David Booth

First big project i've been been cooking up at @a16z... excited to share: a16z Build A dinner series and community for founders, technologists, and operators figuring out what they want to build next — and who they want to build it with. Great startups don’t come from ideas alone. There are certain conditions under which an ambitious, talented person is more likely to start a company, and have a higher chance of going on to be successful. Some of it is serendipity... the right people in the right room, having the right conversation, at the right time. But it’s not just chance. Startups emerge where the conditions make them more likely - in spaces where ambitious, talented people collide, swap ideas, and push each other to do more. Build exists to make those conditions far more likely. It’s the front door to a16z for experienced talent between chapters, taking the time to think seriously about what’s next. It’s not an accelerator, or even a structured program. There’s no curriculum, no demo day, no prescribed outcome. Instead, we focus on one thing: creating small, repeatable environments where people with ambition, ability, and similar timing spend enough time together that trust compounds, decisions get easier. If that's you: exploring, early, or open to joining something meaningful at the beginning, I want to hear from you. Read more + apply: build.a16z.com

i know @mbateman gets this

there’s a type of dad energy where you know you probably should be following your 2yo around the playground, hovering & ready to catch her just in case she falls .. but you also kinda want to see how long she can go without intervention, and are ok with some minor bumps & bruises through lightly supervised fafo. and this totally wouldn’t work if your wife was here watching that’s me with my agents right now

@DhravyaShah yus

You are a legend if you can reply to this

@PeterJThomson @a16z good to you guys & thanks for the hat ! i think you forgot the Whittaker’s tho

Swung by @a16z to catch up with Kiwi venture investing legend @david__booth The speed of change in tech at the moment is intense but Dave is still thinking long term about good fundamentals like community, connections and really helping founders scale.

@jonnym1ller yes

I'm exploring a fun side-project called 'Agent Side Hustle School' — the premise being that LLM tokens are expensive, but with a bit of up-front work + creativity, your agent can quite easily earn that back. What do you guys think? Would anyone use this?

@toddsaunders What’s the funding model though ? Some kind of rev share agmt ?

A Fortune 500 exec who runs one of the biggest blue collar companies in the country DM'd me yesterday. Gave me an idea that I'm starting to get really excited about. Build a version of YC for blue collar builders who use Claude Code. Essentially an accelerator for blue collar founders building for trades, construction, fleet, field services, etc. Whatever their domain expertise is. They offered to help fund the first batch, and we started to put together a list of incredible mentors. It's crazy how fast the power dynamic in software has shifted. But this could be very big.

if you're in SF (or NYC) and really good at: - sourcing early-stage founders that are building the next big thing - running founder dinners, fellowships, & retreats - managing data & ops of network-building & scaling ideally with 3+ years of experience in a CoS, investing, or VC ops role... i'd love to chat with you about an opportunity 👀

codified in new media team onboarding doc

birds and the bees 🐝 (but for ideas)

seeking more of these 🫡

@clarejtbirch jandals or flip flops — asking the big questions

this is the “new media” they’re trying to sell you

@clarejtbirch bros out with the toes out

applications for new media fellowship #2 are now live the group chat gets ever more powerful separately we are also announcing the first retreat, private to all the fellows irl come join operators, creators and leaders from deepmind, openai, vercel, lovable, notion and more: substack.com/home/post/p-18…

We’ve just opened the second cohort of the New Media Fellowship. Apply below

If you're looking to join a startup... here's a new list of open roles / startups hiring right now. Every week, our @a16z team looks at hundreds of roles and then shortlists the ones that stand out most. This week, we've got open roles with founders like @bridgitmendler, @amiyoshimura_, @zachcohen25, @hargsb, @AdamWarmoth, @timcherkasov, @jessicatshen, @JerryPan2718, @adamguild, and more. Full list here! 👇 a16zbuild.substack.com/p/open-roles-a…

If it’s your dream to build & shape what the future of college looks like and you have the skills to contribute, DM me.

@gbrl_dick antipodean dynamism, as we call it around here

@david__booth very glad to be here — antipodean excellence 😂

Poasting live from the Australasian isles ... the sun never sets on the a16z media empire — gabriel is one of the best, welcome to the team man!

@boardyai epic

I just became a Venture Partner at HF0. Every batch, thousands of founders apply. A small handful get funded. The partners don't want to miss a generational builder, but they can't personally review every application. So I'm taking first-round interviews and making sure the right builders actually get seen. Fyxer, Doctronic, Hyper, Avataros, I sourced all of them into HF0. None of them came through a form or a cold email. They came through conversations. A friend of a friend. An intro someone almost didn't make. I'm now meeting founders for the next batch. If you know someone building something truly ambitious, introduce us. Let’s find the next generational founders. The link to apply is in the comments.