The a16z Show

James Gleick — acclaimed science writer and bestselling author of Chaos: Making a New Science as well as biographies on polymaths Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman — joins Sonal Chokshi and Robert Hackett to discuss his new book, The Telephone: A New History. It is a story of a device — who really invented it, how? — of a network, of a lab, and of how innovation happens.
The telephone was dismissed as a toy or a frivolity — at best, something people could use to listen to concerts or sermons from home. Even with a working invention, everyone was still trying to figure out what a telephone was for, using the framework of what they already knew. Then its users started finding their own answers. Farmers built their own decentralized networks using barbed-wire fences — the “devil’s rope” — and, over time, research at a company built around phone calls helped lay the foundations of modern computing.
This conversation explores the nuances of building at the frontier: competing inventors, the experiments, the “scenius of genius.” Why did established businesses underestimate it? Did the telephone network have to become a monopoly? What made Bell Labs so productive?
And how a single invention could set off a technology revolution?

Resources:
Originally published by the a16z Frontier Show.
Read The Telephone: A New History: https://us.macmillan.com/books/978037...
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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AI isn’t just helping defenders find vulnerabilities. It’s giving attackers the speed and expertise to exploit them faster than many companies can respond. Wiz co-founder and CTO Ami Luttwak joins a16z General Partners Zane Lackey and Sarah Wang to unpack what he calls “Black October,” a wave of vulnerabilities and agentic attacks that he believes marks a turning point for cybersecurity.
They break down PHP2Shell, why AI is collapsing the time between vulnerability discovery and exploitation, and what happens when open-source models put increasingly sophisticated offensive capabilities in more hands. Ami explains why startups are becoming attractive targets, particularly when they hold valuable AI credentials, and why yesterday’s secure architecture may no longer be secure as models improve.
The conversation then turns to defense. Ami argues that companies need to continuously attack their own systems, automate investigation and patching wherever possible, design infrastructure assuming sophisticated attackers will get in, and rethink security stacks built for a slower era. His warning is simple: if attackers can move in minutes, defenders can no longer operate on human timelines.

Resources:
Follow Ami Luttwak on X: https://x.com/amiluttwak
Follow Sarah Wang on X: https://x.com/sarahdingwang
Follow Zane Lackey on X: https://x.com/zanelackey
Learn more about Wiz: https://www.wiz.io/
Read ‘The Rise of Agentic Attacks: What They Look Like, and Where They're Headed’: https://www.wiz.io/blog/the-rise-of-agentic-attacks
Read more from Wiz’s blogs: https://www.wiz.io/blog

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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AI is collapsing the distance between an idea and a playable game. What happens when almost anyone can build one?
In this episode, a16z General Partners Anish Acharya and Jonathan Lai discuss how AI is changing game development, from generating art and code to operating tools like Blender and game engines directly.
They explain why cheaper development could let studios take more creative risks while opening game creation to people without traditional coding or design skills.
They also explore modding, remixing existing games, and the emergence of AI-native experiences that generate characters, abilities, and storylines on the fly, potentially creating games that never really end.

Resources:
Follow Anish Acharya on X: https://x.com/illscience
Follow Jonathan Lai on X: https://x.com/Tocelot

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The internet boom built bandwidth. The AI boom is building intelligence. Mike Volpi, who helped shape Cisco’s strategy during the internet buildout, asks what that era can teach us about this one.
Mike joins a16z’s Raghu Raghuram and Guido Appenzeller to compare today’s investment in GPUs, data centers, and power with the fiber boom of the late 1990s, and explain why the infrastructure could prove valuable even if the market corrects.
They also discuss NVIDIA, custom silicon, networking, and the changing economics of GPUs, plus lessons from Cisco’s acquisition machine. And Mike explains why he thinks this technology cycle could be even more consequential than the last.

Resources:
Follow Mike Volpi on X: https://x.com/mavolpi
Follow Raghu Raghuram on X: https://x.com/RaghuRaghuram
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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As frontier AI labs expand into applications, where should startups build? a16z Partner Joe Schmidt joins HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah to explore why the software opportunity is growing, and how founders can stay off the “Yellow Brick Road” the labs are racing down.
Drawing on HubSpot’s evolution, Dharmesh explains why founders should start with a narrow market, learn quickly, and solve the whole customer problem. They discuss where application companies can build lasting value as models become infrastructure: workflows, customer context, and the systems where work happens.
They also explore HubSpot’s AI experiments, the rise of one-person businesses, and why cheaper software creation could unlock markets that previously couldn’t support a software company.

Resources:
Follow Dharmesh Shah on X: https://x.com/dharmesh
Follow Joe Schmidt on X: https://x.com/joeschmidtiv
Read Joe’s essay, “Avoiding Death on the Yellow Brick Road”:
https://a16z.com/avoiding-death-on-the-yellow-brick-road/

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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