And at the time I joined, there were only a couple of investing partners, and there's only one fund.

Now we have sort of this complex of funds.

And I was a, you know, reasonably prominent sort of angel investor, blogger.

They were probably, you know, looking at people that had some had been doing it for some period of time.

I mean, I don't know exactly why.

But I think in the end, we just sort of hit it off.

Chris Dixon grew up in Ohio, got a computer in the 1980s, and taught himself see an assembly

language by making video games.

After college, he wrote Monte Carlo simulations at an options market making firm in

New York, then left to co-found

Site Advisor, an internet security company sold to McAfee in 2006. Two years later, he started

an AI company called hunch, built on neural networks that didn't yet have the GPU power

to work well. It sold to eBay in 2011. In 2013, he joined

Andreessen Horowitz, where he led a $75 million round for Oculus, made the firm's early investment

in Coinbase, and eventually built A16Z's dedicated crypto practice, now in its fourth fund.

In this conversation, Dixon traces the full arc from quant finance to seed investing

to Washington policy work on stable corn legislation and explains the framework behind his

most unconventional bets.

This episode previously aired on the internet history podcast. Brian McCullough speaks with

Chris Dixon, General Partner at A16Z. Chris Dixon, thanks for coming on to talk to us today.

Thanks for having me, Brian. Yeah, you and I have spoken many, many times, and I feel like we have gotten some of your

beginning before, but let me go back to the very, very beginning and ask you about becoming a

...