What virtually everybody finds, including Elon Musk, is the real world is just really, really big and really, really messy.

The AI thing is so interesting, right? Because from a technology perspective, it feels like you can build products pretty immediately that are going to win.

Our entire way of doing everything as humans, we think it's going to change. We reinvented the computer.

And the new computer is far better than the one that we have been building on for the last 50 or so years.

The purpose of building the dominant venture brand was precisely to be able to have the companies be able to borrow that at the most critical points in their development so that the companies can kind of use our course in the world as a slingshot to basically build their own force.

You cannot join the firm unless you sign the culture document.

If you had to pick a thing, what are you compounding?

Reputation.

The media ecosystem is entering a more open era

and the conversation about what speech should look like

is no longer controlled by a small set of institutions.

In this episode, A16Z co-founders, Mark Andresen, and Ben Horowitz joined Not Boring founder

Paki McCormick to talk through how the information environment changed over the past decade

and with that shift means for creators, platforms, and investors.

We start with Packy's reference point, a 2015 New Yorker profile that captured the end of an era when mainstream

journalism broadly positioned itself as a defender of free speech.

Then move into Mark's framing of the uncontrolled or liberated information environment where

we are now.

Mark and Ben break down the turning point they think mattered most, including Elon Musk's acquisition

of Twitter and Substack's decision to hold a consistent,

principled line on speech under heavy pressure. They explain why A16Z invested in Substack

and how enabling writers to monetize directly creates a supply of content that pulls new demand

...