20VC: a16z's Chris Dixon on Who Will Win the Next Generation of Venture, The Two Ways to Make Great Venture Investments and Find the Best Entrepreneurs & Why AI Will Strengthen the Position of the Incumbents Moving Forward
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2024
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chris Dixon is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with investments in Oculus (acquired by Facebook), Coinbase, and many more. Chris also founded and leads a16z crypto, a division of the firm that he has grown from $300 million in 2018 to more than $7 billion of committed capital. Due to his many successes, Chris was named #1 on the Forbes Midas List in 2022.
In Today’s Episode with Chris Dixon We Discuss:
- From Founder to Leading GP in Venture:
- How did Chris make his way into the world of venture and startups?
- When did he realize investing was his calling?
- How did Chris Dixon come to co-found Founder Collective with Dave Frankel and Eric Paley?
- Lessons from 12 years Investing:
- What are Chris’ biggest lessons from working with Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz?
- Does Chris agree with Doug Leone, “venture has transitioned from a boutique high margin business to a low margin commoditised industry”?
- What are the two ways to win in venture?
- Does Chris agree the best founders don’t need their VCs?
- What is Chris’ biggest investing miss? How did it impact his mindset?
- Are Incumbents Too Big To Be Replaced:
- What is the biggest problem with open-source internet today?
- Does Chris think incumbents can be replaced?
- Why does Chris think AI will strengthen incumbents?
- Does Chris think OpenAI should be open-sourced?
- Biggest Challenges in Crypto:
- What is the biggest misconception of crypto today?
- Does Chris think speculation is bad for crypto?
- What would Chris most like to change in the world of crypto?
- How does Chris think Trump will affect crypto?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I think there's sort of broadly two methods at work in venture, I would call one heat seeking |
| 0:04.7 | and one truffle hunting. |
| 0:05.8 | I haven't seen a technology movement where a bunch of very smart people were excited about |
| 0:11.1 | it in my career that hasn't eventually worked. |
| 0:13.5 | The big five companies have 95%, 5% plus of the traffic and the money. |
| 0:17.6 | And AI, as exciting as it is, we'll very likely accelerate that |
| 0:22.1 | consolidation because it rewards companies with large stores of data and capital. |
| 0:25.9 | This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, I've wanted to make this episode happen for a long |
| 0:30.2 | time. Today, we welcome one of the leading venture investors of the last decade, Chris Dixon. |
| 0:35.6 | Chris is a number one Midas List investor. In 2022, Chris raised |
| 0:39.6 | $4.5 billion for Andreessen Horace's crypto fund, and he was an early investor in incredible |
| 0:45.0 | companies like Coinbase, Oculus, Stripe and Dapper Labs, to name a few. But before we begin, |
| 0:50.9 | I need to tell you about Hive. 2024 is shaping up to be a big year for the markets with a number of iconic unicorns |
| 0:57.8 | rumoured to be going public. |
| 0:59.3 | Whether you're a fund manager or invest solo, Hive is the best way for you to access the |
| 1:04.3 | coming wave of IPOs before they hit the market. |
| 1:07.0 | There is no charge to access the platform and it's live trading data on hundreds of |
| 1:11.8 | late stage private companies. Best of all, buyers don't pay fees on Hive. Create a free account today |
| 1:18.1 | at Hive.com forward slash 20VC. That's Hive with two eyes.com slash 20VC and see why they're |
| 1:26.6 | the fastest growing pre-IPO marketplace in the world and if hive |
| 1:30.4 | provides incredible levels of access secure frame secure frame provides incredible levels of trust to your |
| 1:36.2 | customers through automation secure frame empowers businesses to build trust with customers by simplifying |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.