Where We Are in the AI Cycle

a16z Podcast

a16z

Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of ‘This Week in Consumer’, a16z General Partners Anish Acharya and Erik Torenberg are joined by Steven Sinofsky - Board Partner at a16z and former President of Microsoft’s Windows division - for a deep dive on how today’s AI moment mirrors (and diverges from) past computing transitions. They explore whether we’re at the “Windows 3.1” stage of AI or still in the earliest innings, why consumer adoption is outpacing developer readiness, and how frameworks like partial autonomy, jagged intelligence, and “vibe coding” are shaping what gets built next. They also dig into where the real bottlenecks lie, not in the tech, but in how companies, products, and people work.

Transcript

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0:00.0	people are still trying to figure out how everything works. What I love about the vibe writing concept
0:06.1	actually is it's a place in which full autonomy can be fulfilled today. You're prompting,
0:11.9	although it's English-like, it turns out you're just programming. And you're just programming
0:16.5	and prompt. I've had so many conversations with product managers of the last two years about the
0:21.7	death of product management.
0:23.2	It's the end of the field, why do we need PMs.
0:26.3	It was extreme in 1990 and it's extreme today.
0:31.1	Where are we really in the AI computing shift?
0:33.9	Is this the Windows 3.1 moment or more like the 64K IBM PC?
0:38.6	In this episode, part of our This Week in Consumer Series, I'm joined by A16Z general partner
0:43.6	Anisha Charya and board member Steven Sinovsky, former Microsoft president and one of the most
0:48.6	influential product thinkers in tech to unpack where we are in the AI platform cycle
0:52.9	and what's coming next.
0:54.4	We dig into the framework shaping this moment, partial autonomy, jagged intelligence,
0:59.3	vibe coding versus vibed writing, what builders are wrong about agents, what Google's
1:03.7	I.O. signals about platform strategy, and why the future might be less about killer apps
1:08.0	and more about control sliders. We begin by discussing this week's talk from Andre Carpathie on why software is changing again.
1:14.9	Let's get into it.
1:18.5	As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only.
1:22.0	Should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security,
1:27.4	and is not directed
1:28.4	at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates
	...

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