Short Consensus

Some news! After 6 incredible years, I’m going to be transitioning out of a16z. I’m starting a fund of my own to do what I love most, which is investing in great founders as early as I can find them, with a broader aperture across the many verticals where great companies are being built today. I learned a huge amount during my time at a16z. @cdixon is widely known as a legendary investor and having the opportunity to work closely with him for the past 6 years has been an honor. I am extremely grateful for his mentorship, the opportunities he gave me here, and for the capital and responsibilities he entrusted me with. His frameworks will shape how I think about investments for the rest of my career. When I joined, the crypto vertical was 7 people (it’s now north of 80), and the firm, while already successful, was nowhere near the scale or scope it has today. At the time I thought the firm’s moves to dominate the industry had mostly unfolded, but I underestimated how much the lead could widen in a few short years. @bhorowitz and @pmarca have built an institution, and I am glad to have had the chance to play a small role on the team. I’m sure I’ll be looking back 6 years from now and see the firm in a position  that’s  hard to even imagine from today’s vantage point. Most of the best people I’ve worked with in my career to date have been at a16z – there are too many to name. I’m very grateful to have worked with so many incredible folks here, and I know that I am leaving the crypto team and the investing practice in extremely capable hands with @cdixon, @alive_eth, and @guywuolletjr. I’m also really going to miss working with @jasonrothenal and @eddylazzarin every day in Menlo Park — I’ve learned so much from both of them. I’m very proud of the work I did here, and most importantly, of the founders I had the privilege of working with. They are the reason why I love being an investor. Sometimes it takes dozens of meetings, but every time you find a star, it makes you fall in love with the job all over again. a16z’s passion for and commitment to founders and their companies is what made me love this job in particular. I’m excited to keep doing that in my next chapter — and if you’re building, I’d love to meet!

I'm often asked how to land a research job at a frontier AI lab. It's hard, especially without a research background, but I like to point to @kellerjordan0 as an example showing it can be done. Keller graduated from UCSD with no publication record and was working at an AI content moderation startup when he landed a cold call with @bneyshabur (who was at Google) and presented an idea to improve upon Behnam's recent paper. Behnam agreed to mentor him, which led to an ICLR paper. Sadly there's less open research today, but improving upon a researcher's published work is a great way to demonstrate excellence to someone inside a lab and give them the conviction to advocate for an interview. Later, Keller got on @OpenAI's radar thanks to the NanoGPT speed run he started. All his work was documented and it was easy to measure his success, so the case for hiring him was strong. Keller is one example, but there's plenty of other success stories as well: 🧵