We kick off Season 9 with a classic: Part I of the a16z story. How did this brand new venture firm charge out of the gates in 2009, going from zero to disrupting the entire venture industry overnight? You probably know Marc & Ben's history with Netscape and Loudcloud/Opsware... but what about the Black Panthers, Nintendo 64, Al Gore, Doug Leone, Masayoshi Son, and an epic feud with Benchmark Capital that became Silicon Valley's version of the Hatfields and the McCoys? Buckle up, Acquired's got the truth. If you love Acquired and want more, join our LP Community for access to over 50 LP-only episodes, monthly Zoom calls, and live access for big events like emergency pods and book club discussions with authors. We can't wait to see you there. Join here at: https://acquired.fm/lp/ Sponsors: Thank you to Pilot for being our presenting sponsor for all of Acquired Season 9! Pilot takes care of startups' bookkeeping, tax and CFO services so busy founders can focus on what matters, which is building the company. To paraphrase Jeff Bezos's famous AWS analogy: bookkeeping and tax don't make your product any better — so you should let Pilot handle them for you. In fact Pilot is backed by Bezos himself via Bezos Expeditions, along with an all-star roster of other investors including Sequoia, Index, and Stripe. They are truly the gold standard for startup bookkeeping, and many of the companies we work with run on them. You can get in touch with Pilot here: https://bit.ly/acquiredfmpilot , and Acquired listeners get 20% off their first 6 months! (use the link above) Thank you as well to Pitchbook and to Nord Security. You can learn more about them at: https://bit.ly/acquiredpitchbook https://bit.ly/acquirednord Links: David Streitfeld's great NYT piece on the Horowitz family: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/technology/one-family-many-revolutions-from-black-panthers-to-silicon-valley-to-trump.html Marc on the Tim Ferriss Show: https://tim.blog/2018/01/01/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-marc-andreessen/ 2003 Marc in SF Gate: https://www.sfgate.com/business/ontherecord/article/OPSWARE-INC-On-the-record-Marc-Andreessen-2525822.php#photo-2684736 Carve Outs: Ben: The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life: https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyday/dp/0190495995 David: Resonant Arc Podcast / YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFzWAEPDGiY34bGpwM_DWmA Episode Sources: [Google Doc link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DDb2nGfvnQ_XV4qs6qoHE084eS0J8cP74gTfdr736GE/edit# ] http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0099.html http://allthingsd.com/20130125/go-west-young-geek-chris-dixon-on-why-he-became-a-silicon-valley-vc-at-andreessen-horowitz-and-more-video/ http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/1789/Marc-Andreessen/ http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/08/20-years-on-why-netscapes-ipo-was-the-big-bang-of-the-internet-era/ https://a16z.com/2011/05/09/microsoft-buys-skype/ https://a16z.com/2011/06/30/meet-our-new-general-partner-jeff-jordan/ https://a16z.com/2017/04/07/todd-and-freddy-okta/ https://a16z.com/2018/09/25/michael-ovitz-entertainment-culture-negotiation-talent/ https://a16z.com/2019/06/20/slack/ https://a16z.com/2019/11/20/brand-building-a16z-ideas-people-marketing/ https://a16z.com/2019/11/26/a16z-podcast-how-what-why-500th-episode-behind-the-scenes/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/andreessen-horowitz-hires-a-female-partner-from-outcast-communications/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/andreessen-horowitz-starts-second-fund/ https://books.google.com/books?id=zyIvOn7sKCsC&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q&f=false https://charlierose.com/videos/12907 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreessen_Horowitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Horowitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Clark https://en.w