Inside a16z’s $1.25B Infra Bet | Martin Casado, General Partner at a16z | Ep. 23

The market is so big, and it's growing so fast, even companies that seem like they're competing end up in totally different places, just 'cause so much white space is being created. But they're all competing, like, totally different companies and spaces are competing for the same talent.

Talent, yeah.

So the first time-

Yeah

... I can remember where the actual talent competition is, like, way more fierce. [upbeat music]

Martin, I'm really excited to be doing this here with you today.

Same.

Thanks for making time for it.

Yep, yep.

And, um, one of the things that I was just, uh, chatting with you and laughing about, on my way in, there were, like, many other podcasts going. There's, like, one, like, before and after us.

Yeah.

And I talked about this with Mark-

Yeah

... about how, like, podcasts are, like, this future thing-

Yeah

... of, of media. And basically, my question for you is sort of like, as somebody who's been on the inside of a firm that's dominated this, you do a lot of it yourself-

Yeah

... like, what's your experience about, like, the importance of media for venture capital?

So I think it's probably important to recognize that it's never been a thing, really. Like, if you look at a lot of historically good investors, they weren't very public. Like, think about, like, the, the greats, like Moritz, Ping Li, Doug Leone, Benton, Mike Volpi. Like, they're just not very public, and so historically there's been no correlation to being between public or not.

Yeah.

I think a couple of things have changed in that time. Um, one of them is the traditional media just turned on tech, and it hates tech, right?

Yeah.

And so in the past, you know, when I was a founder, to get a po- uh, like, a, a lukewarm to positive article was pretty straightforward, and the VCs would help with that. Like, you know, they would know a few reporters. It was very easy. But now it's actually very dangerous because, like, you go talk to them, and, like, who knows what they're gonna say? And so in a way, like, if you wanna help a portfolio, you do wanna build a bit of a platform. You do have to go straight. So I, I, I think that's one thing that's changed. The second thing is... [exhales] So if you're traditionally an enterprise, take from the enterprise standpoint, like, marketing has been something that you build brick by brick, right? And it's like you put content out there, and people read it, and, like, it's durable over time, and so you get this kind of compendium, and you build a brand over time. And it feels we're in an era now where it's just become so episodic that if you don't understand, like, the current zeitgeist, you just can't even get a voice at all. And by episodic, I mean, like, today, GPT-5 launched, right? It was, it was, it was massive. Like, if you didn't know that that was gonna happen, you would've been drowned out, and if you did know, you could draft on it. And so, and then, and then it just feels like for some launches, they go, they're a big deal, and then they just disappear forever. So I just... So much of the nature of how we consume and think about content has changed, and so I do think that venture capitalists, one, they need to, like... If they have a message they wanna get out, they kind of have to go direct because, I mean, if it's your own platform, it doesn't hate you. That's one.