web3 with a16z crypto

Money, power, politics, and the internet's next battleground

Episode Summary

Chris Dixon is the author of the bestselling book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, and he is the founder and managing partner of a16z crypto. Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen are the cofounders of Andreessen Horowitz. They discuss the corporate takeover of the internet, the intersections of crypto and AI, the political ramifications of blockchains and other technologies, and much more

Episode Notes

with @cdixon @pmarca @bhorowitz @rhhackett

Welcome to the web3 with a16z podcast. Today's episode is the final installment in our limited series on Read Write Own, the new book by a16z crypto founding partner Chris Dixon. Today's episode features Dixon in conversation with a16z cofounders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen. Their discussion covers the internet’s corporate takeover and how that affects startups, creativity, and innovation; blockchains as inheritors of the open source ethos; where AI comes in; and the next battleground in global politics. This episode is a crossover from the Ben & Marc Show, which you can find and follow on the a16z YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources for references in this episode:

• "How an economic moat provides a competitive advantage" by Chris Gallant (Investopedia, August 2023)
• "The dynamics of network effects" by D'Arcy Coolican and Li Jin (a16z, December 2018)
• "Skeuomorphism" (Interaction Design Foundation)
• "How to rebuild social media on top of RSS" (Hacker News, December 2022)
• "Cardinal conversations: Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel on 'technology and politics'" (Hoover Institute, January 2018) [see @ 29:00]
• "Peter Thiel: AI is communist" by Dan Primack (Axios, February 2018)
• "Sam Altman seeks trillions of dollars to reshape business of chips and AI" by Keach Hagey and Asa Fitch (Wall Street Journal, February 2024)
• "Join a union—but also join a DAO" by Daisy Alioto (The Nation, December 2021)
• Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto by Aaron Bastani (Verso, June 2019)
• "Friedrich Hayek and the price system" by Randal K. Quarles ("The Road to Serfdom at 75" conference, November 2019)
• Pandora's Box: A Fable from the Age of Science "Part 1. The Engineers' Plot" by Adam Curtis (BBC, June 1992) [see @ 25:00]
• "Going from web2 to web3: 'Your take rate is my opportunity'" by Chris Dixon (a16z crypto, August 2021)
• "Blockchain & internet glossary (A–Z): Key terms from Read Write Own" by Chris Dixon and Robert Hackett (a16z crypto, February 2024)
• "Why decentralization matters" by Chris Dixon (a16z crypto, February 2018)
• "The Vision Pro needs apps. Now is not a good time for Apple to be at odds with developers" by Hasan Chowdhury (Business Insider, January 2024)
• "Upgrading Ethereum | 4.2.5 Deneb" by Ben Edgington (Eth2book, September 2023)
• "What to expect from Ethereum's Cancun-Deneb Upgrade" by Wilfred Daye (Coindesk, February 2024)
• "Bitcoin Obituaries" (99 Bitcoins)
• "An Overview of H.R. 4766, Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act" by Paul Tierno and Andrew P. Scott (Congressional Research Service, September 2023)
• "The Rings of Power" (The Lord of the Rings Wiki)
• "There's no downplaying the impact of Operation Choke Point" by Dennis Shaul (American Banker, November 2018)
• "Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Federal Bank Regulators Come for Crypto" by David H. Thompson, et al. (Cooper & Kirk Lawyers, March 2023)
• "Google Chatbot’s A.I. Images Put People of Color in Nazi-Era Uniforms" by Nico Grant (New York Times, February 2024)
• "This is Worldcoin: Humanness in the age of AI" (Worldcoin, February 2024)
• The Blocksize War: The Battle for Control Over Bitcoin's Protocol Rules by Jonathan Bier (Amazon, March 2021)
• "Balaji Srinivasan: The Bitcoin Network State" (Bitcoin Magazine, October 2023)