Inside the New Media Team with Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz

1. 0:00 – 2:26

   Introduction

   1. ETErik Torenberg0:00

      Today's gonna be a fun one. We're gonna dive into all things new media, what is new media, what the new media team is doing here at A16Z, what we're focused on, and where we're going in 2026. Really stoked to be making this happen. Ben, you had this quote which I think summarizes some of the, some of the, one of the main principles of, of new media. I just wanna, you know, r-read a small, small part of it and then have you e-elaborate. Uh, "Old media is defense-oriented. In, in new media, offense is always better than defense. We've spent many years fretting about our results being leaked. Old media tries to please every audience. Old media is terrified of upsetting people, and new media only cares about being interesting. When in doubt, flood the zone."

   2. MAMarc Andreessen0:45

      Yeah. [chuckles] Yep. That sounds like something I say.

   3. ETErik Torenberg0:49

      [laughs] W-why don't you share some of the tenets be-behind th-that, that idea and h-h-how, how you came to it?

   4. MAMarc Andreessen0:55

      Yeah. So a-actually, it's interesting, um, it, it's a really weird adjustment going from, you know... I mean, I spent my whole career in old media or dealing with old media, and now we're in new media. You know, kinda in the history of the firm, we've been-- The, the one thing that we really, really, really, really defended against was basically leaked results. And, uh, the reason-- And it goes back to in the pretty early days of the firm, uh, the New York Times got a leak of our results, and they, they were very early. I mean, we were, like, a young firm, so most of the funds were, like, a year old. Um, and, you know, venture capital firms don't have high returns in the first year 'cause, like, nothing happens in the first year. It's not like a stock market type thing. And so, you know, the-- They mis- or maybe it's The Wall Street Journal. It was one of the two, but th-they misinterpreted the results. Um, you know, so they kind of said, "Well, the early funds were good 'cause those had enough years to get kinda returns in them. But, like, fund three was terrible," and, like, da, da, da, da, and so forth. And there was no, um, you know, because old media was still powerful, it was very hard to combat it. You know, we put out statements and this and that and the other and blog posts but-- explaining, like, why they were wrong, um, but it didn't land. And it was such a, like a-- Inside

2. 2:26 – 7:01

   Offense Beats Defense in New Media

   1. MAMarc Andreessen2:26

      the firm, it was such a big crisis that actually I'm pretty sure Balaji quit because he thought we were dead 'cause The New York Times had just, like, ruined the whole firm with that, uh, article. Um, so it was, like, that kind of existential a, a threat. And so, you know, we were very o-oriented around, like, okay, don't let anything out that could be misinterpreted or this or that 'cause you can never correct it. It goes out there, and you're never gonna kinda come back from it.

   2. ETErik Torenberg2:55

      And, and, and say more about the, the flood the zone concept in terms of, of, of why it works or, or, or, you know, why and, and why it's so different than, uh, than, you know, what would happen in the past.

   3. MAMarc Andreessen3:06

      Yeah. Well, so in the past, the p- traditionally, it didn't count if it wasn't in The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times or, like, The Economist or CNN or... Like, there were maybe eight channels that could say something, and then whatever they said was permanent in that, like, once it was out there, it was very hard to deal with, and it would be top of Google results, like the whole thing. Um, but now, [chuckles] y-you know, look, we can go on... Marc and I, if, uh, we really had a problem, could go on 30 podcasts, uh, all of which get a much bigger audience than any of the publications I've talked about. Um, and just basically... And we wouldn't have to talk about that. We could go talk about something else more interesting, [chuckles] um, and erase that from everybody's memory very quickly. So it's just y-you know, without commenting on what's a better world, like the laws of physics are completely different in this world than the other world. And I, I think to be effective, uh, as a organization in marketing and media, you have to, like, you, you have to embrace the new world because you can't be half and half. The, uh, th-th-- Because the whole motion of the old world will kill you in the new world, and, and vice versa. And so you have to kinda commit to we're gonna really care [chuckles] about what goes down through the old channels, or we're not gonna give a fuck, um, sorry to use language, and we're just gonna, you know, say interesting things and flood the zone. And, uh, we're doing the latter, by the way.

   4. SPSpeaker4:48

      There's a whole, uh, h-history to this, but ba- but basically, like, the, the, the whole idea that there's, like, a quote unquote "corporate brand," like, the whole idea that there's, like, a corporate, like, trademark, and then the whole idea that, that you, like, as a business, you basically load everything into that, into that, into that thing, and that that thing, you know, whether it's General Electric or International Business Machines or whatever, the, you know, the idea that that thing is somehow abstracted away from the people involved, um, and then that the people involved, you know, their main job is to try to kind of buff that thing, which kind of, you know, led to this, you know, you know... One way to look at it is, like, it led to this, like, 80-year kind of reign of, like, everything being synthetic and plastic and boring, right? Where, like, the, you know... We, we-- Ben and I have had this experience for many, many decades at this point. Um, it's just like, you know, the, the, the job of a corporate CEO for a very long time was to get up on stage and just say absolutely nothing in any sort of public exc- public event. Um, I, I actually was on a board with a CEO who very firmly, uh, believed this, um, and, uh, he, he literally would come off stage having s- having very deliberately said absolutely nothing and would, would have been thrilled, um, because, like, he, he had made no news, so, like, mission, mi-mi-mission accomplished, right? And anyway, so, Eric, to your question, like, basically, I think the retrospective view on this, what happened was basically in the past, your communication channels were just, like, super narrow, right? And so, and so y-y-- how could you get a message through to the mass market or to your audience or to, to your customer base? Um, uh, uh, you, you could only do it by kind of sending in a message that was encoded into as few bits as possible, right? 'Cause that, that was kind of your only shot because it was always limited by, you know, TV broadcast airtime, or it was limited by newspaper column inches or whatever. And so you just, you had to kind of crystallize everything down to this kind of min-mi-minimal and sort of least offensive, you know, kind of possible position.But, but it's always been unnatural because as human beings like that, it does, like, it, it never felt right. Like, you know, it always felt like weird 'cause it's like this, you know, corporation is like this weird other kind of alien thing. You know, it al- it always felt weird and uncomfortable, and we, and we just kinda got used to it. And it just, you know, it turns out as [chuckles] as, as our friend Mitt Romney famously said, "Corporations are people too." Um, and right? And like-

   5. MAMarc Andreessen6:43

      Poor, poor Mitt.

   6. SPSpeaker6:45

      R- r- uh, yeah, he was using it in a different context. Uh, he wa- he was not, he was not calling to change the PR. But, um, but, uh, you know, for our purposes, um, you know, like this is i- it's all about people. Like, it's all about the decisions that people make. Like wh- when, you know, when, when a big company or a b- a government

3. 7:01 – 12:17

   The Death of the Corporate Brand

   1. SPSpeaker7:01

      agency or a nonprofit or a venture firm or a startup is, like, making decisions and acting in the world, that's people. Like, they, you know, there's, there, there's, there is, you know, there, there are some set of people, um, who are sitting around making that decision. And I, and I just think, like... A- and, and then it's kind of, you know, it's kind of this almost, I don't know, like shock therapy or something, where it's just like if the people sh- who are actually making the calls actually, like, show up and talk on their own behalf and explain themselves and actually say what they think, it, like, blows everybody's minds, right? It's just, it's just, you know, it's, it's the e- you know, it's the response people have to, you know, Elon, it's the response people have to, you know, certain other, you know, people who are now, you know, kind of very notable in environment who are running lar- large things who are very public and vocal. It's just kind of this thing of like... And it's just, it's, it's almost like this thing where it's like, well, you know, they can't say that. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Number one, they can say that. Like, [chuckles] you know, they're allowed to. They're, like, an adult in the United States of America. Like, they're allowed to say, you know, whatever they want, number one. Number two, like, how about they actually tell us what they think? Like, how about we hear directly from them so that we can actually understand what they're thinking and who they are, you know, and how they're processing reality and what the, what their assumptions are? Um, and, and of course, the, the technological cause for this is just that, you know, that, that narrow media funnel just got, like, completely blown to smithereens, right? Uh, i- in large part as a consequence of all the work that, you know, that we, that, you know, all of us have done, uh, uh, on this call o- over the last 30 years. And so, like, it, it's just, you know... A- and you could kinda maybe say, uh, you know, l- love it or hate it, like, the, the, the, the, the days of kind of this narrow channel, narrow casting, and then what I would argue is just this, like, inherently deceptive practice, um, o- of abstracting things away from people. I, you know, that, that world is just clearly fading. Um, and, and, and in the new world, we're, we're just gonna hear direct from people. And I, you know. And look, uh, I'm not a utopian, and it's not gonna be, like, 100% better, but I, I think there's no question it's a big net improvement.

   2. MAMarc Andreessen8:36

      Yeah, and by the way, y- you know, the other, um, thing that's really interesting in retrospect is the things that people got in trouble for, uh, canceled for, fired for, et cetera, in the past that they said in the press were all just misinterpretations. So they, you know, if somebody's saying something, and because it was so narrow and because you could never erase it and because you could never come back and defend it because the audience would be, you know, a thousandth of the size on the defense, you know, people just... I- it was all, it wasn't I said what I thought and people thought I was a horrible person. It was I said something, it got misinterpreted, and people thought I was a horrible person. So now in this world where, like, you know, people say much more, like, aggressive things, I would just say, in terms of, you know, not being mainstream thinking, but have room to explain it, um, they, that, that rarely happens anymore. So, like, I mean, everything from, like, Howard Dean to y- you know, you name it. [chuckles] Like, in today's world, that, that would be nothing, um, but in that world, because there was no chance to say, "Well, like, this is what happened," um, you know, c- uh, like, there, there were just thousands of times when people got into incredible trouble for things that they said that were misinterpreted, uh, that they could not correct.

   3. SPSpeaker10:05

      Yeah. And, and Erik, you know, B- Ben, Ben gave me good advice, you know, um, um, actually before you came on board, which I am trying my best to stick to, although I will tell you it is a significant personal challenge.

   4. MAMarc Andreessen10:14

      Yeah.

   5. SPSpeaker10:15

      Um, again, with not eating an entire box of Oreos and, uh, drinking an entire bottle of scotch every night, both of which I'm also trying not to do.

   6. MAMarc Andreessen10:20

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SPSpeaker10:21

      Um, [chuckles] so 'cause we live in a healthy world now, so, um, uh, a less self-destructive world. So, um, you know, B- Ben, Ben pointed out that, like, th- th- the se- the, what Ben just said basically applies into the new world actually just as much as the old world in, in the sense of, like, when e- every time I've gotten myself into, like, serious trouble, like, in public over the last decade, it's because I tweeted something. Um, and I mean, you know, everybody on here probably knows how much I love Twitter, and, like, it's great to be able to rip off the hundred... You know, and, and I was really good at, like, compressing something super controversial in 140 characters and then really letting it rip with 280 characters. But Ben pointed out, like, look, every time, every time somebody gets mad at you, you know, every- just gets, like, completely ripped at you over, over that, b- basically what's happened is it's out of context. Um, and so what, what Ben said is, "Look, just say everything that you think, but say it on a podcast." Right? Say, say it in the context of an hour-and-a-half discussion so that you can s- whatever it is, you've surrounded it with a full explanation. Or say it in the form of an essay where you've, like, fully articulated your argument and, and it's fully in context. Um, and, and just observationally, like, and, and, and not just applying to myself, but just more broadly, it's actually interesting if you watch this to this day, w- when public figures get blown to smithereens, it's almost always because of something that's basically too short. Um, uh, when people actually do the full long, long-form explanation of what they think, even if it's on a highly controver- you know, even if it's imputed to be highly controversial or whatever, if it's the full explanation, it is actually harder to blow people up. And aga- and again, you could kinda sa- It, it's actually really funny. You know, when I was a kid, like, you know, the moral panic was around television, right? Kinda pr- pre the internet, and the, and the moral panic of tele- a lot of the moral panic of television always was around the concept of sound bites, which is you only ever get to hear, like, five seconds of what anybody's thoughts are, right?

   8. MAMarc Andreessen11:49

      Yeah.

   9. SPSpeaker11:49

      A- and somehow television is now the gold standard, you know, for information transmission. The internet's evil. Like, somehow it all flipped. But anyway, the point being is, like, the internet gives us the chance to not only express ourselves, like, in short form, the internet specifically gives us the chance to express ourselves in long form, right, and fully explain things. And that's, that's just so different. Like, the, the, the, the hour, hour-and-a-half, two-hour discussion with somebody who's, like, deeply into something and is really involved in something. Like, yeah, I mean, we all experience this as consumers. Like, it's just so much better than the, than the 30-second

4. 12:17 – 17:55

   Long Form as the Ultimate Shield

   1. SPSpeaker12:17

      bit that, you know, might've been on the NBC Nightly News 30 years ago.

   2. MAMarc Andreessen12:20

      And by the way, you know, the long form, uh, uh, of almost anything that'sInteresting, complex systems problem, um, which is most everything in politics and in technology, you need the long form. There is no soundbite that gives you any information. Um, and so you have to have, uh, a long conversation. So it is actually mu-much better. [chuckles] Oreos are vegan as far as I what... [chuckles] Th-there's always that thing with sugar, you know, using bones or whatever to be whiter, that kind of thing.

   3. SPSpeaker12:56

      I'm gonna eat a, I'm gonna eat a gigantic package of Oreos tonight in Deborah's honor. I really appreciate it. [laughs]

   4. ETErik Torenberg13:02

      [laughs] The-- Well, yeah, it's inter- we've also talked about, you know, media training of the past used to be ar- you know, around sort of, you know, how to stay out of trouble, this kind of thing. And n-now you, you know, if you're a CEO, you wanna be, you know, something, uh, you know, Jordi from TVPN has this concept of a Joe Rogan CEO. Uh, someone interesting enough to go on Joe Rogan for three hour... You know, someone like an Alex Karp, someone like a Palmer Luckey, right? And, um, 'cause and, and the flip side of that is that, you know, if you're interesting, you know, if you're powerful, you're, you're-- it's because you're interesting, uh, 'cause that's what, that's what people, that's what people wanna work for. It's, you know, people wanna be customers of. It's people wanna invest in. Um, and if you're powerful and interesting, you're going to be controversial, and, and, and that's something that you guys have also helped me get more, more, more accustomed to is like, "Hey, w-w-- you know, this is the big leagues," you know, a-and there are people, like, who are going to be mad at what we're doing and, and that is, that c- that's a-- in some ways, that's a good thing. That's, it's evidence of our, of our power and, and our interestingness.

   5. MAMarc Andreessen13:59

      Yeah, no, I think that's right, and I think, uh, y-you know, it's hard. Th-th-this is another kind of crossover between the old world and the new world 'cause if you're a corporate brand, then, you know, you try and keep all the dust off the brand and, and, you know, try and be, uh, something that nobody hates, uh, uh, I guess for lack of a better word. And then, you know, I think in today's world, to be good at marketing, you've got to be interesting. To be interesting, if you're interesting and powerful, there are gonna be a lot of people who don't like you. [chuckles] Um, and that's, like, that's a good thing. Um, and I was very happy to see by the way the infra piece 'cause we can get, like, a nice piece on, like, a subsection of the firm, but nobody's ever gonna write, like, a really nice thing about the whole firm. Um, I think that, y-you know, also, uh, it's a g- this whole new world is much better for founder CEOs because to be a founder, you have to have an original idea, and original ideas are interesting by nature. I think that professional CEOs, um, often get to that position through very careful politicking, which, uh, kind of is the opposite, where you want to be uncontroversial. Like, nobody can ding you right as you get to the thing. And, you know, Marc and I have, uh, been on, you know, Marc much more than me, but been on large boards where in the large boards, you know, when it comes to picking the professional CEO, they're all about what's not wrong with him, not what's right with him or what's right with her. And so you get these very vanilla characters who definitely could not go on Joe Rogan, and that, you know, is all to our advantage 'cause we basically deal almost entirely with founder CEOs.

   6. ETErik Torenberg15:43

      Yeah. I want to, uh, transition to one more structural mechanic 'cause it's a segue into how we've built our team a little bit, and it's, um, this, uh, Marc, it's this McLuhan quote, you know, "If it's on TV, it's a TV show." Um, and just talk about how the different formats yield different, different types of content. Um, do you wanna talk about that?

   7. SPSpeaker16:01

      Okay. You, you want, you, you want me to do it? You want me to do it?

   8. ETErik Torenberg16:04

      Yeah, yeah.

   9. SPSpeaker16:04

      Okay. All right. Okay. This is the thing. Okay. So yeah, Marshall McLuhan was the great media theorist of the, of the TV era, and actually his, his work has actually held up really well, and it's, it's, it's, it's worth reading. Um, but, uh, he, he had the, he had this, this thing, Eric, Eric just said. He said, "If, if it's on TV, it's a television show." Um, i-i-in other words, like, basically the, the, the, you know, as he, or as he said, the medium is the message. Um, basically what he said is like, look, like, TV, T-TV is a specific kind of technology. It's a specific kind of media technology, um, and basically, like, all of the questions around TV are like, you know, is it a, is it... You know, it's, it's all basically just like the only real parameter is length. Like, is it a three-minute news segment? Is it a 20-minute sitcom? Is it a 40-minute drama? Like, there, there, there's very little kind of variation in, like, what you can do 'cause it's just a linear, you know, it's just a straight, you know, just, you know, broadcast video, you know, br- mass broadcast video. And so he said, you know, basically the medium in its first, you know, 10 or 20 years evolved, you know, basically the concept of what we now know to be a television show, which is basically either a comedy or a drama or, or a combination of the both, and it's basically a little story, and it's a little story that plays out over 20 to 40 minutes, and it kinda has to be a self-contained story 'cause you don't know when people are gonna watch it. And, you know, now they're doing s- you know, now they're doing s- you know, with streaming, they're doing serial stories. But, you know, television shows properly generally were, you know, were everything was a one-off. You can watch episodes out of order. And so there's like, there are the, there are these very, like, self-contained little basically, you know, plays, little stage plays broadcast on video, and then they're, they're, they're these self-contained little stories. And then, and then they need to kind of appeal to emotion 'cause it's like an emotional medium.Uh, right? It's not like an information-dense medium. It's a, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's, it's a medium that literally puts somebody in your living room. Um, and so y- basically it's, it's like these little morality plays, right? Where there's, and there's gotta be like good guys and bad guys and kind of a very simplistic story, and there's like a few, you know, a few mild plot twists, and then everything kinda wraps up at the end. And what he's, and what he says sort of the consequence of that is like everything on television has to be a television show, and that includes everything in the real world that gets talked about on television has to be turned into a television show, right? And, and, and this is kinda, you know, the running joke of like

5. 17:55 – 28:13

   If It's on TV It's a TV Show — If It's on the Internet It's a Viral Post

   1. SPSpeaker17:55

      following, you know, I don't know, whatever current events or politics on TV right now, which is, it's, it's kind of a running joke, which is, you know, on e- on either party, which, but it's just kinda like, oh, you know, the, you know, it, y- you know, oh, it's, you know, it's time for the next season. Um, oh, you know, this is the new, you know, ma- main plot that's happening, and then this is the new secondary plot that's happening. And if you watch CNN every night, you know, they're just kind of, you know, they're kinda just playing with these stories, you know, kind of over time the way that a, the way that a soap opera might or that a, you know, that a, that a, the, the, that a, that a drama might or, or occasionally, you know, how a comedy might. And so, and so basically we, we've just like lived in a world where it just seems like everything's a TV show. Um, and it's, and it's a world where like all the edges are sanded off and everything is kind of very smooth and professional, and everything is kind of within this very narrow band of what can be put into these kind of little, little morality plays. Okay, so Marshall McLuhan unfortunately is long dead, but I, I assert that if he were alive today, he would say, "If it's o- if it's on the internet, it's a viral internet post." Right? So like what's the native medium of the internet? Like, what's the thing that, w- what's the form of media on the internet that like rips and dominates? And it's clearly the viral post, right? It's, it's the viral ac- you know, tweet, it's the viral TikTok, it's the viral Instagram, right? It's the vi- it's the, it's the viral Facebook post, it's the viral Substack, it's the viral YouTube video. Like, it's very clearly the post, and specifically it's the viral post. Like it's, it, it's the one that really rips. And so, so basically you're right, right. So my theory is if it's on the internet, um, uh, uh, e- everything is a viral post, and then you just ask yourself two questions, which is like, okay, what's the characteristic of a viral post? And, and like 9 times out of 10, it's something that like really gets people cranked up, right? Like, uh, on whatever topic, right? It might be on whatever your favorite pop star said yesterday, or it might be on whatever, you know, a politician said, or it might be on whatever, you know, a business leader said or whatever. But like it's something that like causes people to like flip out, right? Uh, you know, you know, and maybe some people flip out positively, some people flip out negatively. Something caused people to flip out. And then the other thing with viral posts that's really interesting is you can actually observe this in the data. They have this really rapid rise. Like they tend to, if, if they're gonna take off, they tend to take off within like 12 hours, and then they spike like crazy as everybody retweets or reposts and, you know, emails it around, talks about it. And then there's basically this like half-life falloff where like within 24, it's like 12 hours up, and then it's like 20, 24 hours down, and then 36 hours later it's like gone from our collective memory. And the reason is because another one has popped up and has taken off instead. And if you kinda take a step back and kinda chart the media landscape that we've all been living in for the last whatever, you know, for sure five years, but, you know, you could even say probably 10 years, what, what we've lived through is just ba- liter- literally just like thousands of cycles of viral posts. Um, okay. Is, you know, is this good or bad or something in the middle? You, you could have a big debate about that. Um, it, uh, you know, I would argue it's its own form of emotionality, right? It's, it's basically things that spike the cortisol and so that, you know, it's sort of things that are controversial, and so it leans into that. But, you know, the other side is it's things that are interesting, right? Um, and then the other part is, you know, the, the people get a vote of what goes viral, right? It's not just up to a news producer what, what shows up on TV. So there, there, there's that aspect to it. Um, another aspect to it, by the way, is that stories come and go much more quickly now, right? And so there will be some thing that pops, and it's like the world's biggest crisis in whatever sector it's talking about, and it's just like everybody in the world has an opinion. This is where I, I was using a while back the, the, the meme of the current thing. Like it's the current thing. Everybody has to have an opinion on the current thing. It's the most important thing in the world, and then 24 hours later it's like it never happened because something else, [chuckles] right, has become the current thing. And then that leads to, you know, the new, the new version of the old time-honored strategy of getting through media crises, which is like just like basically y- you make sure something else, you know, becomes the new viral post. Um, you know, get, get something else elevated into that thing so that, you know, there's, there, the, the, there's the, there's this way to kinda, k- kinda deal with these things. But, but anyway, I just think like as long as the internet is the medium of choice, we're gonna live in a world in which this is what it, you know, th- this is the cycle now. It's like a 24, 36-hour cycle. By the way, the traditional media in the form of newspapers and television, like at least the way I read them, is they're basically covering whatever was the viral post like yesterday or a week ago, right?

   2. MAMarc Andreessen21:42

      Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   3. SPSpeaker21:43

      And so, right, and so they're being driven by the internet viral post, which is, which, you know, which is why I think that, you know, the, the internet viral post is, is the higher order thing. And, and I also think like that, that's not gonna change. Like they, uh, the whole long thing I could do on that, but like they, literally, if you're a television, if you're a television producer or if you're a news editor or whatever, like you, you can't possibly move your organization fast enough to stay ahead of these cycles, and so what you end up doing is you end up chasing them. And, and that's, a- and basically the role of mainstream media for the rest of our life is just gonna be to follow the internet viral posts.

   4. MAMarc Andreessen22:09

      Yeah. There was a funny joke on "The Daily Show" years ago where they were talking to a newspaper guy, and he said, "Why do you call it news? You should call it olds." [chuckles]

   5. ETErik Torenberg22:18

      That's good. Um-

   6. SPSpeaker22:20

      He, it was, he, he was interviewing at the time the managing editor of "The New York Times," uh, when he was in his office. And "The New York Times," you know, was expecting to get this glowing coverage on "The Daily Show." And whoever it was shows up in the office and says, says what Ben just said. And the guy, and the editor is just like completely confused. Like, he clearly has no idea what the "Daily Show" guy's talking about. And, and he's like, "Well, uh, like what do you mean?" And he, and he's like, he points to, there's like a pile of literally physical newspapers on the guy's desk. And he says like, "Look, it's, it's all old news." And he's like, he's like, "No, no, it's today's paper." And he's like, "No, no, it's yesterday's paper."

   7. MAMarc Andreessen22:47

      [chuckles]

   8. SPSpeaker22:47

      "Like I already know everything that's in that." Uh, like, uh, uh, you know, a- and so, and, and yeah, and, and like it's just basically like again, what do they have? And, and they're very proud of this. They have their editorial process. They have their publication process. Like they, they have multilayer bure- you know, bure- bureaucratic mechanism for, you know, all, all the news that's fit to print. They, you know, it's at least a 24-hour cycle to figure that out. And I mean, and, you know, 24 hours later, the internet has already moved on from whatever the last thing was. And so it's just, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's another example of the dog chasing the car, except now they have to chase it like every single day, which might be why they're so upset all the time.

   9. MAMarc Andreessen23:17

      Yeah. They are pissed.

   10. ETErik Torenberg23:19

       You know, we've really made sure to hire people who really understand the platform, not just how the platform works technically, but also the, the vibe and the taste and the, and the spirit of, of, of the platform. And, and we've gone all in to start, um, on, on X because that, those are just where the most interesting conversations are happening and where, where people are the most plugged in.

   11. SPSpeaker23:38

       And, and, and the way I think about it first-

   12. MAMarc Andreessen23:40

       And most of the tech world is on X, you know, like it or not. Like, our world lives on X, um, just because that's also where all the... Y- b-both the kind of AI researchers and the AI influencers and the crypto influencers, like, like everybody in our world lives there, uh, you know, at least in part. So we can't avoid it even if we didn't like it.

   13. SPSpeaker24:05

       Yeah.

   14. MAMarc Andreessen24:05

       But we love it. [chuckles]

   15. SPSpeaker24:07

       W-were you about to say something, Marc?

   16. MAMarc Andreessen24:09

       Oh, yeah. No, I was just gonna say, yeah, no, like, what Ben said is, yeah. So the, like, this is a... I posted a link to a book called "The True Believer" that kinda talk, talks about this is, you know, the, the old characterization is elites and masses, which is a little bit 20th century. But yeah, like, the, the, like, people who are spending 24 hours a day trying to understand, you know, basically in these domains like AI or, you know, politics or whatever, like they, they're on X. Like, the... And, and that's the, that, and that's not the mass market. Like, that's not most of humanity, but, like, that's most of the people who are, like, basically in the, what you might, like, I don't know what you wanna call, like, knowledge synthesis business or whatever, where they're trying to, like, understand and formulate policies on things and, and so forth. Um, ob-obvious-obviously, it's also true that TikTok and Instagram, you know, have just, like, much more reach. Like, they're, y- you know, they're just much bigger. Um, you know, they, they reach the mass kind of global audience, um, more. And so, you know, they certainly, they certainly play a role. But if, if you're on the leading edge of a field, like, uh, you know, it's, it's very rare that the, whatever is kind of the lead, you know, the, you know, kind of the edge of that process of kind of idea formation, propagation, people, you know, in positions of, of authority kind of figuring out what they think. It's, it, that's almost all entirely on X. By the way, this is another huge difference between old media and new media. So if you come from old media world, there's just reach.

   17. SPSpeaker25:16

       Yeah.

   18. MAMarc Andreessen25:17

       Right? Like, the targets, you know, if you were going for a target audience, um, there was no real easy way to do it in old m- I mean, you know, like, maybe, like, if you were sports, you'd be in Sports Illustrated or whatever, but, like, th-there wasn't really a way to do it. Um, but now with podcasts and, and blogs and X and so forth, you can go to an exact audience. You can really get down to an extremely narrow target in new media world. And, you know, for us, that's great 'cause the audience, our audience is founders, [chuckles] um, not the world. Uh, and so, you know, having a way to talk to 90% of founders as opposed to 4% of the world is just a much better thing for us.

   19. SPSpeaker26:02

       Yeah. The, the, two, two, two more structural things, uh, Marc, I want you to ex-explain, and then I wanna present some, some, some slides, you know, give some detail about what we're doing that, that relate, that relate to what I'm about to say. One is I want you to explain the, the Boyd, um, l-loop and, and why, you know, that, that makes T-Twitter and, and social media s-s-so much more powerful in terms of, you know, f-forming consensus. Um, and then the other is the difference between written and oral culture and, and, and what's prioritized, um, in, in, you know, as we transition to oral. Yeah. Okay, so these are both long topics, and so I'll try to do the, the CliffsNotes version. Um, yeah, so, um, y- uh, I'll, I'll, I'll link to the book on this, but in, in, in, in military theory, there, there's this concept called maneuver warfare, which basically just says, like, speed, speed wins. Like, speed, speed wins as compared to ma-ma-mass winning. Uh, speed wins. And so if, if you, if you believe that, then there's basically this frame- there's this framework called, called the OODA loop, uh, O-O-D-A loop, uh, which originally was developed for, uh, fighter pilots and then later for, for broader military strategy. Um, and the OODA loop, the, the, what, what OODA stands for, it's an acronym. Um, it stands for observe, orient, decide, act. Um, and so it's basically the decision-making cycle, right? And so, and o-observe is like, uh, uh, view the outside world. Orient is like figure out where you are in respect to the outside world. Um, decide, of course, decide what to do. Act, uh, dec- uh, uh, act. And, and basically what this guy Boyd, who came up with this idea said was, like, any military opera- any fighter pilot, any military operation, any, you know, basketball player, any, um, you know, company, any government, um, um, basically th- it goes through a dec- a decision-making cycle that's like that i-in order to make decisions. We just talked about it. New York Times ha- has their own OODA loop, and it's like 24 hours to go through their process. Um, uh, right? And so, um, and so, um, and, and basically what he said is, like, if, if speed is the thing that matters, then the person who gets through that cycle the fastest is the one who's going to win. But he said there's a second order thing that happens. So one is just like, is your OODA loop faster than the o- than, than the other guy's? So, so that's one question. But he said the other thing can happen is if, if you, if you can have a sustainably faster OODA loop processing cycle than the next guy, um, then if you think about what happens, like, let, let's say it takes, you know, you whatever, you know, an hour to figure something out. It takes the other guy two hours to figure something out. Uh, think about what happens is like, okay, you

6. 28:13 – 33:16

   Speed Wins Everything

   1. SPSpeaker28:13

      start out on an even playing field. Um, y- you, you both start your, your, your, your decision-making cycles. Um, you operate... Y-you, you make your decision within an hour. The other guy is still, let's say, is inside his own OODA loop when you make your decision, right? And so you make your decision, you act within an hour. He's only halfway through his process. He now has to start his process over, right? 'Cause, 'cause you've changed the landscape, you've changed the parameters of what's going on, so he now has to go back and reobserve and reorient and start over, right? And then, and then of course project forward. It's like, okay, then you decide again within an hour, and then by the time he gets... And again, he gets halfway through his process, he gets interrupted. Um, he has to go back. And so what he says is if you, if you can be sustainably faster at running your decision loop, you can get inside the other guy's loop i-in a, in a systematic and perpetual way. It's, and, and basically the result of that is psychological breakdown. Uh, ba- basically, you, you destroy the psychology of the other side because they just simply, they, they just can no longer operate or function at all. They just, like, basically go into complete panic. Nothing seems to make sense. They can never get oriented. They can never make decisions. They can never ch- They, they become completely defensive, completely responsive. You completely dominate, you know, basically the playing field. Um, and he, and he, you know, and he, he was a famous fighter pilot. [chuckles] He was a, a, a, he was a, a famous fighter pilot called Fifteen-Second Boyd 'cause he, the, his claim was, and which was true, is he could beat any other fighter pilot in a dogfight within 15 seconds, um, using this method. And so it's basically this, this, this premium on speed and quality of execution such that you are actually causing the other side to have a, ha-have, have a psychological break. Um, by the way, uh, like, again, going back to the tr- like, I think this is also a big explanation for what's happened to traditional media. The, the fact that the internet moves events so much faster and the sort of internet collective crowd decides what's important so much faster causes all the people who were television producers or news editors who thought that they were in charge of the narrative to just basically have a psychological breakdown. Like, how, how, how can you even function when the internet is just basically cycling much faster than you couldAnd I think this, by the way, the same is true of companies. You know, this is what Elon does, you know, to his competitors, like in the defense, you know, in the aerospace industry. This is what Anduril's now doing to companies in the defense industry. Um, you know, this quite frankly is what we try to do, you know, to our competitors in the venture industry. Um, so yeah. So that now, to do that, you have to be willing to commit to being fast, right? Um, and so you, you can't, you can't have long bureaucratic processes. You can't have, you know, a, you know, a risk-averse posture. You can't, you know, stress... You know, you, you, you need enough time to make the decision properly. Um, you know, but you, you can't, you can't run the fully deliberate, um, you know, strategy that a lot of companies used to have in the past, where it was days to weeks to months to figure out, you know, what they were gonna say about something. Um, by the way, in, in politics, they adapted to this probably 30 years ago, uh, with the concept of the war room. Um, and there's a famous documentary on the Clinton campaign in, I think, in, is it '88, uh, where they-- called "The War Room," where they, they show this. And now, now they call it rapid response, and if you, if you, if you go to basically any, any political operation on the internet right now, um, you know, they'll, they'll have an X account that's literally, they call it, like, rapid response. So it's like... Actually, Department of War has one, just as an example, Department of War Rapid Response. And it's literally like they're responding in real time to stuff that's happening 'cause they want to stay inside, um, you know, everybody else's OODA loop. Um, yeah. Okay, so there's that. And then, yeah, the, the, the oral versus written thing is, it's, it, it would probably take an hour to kind of go through the whole thing, but yeah. The, the long and short of it is there, there's basically y- in sort of human culture, there's kind of two ways to communicate. There's two fundamental modes. There's oral communication, there's written communication. You know, oral communication, you know, uh, is the original form, and you could think about it literally as, like, people around a campfire telling stories, singing songs, you know, reciting poetry. Um, uh, you can think about written communication would be, you know, kind of famously the book, um, or the scientific journal article, right? Or the math equation, um, or the business plan, right? Um, you know, so, uh, uh, you know, a written artifact. Um, and that basically the characteristic of ora- orality or oral communication is it's, it's sort of inherently emotion first, um, right? 'Cause it's, it's, you know, l- literally, you know, live interactions with another person. Um, uh, the characteristic of written communication is sort of abstraction, you know, and, you know, hopefully logic, the scientific method, you know, intellectual rigor, analytical rigor. Um, it, it used to be the case that you could kind of really divide these, you know, in, in traditional mass media, it used to be the case you could say that, like, newspapers and magazines were written, and so they would be, like, more calmer and more dispassionate. You could say, you know, television was oral, right? It was people, literally people talking, and so it, it was gonna be much more emotional and hot-headed. You know, b- basically, like, you know, that, that, that's all broken down 'cause of everything we've talked about. Um, but the modern version of that is, like, the internet. Like, okay, is the internet an oral culture or a written culture? And it turns out the, the answer is the internet's both 'cause the internet is everything, right? It, it supports every kind of media. Um, and so a YouTube video, or I will say for sure a short form TikTok or Instagram Reel for sure is oral culture. Like, it's, it's something short and bursty and emotional and, and inter- interpersonal in its experience. Um, a long form Substack post is for sure written culture. Uh, but then things get more complicated because a short tweet, even though it's written, is actually an oral culture thing, right? Because the fact that it's short means that it has to be like this, again, this sort of this burst of, of, of, of, of sort of say triggering emotionality, uh, in order to go viral. So, so actually tweets I would say are oral culture even though they look written. And then long form podcasts are actually written culture even though they look oral, right? 'Cause i- if you're gonna talk about something for three hours, like, that's necessarily something where you're kind of getting into abstractions and depth, you know, beyond just kind of a flash moment of emotion. Um, and so the internet

7. 33:16 – 37:02

   Is the Internet Oral or Written Culture?

   1. SPSpeaker33:16

      lets you kind of play with these formats and, and, and the kind of impact that you wanna have, um, in a way that, you know, in, in the past was kind of determined by exactly fixed, which fixed media you were in. Uh, and, and look, we, we all live this. Like, if you wanna have the internet experience of, like, doom scrolling and getting really pissed off at the world, like, you go on TikTok and X and you can do that. If you wanna h- like, learn a lot of stuff, you can go on Substack and long form YouTube podcasts, and you can live in that world and, like, you can, like, you know, raise your IQ a point today. Like, you know, it's absolutely amazing. And so there is a choose your own adventure aspect to it. Um, and, um, and then of course, you know, we, you know, firms like ours need, you know, need to think hard about how we communicate because of, uh, of the differences.

   2. ETErik Torenberg33:52

      I, I love that as a segue because it just emphasizes how different every platform is, and it's not, you know, a lot of people or companies will just, you know, have one idea and then cross-post it, you know, across every platform, but it, it doesn't fully appreciate, um, you know, what that platform is built for and what that platform rewards. And so for every platform that we have, we have a, you know, whether it's Substack, podcast, Instagram, you know, uh, X, YouTube, et cetera, we have a expert running it who is obsessed with, with that, with that medium. Um, you know, on, on Instagram, we're up thirty-five percent, you know, month over month right now. We have th- this guy Hiro who's, uh, who's eighteen years old and has been, you know, grew up [chuckles] on, on Instagram and, and knows it like the, the back of his hand. Um, and, and, and that really matters. That makes a difference. And, and so with, with that as a segue, I wanna do a, uh, share just a few slides that just show, um, a little bit about what we've, uh, what we've done so far. So what we're, you know, really trying to do is, uh, is, is king make our companies, right? Is, is, is give them such a, a superpower in terms of getting their message out, in terms of reaching their customers, in terms of reaching their, um, their talent. Um, you know, the superpower that companies like Anduril have to, you know, punch way above their, their weight class and, and, and other brands, you know, wish that they, they had that level of, of, of resonance, that level of reach. W- w- we're, we're, we're, you know, trying to give them those superpowers and, and we do that by, by building our own channels, our own, you know, media empire, um, ac- across platforms. Uh, we do that by making sure that we know everybody else who's got, um, those, uh... Is my screen paused for some reason? Okay, screen share. Uh, but everybody else who, who's, who's got those powers of distribution and, and having great relationships with them. Um-And then also by just, uh, you know, making sure that we have the expertise, um, to be able to deploy t-t-to, to our companies as well. You know, Lulu put this, uh, put this well, you know, that people don't really invest enough in, in, in people running these, these platforms and, um, you know, we've really, uh, recruit-- spent a lot of time recruiting the, the right expert talent to, to do it. So I'm, I'm, I'm stoked because now that we've had them build our platforms, we're going to deploy them to, to work on behalf of our companies. Um, and so we're, we're, you know... Qasar from Applied Intuition, you know, he's, he's always been... I was an angel in, in Qasar as well, so I've known him for a while, and he's always been complaining of like, "Hey, you know, why are we not valued more?" Or, "Why do we not have more resonance?" Uh, "Why do people, you know, why, why is everyone talking about other companies, not, not our company, given how good we are?" And I, I said, "Qasar, you know, you've never tweeted in your life. [chuckles] How do you expect to have tremendous, tremendous mind share?" And he, he finally, you know, thanks to a lot of pushing that, that we did, bit the bullet, and his first tweet got like four thousand likes. You know, the first product we have, I'll get to in a second, was this launch as a service. Um, the second one is gonna be this, this founder go direct motion. You know, we're working with Qasar, we're working with Garrett from Flock Safety. You know, that, that's a heroic company that should be at the stature of a Anduril as well, and, and have really helped them build that machine. So speaking of the launch as a service offering, this was, you know, inspired...

8. 37:02 – 46:14

   Building a16z's New Media Machine

   1. ETErik Torenberg37:02

      Ear-early on I was asking, you know, some of the GPs, "Hey, what would... where could we make the biggest difference? Like, what new product should, should we have?" And, you know, Sarah said, "If we could gu-vi- uh, guarantee a viral announcement, you know, I, I think that'd be a superpower for us." So, so we built out this, this launch as a service. Um, you know, everything soup to nuts from, from, you know, all the, all the social media copy to the messaging, the, um, you know, the, the, the rollout. We, we created these custom videos. You know, we, we hired R-Richard, another, uh, e-eighteen-year-old who, uh, you know, [chuckles] we convinced him to go straight from high school to the NBA, i.e. not go to college, uh, or at least not right now. And, um, he, uh, he had previously done the Cluley video, uh, and, um, and, uh, the browser-based video, and he's just got this, you know, phenomenal, um, taste for, for what really does well. And so we, we built this video team, Richard, Ben, you know, H-Henry, you know, has really led this, led this product and, and you could see the, the views here. It's, it's, it's just done phenomenally well. Um, you know, millions and millions of views for, for our companies. We've now scaled up this offering to be, to, to offer it to, to all, all of our companies and, um, that, that's our first product. After working with companies, companies were saying, "Hey, y-you know, how do I hire people like that?" And thus, the New Media Fellowship was born to, to help us hire them, but also help, uh, help our companies hire them. And so, uh, because, you know, there's this sweet spot where you need to be online enough to really know the, the, the, have taste and, and ha-have sensibility and understand these new platforms. But, um, [chuckles] you also need to be functioning enough and professional enough to work at one of these companies. And, and there's n-not many people can, can, can do both. And so we've really, um, you know, tried to create this, this, uh, this program to be able to identify these people and then just give them a little bit more sort of technical know-how. And so our first fellowship, uh, we, you know, two thousand applications. We picked sixty-five people. We think, we think they're incredible. Uh, we-- two hires from us ca-came from that s-s-so far. Um, and we think this is gonna be a franchise, um, to come. And, and, and the, the other part of it I'll just leave is, um, you know, I, I think we're really popularizing this term new media. Seeing a number of people with, you know, new media JDs. They, they want a head of new media. They, they, you know, they're, they're, they're looking for that. And I think we're, uh, sort of in, in the way that we've popularized American dynamism, other people have American dynamism practices, um, we're starting to see that with, with, with new media, and so it's cool to, to see our thought leadership there. Um, and, uh, you know, m-more to, uh, more, more to come. So, so yeah, those are the things I'll, I'll leave you with in our, our, our presentation. The, um, you know, our, our channels are, are up, um, tremendously, and we're continuing to, to invest in them. We, um, we've got this portfolio offering launch as a service. We're, we're, you know, now launching our go direct motion and really helping our, our CEOs and, and companies do that, and it has to come from the CEO. So every engagement we do, the CEO is, is tremendously en-engaged. Um, and then we're really building out this, this new media category creation, this new media talent base for, for us, 'cause we're continuing to hire, uh, but then also our, our, our, our, our companies.

   2. MAMarc Andreessen40:16

      Yeah. So Ben, any closing thoughts? Um, I, I would just say that, uh, you know, particularly if you've spent time in, uh, the prior media regime, um, you know, of old media, y-y-you know, you really have to rethink every instinct that you have 'cause, uh, it's, it's one of the weirdest things where all your instincts are wrong. I mean, we're actually experiencing a little bit of this in AI too, which, you know, Martine wrote a great post on, which is like in the old world of software, the one thing you knew is you couldn't throw money at a problem, and now you can throw money at a problem. [chuckles] And so like, you don't even realize how much of your thinking is affected by that old rule. [chuckles] Um, and, you know, uh, I, I would say this is that in spades where, like, every single instinct you have is incorrect if you're in this world, and you just have to let it all go. And this is why, y-you know, this is... People lament, "Oh, like the right wing built this big podcast network," and blah, blah. That's not what happened. What happened is Trump just understood new media. For whatever-- I don't know why he did, 'cause he's so old and he's been in old media the whole time, but like he just rolled right into it and, you know, not at a technological level, but as a media, uh, as a medium. And I think that, uh, you know, we've got to do that. We have to understand it, uh, and, and we have to kind of play by the new rules.

   3. SPSpeaker41:49

      All my favorite comedians, podcasters, et cetera, always tell their guests, "Don't read the comments."

   4. ETErik Torenberg41:54

      Okay.

   5. SPSpeaker41:55

      Uh, what do you guys think? Do the manic Reddit posters drive you nuts? I have not dived into our podcast comment section, but I have seen a16z rage on Reddit. Not surprising. Uh, [chuckles] for what it's worth, every technical conference I've been at while at a16z has always had an a16z fanboy raving about our podcast. Um, yeah, so Eric, read the contents, or read the comments, don't read the comments.

   6. ETErik Torenberg42:15

      Uh, don't read the comments if they're going to affect what you say. [chuckles] Um, it's, it's kind of like the Yelp prob- you know, people who care enough to post either, either absolutely love it or absolutely hate it. And we, we've definitely got... At, at this point, I, I, it doesn't affect me, so I, I read the comments. [laughs] But, uh, you know, I, um, I... Well, you know, and Marc and Ben have helped me not, uh, not get too concerned about some of the, some of the commentary on Twitter by, you know, certain anonymous, uh, Twitter posters who, who, uh, you know, raging in their basements, et cetera. But, uh, yeah, in short, d-don't read the comments.

   7. SPSpeaker42:51

      Yeah. So I'll just, I'll, I'll just maybe close on, on, on two things. Um, so one is, um, uh, th-there's a long history of this, and so, uh, if you read any sort of l- biography or autobiography of any sort of professional author, you know, um, uh, you know, who writes, writes books for a living, th-th- like 100% of the time, at some point they will tell you, "Oh, the one thing I never do is read, read, read the cr- read the critics, right? Uh, I never read the reviews." Um, and then, and then they'll say, "Well, actually, no, that's not true. I always read the reviews." Um, [laughs] 'cause I know I shouldn't, right? Like I know I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't because like critics, like by definition, are like, you know, basically bitter, you know, bitter people, um, uh, you know, who aren't, aren't, who aren't writing novels or whatever. And so of course they're gonna be mad. Um, um, uh, and, and I know I shouldn't read. I know it's very bad for me. I know it's gonna really screw me up. Um, and, and, and, and then I, I try, and then it's like a magnetic pull. I, I always end up reading them, you know, 'cause it's like 3:00 in the morning and I can't resist, and then I always end up getting mad. Um, and so th-there, you know, there is this push... And, and it used to be, right, only professional authors or professional filmmakers or whatever had critics, right, that were, uh, reviews, and now basically, right, the entire, the entire world is a critic. And so I, I think we all, we all, we all, we all kind of have that. It's, it's a little bit of a, it's a little bit of a push and a pull. Um, and so, um, uh, that is a, that is a little bit, a little bit difficult. Um, you know, I will say I, I think maybe a thing to kind of bear in mind, um, I, I couldn't resist, I posted a link to it, another book, um, uh, on this topic, uh, with... It has a great title ca-called "Kill All Normies." Um, and it's this, it's that book actually from like a decade ago that talked about like this kind of very angry internet culture, you know, that kind of developed after the 2000s. Um, and, um, th- because by the way, the internet was not always like this. Like in the, in the very, very early days, the internet was so hard to get onto that the only people who were on the internet were like basically super, basically like smart, super successful people.

   8. ETErik Torenberg44:33

      Yeah. News groups were really good then. [chuckles]

   9. SPSpeaker44:35

      Yeah, yeah. Like pre-1993 news, news groups were like utopia. Um, and then, uh, and then, uh, and then sort of post-1993 things started going sideways, and then things start... The, the modern kind of caustic internet culture really developed in the, in the 2000s and 2010s. Um, but, but basically, it like, it, it actually turns out there's like a, a, a, a genealogy to it, and it actually turns out like a lot of it is literally, literally it's, um, it's like Call of Duty lobbies, um, uh, for online gaming. So it's like literally like online gaming lobbies, um, 'cause like when the Xbox and the PlayStation, you know, kind of r-rolled out, uh, voice, uh, you know, voice interaction for the first time. You know, they're like, "Oh, it'd be great for players to be able to talk to each other." And it turns out you just get like, you know, 12-year-old boys in these lobbies just like torching the fuck, you know, out of everybody and, and, and literally trying to get under their opponent's skin and, and then being willing to, you know, anonymously say absolutely anything to do it. Um, right? And so that led to, you know, the, you know, very, very coarse, very vulgar, very offensive, you know, kind of thing, and then that, you know, kind of flipped. You know, that kind of culture kind of expanded into early internet forums like Something Awful, and then it started metastasizing into things like, um, you know, like YouTube comments, um, uh, and then, you know, and then obviously social media kind of blew that open. And so, um, there is this, um, uh, you know, there, the, there is this kind of, you know, I don't know, like rage undercurrent to everything. Um, and I guess it just... To say, you know, you just got... You, you do kind of literally have to think about it. These are people literally in their, in their, in their parents' basement.

   10. ETErik Torenberg45:56

       And by the way, you know, the other thing is generally when we get attacked in the comments or, or, or stuff like that, it's somebody with like four followers or like a bot or something like that, so.

   11. SPSpeaker46:06

       Yeah.

   12. ETErik Torenberg46:06

       It's, uh-

   13. SPSpeaker46:07

       And by the way, that, that includes when it's-

   14. ETErik Torenberg46:08

       It's very little interesting to read in them, I would say.

   15. SPSpeaker46:10

       Yeah. And that includes when it's Hey Mantra Vinod.

   16. ETErik Torenberg46:13

       Yeah. Yes. [chuckles] Yes.

Episode duration: 46:30