Welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Michael Copeland. In this segment of the podcast, Stanford's

Bethany Coates and A16Z's Lars Dahlgard talk about how he found a place in technology

with a non-technical background and why, as uncomfortable as it may be for himself and others,

Dalgarde always opts to discuss hard truths from the get-go.

The discussion you'll hear happened with the participation of a room full of military veterans,

who are part of the Breakline Program, an education and hiring initiative designed to help

veterans transition into post-military careers.

Okay, everybody, we're going to get started. It's really my pleasure to have my friend

Lars Dahlgard here to chat with us today. Lars is a Stanford alum. He founded and ran the company's success

factors, which he ultimately sold to SAP, and he's now an investor here

at Andreessen Horowitz. And we're going to have a wide-ranging conversation, and then we'll open

it up for some Q&A as well. Lars, I'd love for you to share with this group. We have a group of

distinguished veterans here, and you came to the tech industry,

but you weren't a technologist. That's correct. And so can you talk about your kind of introduction

to the field and what you brought to the field and how you also shored up some of the skillsets

that maybe you didn't have in order to be successful? Yeah. So first of all, let me just say, I want to thank you all for your service for the country.

Very, very much. I'm sure you hear it a lot, but I don't think you can hear it enough.

So, yeah, so I'm also an immigrant. I came here about 17 years ago, and I literally knew nothing

about tech, but I had a huge love for it, huge love for it.

And what's very clear is that there's nothing in the world in the future that's not going to be done with tech and software.

So, you know, looking around where you are and where you are in your life and your career and your age, I think you're perfectly time for it.

Like this is, there's not a late time for this.

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