Hi, this is Chris Dixon. This is the A16Z podcast. I'm here with Benedict Evans and

biology Shrinivasa. So we've talked about this concept a lot internally. We call it

full stack startups. I wrote a blog post about it recently. I guess just to get out of the way

because some people say, what is this isn't just another fancy word for vertical integration.

Let me define what I mean by these, which are basically, there's sort of a new, I don't know, trend in startups to have a kind of a core insight that's around technology.

But then to build a company that does multiple activities beyond just that technology, not just sort of, you know,

so instead of building software and then going out and selling that software, building a

complete service around it, that includes things that we would traditionally not call technology

functions in order to go to market.

So I'll give some examples.

So, you know, Uber, I think is a good example where prior to Uber, there were actually

companies out there that built software for, that they tried to license to taxi companies

that would help, you know, do automated dispatching and things.

For a variety of reasons, those companies were not technology forward thinking.

You were selling them

something that they was going to replace part of their staff maybe even the people buying it they

didn't catch on um and then you have someone like uber come along who who does it sort of in this

full stack way they actually you know pay the drivers and do all these things we don't think of

technology companies um you know tesla building a full car versus a lot of companies before that tried to just build electric batteries and sell them.

You know, you take Netflix.

They're now, you know, both funding content, movie development.

They have a website where you can discover it and then they also, you know, and you can watch it.

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