher DPI standard than in past 00:38:25.222 --> 00:38:26.862 years, and, and that's not a bad thing 00:38:28.108 --> 00:38:28.418 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:38:28.448 --> 00:38:31.978 I, I was doing a podcast with Vanessa Larco, who used to be at NEA, and now 00:38:31.978 --> 00:38:35.828 she's building a firm called Premise, and she said, "The most liquid asset 00:38:35.828 --> 00:38:38.078 class in venture is pre-seed because we 00:38:38.128 --> 00:38:38.428 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:38:38.898 --> 00:38:40.488 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: sell and nobody cares." 00:38:40.668 --> 00:38:42.538 You know, I was like, wow, that's actually a really good point. 00:38:42.538 --> 00:38:43.158 You can take 00:38:43.204 --> 00:38:43.984 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Really interesting 00:38:44.058 --> 00:38:45.668 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Xs, you know, early on and off you go. 00:38:46.384 --> 00:38:46.784 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:38:46.808 --> 00:38:47.908 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: now kind of on the other side, 00:38:47.908 --> 00:38:49.258 on the founder side, you know, 00:38:49.368 --> 00:38:52.308 you having come up through a couple of acquisitions as a founder, 00:38:52.784 --> 00:38:53.124 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:38:53.424 --> 00:38:55.188 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: about counseling founders about when 00:38:55.188 --> 00:38:59.058 to take liquidity or potentially an M&A versus really going for the long run? 00:39:01.112 --> 00:39:04.182 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Um, so I think the founders are always the ones who 00:39:04.182 --> 00:39:06.202 know when the game is up before we do. 00:39:06.702 --> 00:39:09.772 So I think that there-- investors, there's often there's a bad archetype 00:39:09.772 --> 00:39:13.262 of investor, which is like the high anxiety junior investor often. 00:39:13.372 --> 00:39:16.242 Um, and we don't have any of these at our firm, but they exist in the 00:39:16.242 --> 00:39:20.132 industry where they're just, they feel like if you aren't successful, then 00:39:20.142 --> 00:39:21.602 they are going to fail personally. 00:39:22.702 --> 00:39:24.202 And look, sometimes it's true in their firm. 00:39:24.202 --> 00:39:26.382 The firm says, "Hey, this, you got three years to get a deal 00:39:26.382 --> 00:39:27.552 working, otherwise you're out." 00:39:28.212 --> 00:39:31.072 I think in those situations, people can be pushing you to 00:39:31.072 --> 00:39:32.582 either keep going or to quit. 00:39:32.992 --> 00:39:35.562 And if it's a mismatch with your intuition as a founder, you just always 00:39:35.562 --> 00:39:36.812 have to listen to your intuition. 00:39:36.822 -->

00:39:39.742 You know, kind of when what you're working on is, is not gonna… 00:39:39.782 --> 00:39:43.283 isn't either not working or not gonna work forever better than anyone else. 00:39:43.472 --> 00:39:46.462 And look, I, I personally have been clinical about it. 00:39:46.502 --> 00:39:49.442 You know, when I was working at a company that was really working, you couldn't 00:39:49.452 --> 00:39:51.312 even get me in the room to talk about M&A. 00:39:51.352 --> 00:39:53.942 And the second that the sort of landscape shifted and we had platform 00:39:53.942 --> 00:39:57.082 risk and the team started to get tired, I was like, "Okay, great. 00:39:57.082 --> 00:39:57.732 Let's sell the company. 00:39:57.732 --> 00:39:59.382 Let's like get the right price and try and sell it." 00:39:59.782 --> 00:40:03.852 I think as a background process, every founder should spend 5% of their time 00:40:03.852 --> 00:40:05.962 with acquirers and 5% with investors. 00:40:06.252 --> 00:40:06.792 Just do it. 00:40:06.792 --> 00:40:08.362 You know, it's not that much time. 00:40:08.442 --> 00:40:11.932 The most important thing, especially in M&A, is when you need help, 00:40:11.972 --> 00:40:13.142 you're not trying to build trust. 00:40:13.892 --> 00:40:16.592 So you actually already have a somewhat trusted or at least the person 00:40:16.592 --> 00:40:19.672 has seen your face before, so it's not like, "Hey, great to meet you. 00:40:19.942 --> 00:40:21.782 Would you be interested in doing something strategic?" 00:40:23.054 --> 00:40:24.484 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yep, similar to like how you said 00:40:24.484 --> 00:40:27.684 it's, you love to spend time with founders over multiple time periods 00:40:27.684 --> 00:40:28.944 so you can see how they execute. 00:40:29.024 --> 00:40:30.664 It's same for the, same for M&A, right? 00:40:30.664 --> 00:40:32.364 The M&A side wants to trust you. 00:40:32.976 --> 00:40:33.496 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Totally 00:40:33.574 --> 00:40:35.636 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: last couple of questions, let's 00:40:35.936 --> 00:40:36.196 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:40:36.496 --> 00:40:39.444 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: a hard lesson about the venture business that 00:40:39.444 --> 00:40:41.254 you only learned by getting it wrong? 00:40:43.384 --> 00:40:45.444 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Ooh, what's a hard lesson about the venture business? 00:40:45.444 --> 00:40:48.334 I think that a company can never be bigger than a founder's 00:40:48.364 --> 00:40:49.864 capacity for it to be big. 00:40:50.624 --> 00:40:55.464 So even if you see all the moves, uh, and even if you tell the founder, if they're 00:40:55.464 --> 00:41:02.024 just not, um, wanting to or kinda able to, I mean, it almost is always a mistake to 00:41:02.024 --> 00:41:05.974 prescribe anything to a founder, and we never do that with product or technology. 00:41:06.264 --> 00:41:09.334 But sometimes you sort of see something for them that they

may not see for 00:41:09.334 --> 00:41:10.814 themself, and that just never works 00:41:11.542 --> 00:41:11.812 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Hmm. 00:41:12.502 --> 00:41:13.082 That's a good one. 00:41:13.802 --> 00:41:13.942 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:41:14.102 --> 00:41:14.812 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Those founders. 00:41:15.522 --> 00:41:18.952 And what would you, how would you counsel an emerging manager, a 00:41:18.952 --> 00:41:23.612 younger investor who's, really working on building investment judgment? 00:41:23.882 --> 00:41:24.782 How would you counsel them? 00:41:24.842 --> 00:41:27.912 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: I just, to me, the most obvious thing that almost 00:41:27.912 --> 00:41:29.702 no one does is use all the products. 00:41:30.512 --> 00:41:31.932 Like really use them, you know? 00:41:31.982 --> 00:41:33.362 Like build stuff, ship stuff. 00:41:33.392 --> 00:41:34.512 And there's two benefits to that. 00:41:34.522 --> 00:41:38.452 One is you develop intuition, like real intuition, which helps you assess 00:41:38.452 --> 00:41:40.712 deals, win deals, all of that stuff. 00:41:40.712 --> 00:41:43.562 You know, and the second is actually it's something that you can kind 00:41:43.562 --> 00:41:46.302 of post about, talk about, and help to build your public profile. 00:41:46.622 --> 00:41:50.232 I mean, who has done a better job of this than Gary, you know, Gary Tan? 00:41:50.272 --> 00:41:52.742 Like, it's amazing what he's doing with G Stack and G Brain, 00:41:52.742 --> 00:41:53.702 and he's shipping and he's… 00:41:53.752 --> 00:41:56.212 I mean, it's, it's awesome, and it's such a great example 00:41:56.212 --> 00:41:57.292 to me of what it looks like. 00:41:57.482 --> 00:41:59.012 Nobody is telling you no right now. 00:41:59.012 --> 00:42:00.562 You don't even need to be a programmer. 00:42:01.172 --> 00:42:03.352 So I think that is like the number one thing is really, 00:42:03.352 --> 00:42:04.862 really obsess about the products. 00:42:04.862 --> 00:42:07.202 You're not allowed to be opinionated on a product until you've 00:42:07.202 --> 00:42:08.272 actually made something with it. 00:42:08.312 --> 00:42:09.232 That's like my rule. 00:42:10.016 --> 00:42:10.426 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah. 00:42:10.686 --> 00:42:10.966 Yeah 00:42:11.542 --> 00:42:13.292 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: and then look, I think for the other things, I 00:42:13.292 --> 00:42:17.502 think at seed and pre-seed, there's a lot of room for being non-consensus. 00:42:18.022 --> 00:42:21.682 I think at the series A, B, C, it starts to become an increasingly 00:42:21.682 --> 00:42:25.012 kinda access game based on what the market has come to consensus on. 00:42:25.472 --> 00:42:29.492 I think as an investor, you kinda have to decide which one you're interested in 00:42:29.502 --> 00:42:31.922 and skill that and have a process for it. 00:42:32.222 --> 00:42:36.252 Um, but I do think it's really, really important to actually, you know, pick 00:42:36.252 --> 00:42:40.852 a, pick a strategy or develop a strategy and try to stick to it versus try to, you 00:42:40.852 --> 00:42:42.532 know, just be a part of every good deal. 00:42:42.532 --> 00:42:43.672 Like, sure, but how? 00:42:44.012 --> 00:42:45.692 How are you a part of every good deal? 00:42:45.692 --> 00:42:48.462 And, and I think people do well when they actually have like a sweet spot, 00:42:48.462 --> 00:42:51.372 a style of investment, a style of founder that they really specialize in 00:42:52.258 --> 00:42:55.218 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: last question is what's a consumer product 00:42:55.218 --> 00:42:57.918 in AI that you love that has nothing to do with a deal, but that you're 00:42:57.918 --> 00:43:00.848 experimenting with and that's pushing you forward or you're just obsessed with? 00:43:01.148 --> 00:43:02.766 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Well, I'll give you one that's not in, 00:43:02.796 --> 00:43:07.726 uh, not in AI, which is I think that what Matt Mazzeo is doing with NoHo 00:43:07.736 --> 00:43:09.576 Labs is really, really interesting. 00:43:09.586 --> 00:43:11.576 This is a sort of consumer peptide company. 00:43:11.896 --> 00:43:14.546 And I'll tell you why I think the, the entire category is interesting. 00:43:14.556 --> 00:43:18.216 You know, one, I think that the GLP-1s have essentially taught an 00:43:18.216 --> 00:43:21.926 entire generation of Americans that it's not scary to inject yourself. 00:43:22.816 --> 00:43:26.376 In, in the past, you think of, like, we all grew up with somebody probably 00:43:26.376 --> 00:43:29.296 who's diabetic, and the idea that they had to inject themself with 00:43:29.296 --> 00:43:30.736 insulin was terrifying, you know? 00:43:31.106 --> 00:43:34.816 Like, holy cow, that must be so painful and it's scary and, and now everybody 00:43:34.816 --> 00:43:36.456 just does that and it's no big deal. 00:43:36.476 --> 00:43:38.156 So we're injecting ourselves. 00:43:38.156 --> 00:43:42.186 I think the second tailwind is that people now feel like, you know, w- five 00:43:42.186 --> 00:43:45.996 years ago we were in body positivity mode because everyone assumed that, hey, 00:43:45.996 --> 00:43:49.276 we can never change how we are, so we better just learn to accept it culturally. 00:43:49.606 --> 00:43:52.876 Now we're in looks maxing mode because it's like, hold on, fuck that. 00:43:52.876 --> 00:43:56.786 Like, I-- shit, I wanna look great because it feels better, and I can 00:43:56.846 --> 00:43:57.976 with the help of this medicine. 00:43:57.976 --> 00:44:00.386 Now we can talk about the implications of that, good, bad, but that's 00:44:00.386 --> 00:44:01.576 just something that has happened. 00:44:02.268 --> 00:44:02.578 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:44:02.786 --> 00:44:04.766 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: and then look, finally, I think that with all 00:44:04.766 --> 00:44:08.346 those things being said, having a really trusted, vertically integrated consumer 00:44:08.346 --> 00:44:12.606 brand through which people can actually consume this stuff at scale is going to… 00:44:12.606 --> 00:44:14.986 It's definitely going to happen, and I hope that it's NoHo. 00:44:14.986 --> 00:44:18.126 So I think that there's-- it's a very, very interesting trend, um, 00:44:18.126 --> 00:44:21.026 and I think that it's one where the, like, what if it works is enormous. 00:44:21.574 --> 00:44:21.884 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Hmm. 00:44:22.164 --> 00:44:22.524 Love it. 00:44:22.534 --> 00:44:24.654 Well, I need to spend more time learning about that too. 00:44:24.964 --> 00:44:26.404 I haven't spent much time, so 00:44:26.460 --> 00:44:27.000 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: You should, dude. 00:44:27.010 --> 00:44:27.730 You'll be jacked. 00:44:27.780 --> 00:44:29.040 We'll, we'll look snack together. 00:44:29.074 --> 00:44:29.224 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: it. 00:44:30.094 --> 00:44:30.574 I love it. 00:44:30.724 --> 00:44:31.164 I love it. 00:44:31.224 --> 00:44:31.774 I love it. 00:44:32.230 --> 00:44:32.680 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Oh. 00:44:32.764 --> 00:44:34.174 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: Anish, thank you so much 00:44:34.224 --> 00:44:35.994 for sharing your time, uh, 00:44:36.170 --> 00:44:36.540 anish_1_06-03-2026_080434: Yeah 00:44:36.904 --> 00:44:38.064 jacob-mullins_1_06-03-2026_080434: and some of the insight of 00:44:38.064 --> 00:44:39.524 how Andreessen Horowitz works. 00:44:39.554 --> 00:44:42.574 Um, I know the VC Mastermind community will get a lot out of 00:44:42.574 --> 00:44:43.864 this, so really appreciate it. 00:44:44.174 --> 00:44:47.644 Um, and for those of you listeners and viewers, thanks for watching VC 00:44:47.644 --> 00:44:49.114 Mastermind, and we'll see you next time