Thoughts on Andreessen Horowitz: the Good, the Bad and Ideas to improve

The Good

Let me begin by saying that I’m eternally grateful to Andreessen Horowitz for all the incredible knowledge that they have been sharing in the most fun way possible: their podcasts (which you can get here https://a16z.simplecast.com/ or on any podcast app).

Plus I’m still thankful for the time that Angela Strange gave me many years back for a chat when I was looking to fundraise as well as the free books that they were handling at the reception, some of which have profoundly shaped my life and thinking:

• Shaka Senghor with “Writing my wrongs” which made me cry various times and still does every time I think of it.
• Ben Horowitz with “The hard thing about hard things” which was an incredible book but also made me really curious as to why a such white looking dude like him would love hip-hop and black music so much (full disclosure as I’m originally Italian I wholeheartedly agree with Eddie Murphy when he explained in the video below that Italians are like Black people…I would add that southern Italians are even more similar to black people…and yes I’m super southern Italian) ….btw Ben, thanks so much for being so adamant about valuing and pushing forward minorities, it’s very inspiring and very badly needed as it’s a very uphill road for minority founders, especially in Bay Area.

The Bad

Yet today as I went to this website (https://a16z.com/2019/10/21/free-software-and-open-source-business) to download the slides from the podcast on open source I recently listened to, I was appalled.

I wasn’t just appalled by the fact that the banner to download the report was taking us not to the PDF but to the to the URL to download the actual jpeg of the banner, no that’s a human mistake which can happen also to incredible organizations like “the matrix” as I vividly remember Marc Andreessen define it in a Y Combinator event in Silicon Valley a few years back (I was sitting in first row so even the images are still vivid.

I’m shocked that there was no way to easily report a bug on their website and even worse that there was no way to add and read comment from other readers (even just using Disqus or whatever other similar startup they’ve invested in).

Basically I’m shocked that they haven’t created a community around their amazing content (like instead YC has been doing so well with they Startup school.

Andreessen Horowitz podcasts are so damn good that I often get shivers and rushes of happiness because it’s just such incredible knowledge and it comes in regularly enough to be a healthy drug that my brain really needs and benefits from.

I’m even happier now I’m still listening to them as I’m back in my beloved, beautiful yet decrepit Southern Italy, luckily I’m in Puglia which is according to the New York Times Opinion the best region to visit in Italy and #18 place out of 52 worldwide in 2019 (my favorite places in Puglia here and yes I love the motto #bitchIlivewhereyouvacation).

Btw shout out to smc90 for doing such incredible work (wow you are not using medium?).

Ideas to Improve

• Add Disqus to your blog posts or whatever is best, so that your readers and listeners can comment, discuss things further and learn from…
• …so that you can create a community around your content, so that potential founders can network with each other and build new companies under your umbrella.
• Add something like Instabug Team so that anyone can easily, immediately and privately let you of any major fails like the one above, since a large and incredible team like yours, “ the matrix”, really can’t afford such rookie mistakes (looking at https://a16z.com/about/team/ is quite daunting indeed!)
• Have an RFP with software and startups that you’d like to see
• Record your podcasts and video live so that there can be more live interaction from users (at 9am PST time so Europeans can join too ;) and even hardcore Asians :))

I hope I didn’t bother anyone at Andreessen Horowitz with this post it was just meant to be some unsolicited #toughlove to keep improving and always keep looking like the best investors in the world.

Thanks

Vince

p.s. Readers what are your favorite podcasts about tech and entrepreneurship?

p.p.s. In my mind only Niko Bonatsos Niko Bonatsos alone is top of mind in terms of having distilled the most amazing pearls of knowledge via some podcasts and videos but unfortunately they are not well organized under one umbrella I believe. Please correct me Niko!

Also my old party and running buddy nihal mehta needs to step up with their podcast http://www.eniac.vc/seed-to-scale/ by having them more often and featuring more founders instead of investors, as TBH as a founder I tend to learn more from founders on how to run and grow a business.

Marco Trombetti as my favorite Italian investor you should look into podcasting, the easiest way to record them might be via http://anchor.fm/ (a company nihal mehta invested in) though Silvio Gulizia might have better ideas.