Anisha Charya is A16Z's general partner for consumer tech and AI.

He recently joined Ollie Forsythe on new economies for a wide-ranging conversation on where the next wave of breakout products will come from,

how AI is reshaping distribution and what consumer tech is re-accelerating as we headed to 2026.

They also dig into founder psychology, market timing, and the traps early builders should

avoid in the current cycle.

We share that discussion here.

Anish, it's great to see you.

Thank you so much your time.

Welcome to the podcast, A16Z.

Wow, you guys are on fire right now.

We're working hard. We try to be everywhere, you know. And when there's more opportunity, that means, you know, Ben says there's no such thing as luck. We're not allowed to be lucky. We've just got to cover everything. So when there's more things to cover, we've just got to put in more cycles, you know? I kind of feel like A6 and Z is so well known in the ecosystem, but I don't

think founders know well enough on what actually happens inside Andresen. Can you just give

us like an update? What's Andrewston all about? What are you guys focused on? And what's the

layer to land in startups? Yeah, you know, it's funny, Ali, because Andreessen is so well known, but the kind of core thesis of the firm, I think, is less well known. I didn't know it when I joined in 2019. And the core thesis of the firm, Mark and Ben have written a lovely blog post about this that, you know, we should refer your readers to. But the core thesis has always been that founders make the best long-term CEOs and leaders of their companies, right? And that sounds like a non-controversial statement. But 10 years ago, when the firm started 15 years ago, it was actually controversial. That common practice at the time was that venture firms would bring in a so-called professional experience CEO. Now, what is the difference between a founder and a CEO?

It tends to be two things, right?

Knowledge and networks.

So the whole structure of the firm is meant to help founders be those CEOs of their

companies forever by pulling networks and knowledge around them.

So that's like the core thesis.

That's a good sort of foundational building block.

And then in terms of the way the firm is composed, it is a big firm, but everybody is a specialist.

So the expectation is that we're all very, very deep and kind of obsessed and technical and operational and networked in our areas.

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