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slash disclosures. Welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Michael Copeland. And I have here in the podcast room, tiny though

it may be, Elizabeth Wheel. Elizabeth, welcome. Thanks for having me. Elizabeth is on our market

development team and you spend a lot of your time, most of your time, sitting in between kind

of startups, the startup world, Silicon Valley, and big Fortune 500, global 2,000 companies who are coming through the doors all the time

and who you visit. And so I want to talk to you about how those two worlds come together.

Here at the firm, and really throughout Silicon Valley, there seems to be this constant stream of big companies coming to Silicon Valley, either putting down sort of roots of their own, setting up shop, you know, to help them with research in automobiles and health care and, you know, in retail for that matter.

Why do you think there's so many big companies coming to the Valley looking to learn?

And I think that they are. There's no question. But what to the valley looking to learn. And I think that they are.

There's no question. But what are they looking for? And how does that relationship really begin?

I think there's a variety of stages. And I would say the most nascent, it's just coming and visiting.

And now, you know, there's this term of coming to corporate tourism. But sometimes that is a way to

start, get a sense of what companies are out here. And the way we look at it is come and get a sense of what

the valley is. Sometimes the company, the larger company, is really experienced and has been here

and has already visited the types of tech companies

that are peppering these streets. And sometimes they've never been. And this place is scary.

And they want to come and see innovation. And so we try to elucidate and shed some light on what's

going on in the valley. So why do they feel this sort of draw to the valley to begin with?

I mean, we talk a lot about how software

is seeping into every industry. And honestly, that's what we believe? But, I mean, is that why they're

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