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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 🇺🇸
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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.
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