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Hi, everyone. Welcome to the A16Z podcast.

I'm Sharon, an operating partner here, and every year our technical talent and people

practices team organizes a network building event for our interns at portfolio companies, including

a Q&A with Ben Horowitz, which I guest hosted this year.

Today we're sharing just a part of that

conversation as a short, snack-sized A16Z bytes episode. In this segment, we cover everything

from how to know what kind of company to join early on in one's career to when to strike out on

one's own. We also talked about platform shifts to anticipate and other bits of advice for those early

in their tech careers. But first, we start with the moral of the story of Microsoft's acquisition

of GitHub. So let's start with Microsoft announcing its intent to acquire GitHub. What do you think

about this acquisition and acquisitions like this? This one probably got the most criticism,

particularly from other VCs, when we made it. It was they way overpaid, you know,

businesses like that will never be worth a rational was when for the most money ever in that

space and I'll never make their money out of it. Like, it's ridiculous to put

that big a check in anything. Like, what are you doing? And we would get that back from our investors

would say, hey, this is what the other VCs have been saying about the deal. And that's a good

lesson for me. So when people say it's stupid, that doesn't mean you're not going to make money.

And that's probably the biggest thing I got out of it.

...