partner @a16z investing in american dynamism
NYC
Joined June 2020
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Excited to share that I’ve joined @a16z as an investment partner!
As part of the American Dynamism practice, I’ll be working alongside @davidu , @KTmBoyle, @espricewright and team to invest in visionary companies supporting our national interest.
More below, but TLDR we have an extraordinary opportunity to invest in the technology that will (and must) enhance our national security, industrial productivity, and public health. And although American Dynamism has evolved into a full-blown movement, we’ve just barely scratched the surface.
If you are an entrepreneur who shares our mission, please reach out!
Thank you to everyone (including @amishjani, the @FirstMarkCap team, and their incredible portfolio founders) who have supported me thus far.
More below and more to come 🇺🇸
~
In recent months, I’ve had dozens of conversations about my jump to a16z. Here’s some context for those I’ve yet to get to.
My journey began with a simple observation about VC: much of the “low-hanging fruit” has been picked.
The power of software is well-understood, and our asset class has grown around it, increasing competition. The best investors (like @FirstMarkCap!) will successfully back the best startups building AI-native solutions and deliver attractive returns. But many others will either 1) overpay just to win, or 2) rationalize investment in underwhelming companies (what I call “SaaS incrementalism”). Both will result in tepid returns.
To find transformative opportunities, VCs need to forge ahead and go where digital innovation previously hasn’t.
But where to go?
I stand by the cliché, “necessity is the mother of invention,” i.e., we should look where innovation urgently needs to happen. Interestingly, the sectors most critical to our national interest are also most underserved by software.
So I found my answers: aerospace, defense, energy, public safety, education, housing, supply chain, and manufacturing.
The problem with these domains – far from the safety and familiarity of white-collar enterprise SaaS – is that they present new challenges, most notably regulation, labor complexity, and capex intensity (the absence of which made SaaS so attractive since the advent of cloud).
But they also present enormous opportunity. Our largest economic sectors have yet to realize the benefits of major technology transformation. AI (from computer vision, to robotics, to agentic automation) dramatically increases the surface area for potential disruption.
I determined that success here will require a team of investors to share a mission and risk appetite, and build specialized networks for talent, GTM, and policy. I wanted to work for such a team, and feel lucky to have found one.
What began as a pragmatic observation about investing, morphed into a profound desire to invest in the technologies that will define the next century for Americans.
The AD team wants to empower the most daring entrepreneurs building in our most critical and overlooked sectors, so if you fit that profile, I’ll hope to connect soon.
this is going to be fun 🪐
Chris Dixon and Ben Horowitz on why a16z Crypto is now a16z Frontier, a fund for the "outer planet" founders building things that don't fit into any existing category:
"Years ago, [crypto] was sort of its own world with its own companies and its own investors. The lines have blurred, and it's become kind of more part of the tech landscape."
"What we found with our vertical strategy is that there's still new things that fall outside of the verticals... And so by doing this, we will have the motion to invest in the very most interesting founders who are outer planets... It kind of fills a hole in the architecture."
"At the end of the day, more than categories, more than products, we invest in entrepreneurs, and so many of the most interesting entrepreneurs are outer planets, so this gives us a real way to get to them."
"Plenty of ideas that were not discussed today are probably more interesting and more creative. If for whatever reason they don't fit in the other kind of core areas at our firm, we're open-minded and willing to engage with those kinds of creative ideas."
@cdixon @bhorowitz
Full conversation: youtu.be/-9XQMHhpypc
will bitsky retweeted
“The next big thing will start out looking like a toy.” -Chris Dixon, 2010
Chris is an OG American Dynamism investor. An OG VR investor. An OG robotics investor. The OG crypto investor.
Finally, an OG Fund, only for originals.
will bitsky retweeted
Denmark has selected Covenant's Anthem long-range precision strike system. 🇩🇰
We're proud to partner with DALO and @Forsvarsmin to strengthen Denmark's defence capabilities and advance affordable, scalable deep precision strike capabilities across Europe and @NATO.
fmn.dk/da/nyheder/2026/dansk…
phillip and co just getting started.
big day @AirSpaceIntel
While the broader tech ecosystem spent hundreds of billions teaching AI to manipulate words and generate text. @AirSpaceIntel is different. We are deeply focused on the models that orchestrate the most complex systems across critical industries. Today's $325M Series C underwrites our expansion across transportation, defense and energy.
will bitsky retweeted
While the broader tech ecosystem spent hundreds of billions teaching AI to manipulate words and generate text. @AirSpaceIntel is different. We are deeply focused on the models that orchestrate the most complex systems across critical industries. Today's $325M Series C underwrites our expansion across transportation, defense and energy.
will bitsky retweeted
Small cities, school districts and rural hospitals guard our most sensitive data with the fewest resources to defend it.
Today we’re launching Securing America’s Infrastructure Foundation, a new nonprofit, bringing AI-powered cyber defense to them at no cost.
SAIF starts with focused goals for on the ground impact and $25M in committed funding by a16z's founders. I’m joined by a founding board of Brian Barrios, @GoldsmithOnGov, Bob Lord, @vishalmisra and @philvenables.
If you lead a small city, rural school district or hospital system or want to join our team, please reach out: [email protected]
Read our full announcement here: a16z.news/p/introducing-secu…
will bitsky retweeted
🚨GAME CHANGER🚨
Introducing “SMART” — the new air traffic management tool that saves YOU time, cuts back DELAYS, and makes your flying experience BETTER
MORE TO COME ✈️
will bitsky retweeted
Thrilled to announce our latest incubation: Horowitz Andreessen Academy.
Horowitz Andreessen Academy will be a two-year residential program in San Francisco for 16 to 22 year olds.
My biggest regret from my college experience is how divorced it was from the real world (both practically but also intellectually)
HAA is the opposite. Students will learn from real-world practitioners and intellectuals; including founders (Sam Altman, Brian Armstrong, Jensen Huang), investors (Elad Gil, Daniel Gross), and professors (Agnes Callard, Tyler Cowen), among hundreds of others. The Academy is the educational experience I wish I had.
In 1984, the educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom published a paper about how the average student who received one-on-one tutoring focused on mastery techniques performed better than 98% of the control group. For generations, this was viewed as unrealistic to implement even if it produced the best outcomes.
At the Academy, we will be able to locate any tutor on any topic that a student desires.
Take an aspiring filmmaker or producer. The standard path offers them film theory courses, peer workshops, and the occasional visiting filmmaker; everything past that takes meticulous networking and luck. The very entrepreneurial type will find ways to invite prominent speakers to speak and meticulous networking to reach the right people. At the Academy, they will learn the business from the people who run it and their next creative project will have notes from award-winning filmmakers.
Take a young founder. Yes, there is endless content online; you can watch a video on any skill. But content is not coaching. The Academy will provide dedicated, experienced coaches and mentors who know your company and psychology. Students can workshop issues with prominent leaders in technology who host sessions on campus. Every generation of entrepreneurs has had mentors in their corner. Ours will too.
Take the technical student focused on research. At the Academy, academics are focused on the frontier. Students will be taught and mentored by AI researchers at frontier labs. They’ll be conducting research and sharing progress, and presenting their work at ICML and ICLR.
The goal of the Academy is to identify the right mentors, the correct bottlenecks, and the right introductions, adjusted continuously around one person and their pursuits.
The education philosophy focuses on co-ops, courses, and pursuits.
Co-ops are the opportunity to work during the year (not just over the summer). It's the chance to work across countless different roles and companies, including getting connected to our 10 founding partners: Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe.
Courses are taught by legendary people: people who have founded unicorns, invested in those unicorn companies, or are on the intellectual frontier.
And most importantly, it's about Pursuits. It's about personal projects, quests, startup ideas, rabbit holes that define the student experience. The Academy will provide dedicated, experienced coaches and mentors who know your work and psychology.
At HAA, the individual education of each student is the whole design. We want to meet you. Applications for the founding class are open.
theacademysf.com
will bitsky retweeted
"Locking yourself into a single model is putting an enormous amount of risk into your business."
We were honored to have @EnoReyes, Cofounder of @FactoryAI take the stage at FirstMark Guilds Summit to share his thoughts on agentic software development and how they're helping companies build autonomous software factories.
will bitsky retweeted
The company leading this work today is @method_security
SOFTWARE ENGINEERS IN AUSTIN:
one of a16z’s seed-stage hardware companies in Austin needs to rapidly scale their SWE team as they build their core data infra and operating system
Founders are from SpaceX + Tesla, and team is heavy mechanical / EE to date. Come help them build software!
Please DM if you know anyone exceptional
great read from @AnneNeuberger
paper shields won't help protect our critical infra
“Just as artificial intelligence can enhance cyberattacks, it can also make it easier to mount a cyberdefense,” writes Anne Neuberger. How can the United States use AI to protect its critical systems?
foreignaffairs.com/china/new…
magazine depth affordability is a choice.
we no longer need to sacrifice depth for capability...thanks to companies like @HQ_Covenant.
alex oliver (@DefenseInDepth_) knows.
will bitsky retweeted
This is so epic by @CENTCOM @DeptofWar
No one left behind.
World class military execution. The world doesn’t get how incredibly difficult this is to do.
First on 60 Minutes: Newly declassified video shows service members from U.S. Joint Special Operations Command rescuing Bravo, one of the two U.S. Air Force officers shot down over Iran in April. Bravo was stranded for two days – alone and badly wounded, behind enemy lines. cbsn.ws/4rcO6UK
this seems timely
Method and Palantir are announcing the Cardinal Program: a consortium of AI, infrastructure, and security partners to strengthen national cyber resilience.
America’s municipalities, water and power utilities, and critical infrastructure operators now face cyber adversaries armed with AI.
Their defenders should not have to stand alone.
Cardinal will provide select municipalities, utilities, and critical infrastructure operators with free, opt-in, continuous autonomous security assessments - with expert operators and human oversight.
If your organization protects critical systems or public services, we want to hear from you.
