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PART II: $635M Exit → $600M Fund David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸), General Partner at a16z, on the Critical Industries AD is Investing in to Rebuild America AD Portfolio Companies & Areas: • AI: Applied Intuition, Ambient AI • Defense: Anduril, Saronic, Shield AI, Castelion • Energy: Radiant, Base...

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Molly O’Shea

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236,064 views • 7 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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BREAKING: Inside a16z's American Dynamism Fund Why Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, & David Ulevitch Launched American Dynamism David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸), General Partner at a16z, who co-leads the firm’s AD practice w/ Katherine Boyle (Katherine Boyle) joins Sourcery to break down America’s comeback It's time to build. We discuss: - Story behind American Dynamism’s rise - Private capital boom behind national interest - JP Morgan’s $1.5T “Security & Resiliency” initiative - AI’s role across defense, logistics, & manufacturing - Why venture capital must “fund freedom like our lives depend on it.” Highlights: (00:00) David Ulevitch (01:54) The origin of American Dynamism (05:23) Why Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz backed the idea early (03:30) Partnering with Katherine Boyle, from rivals to co-leads (06:14) From meme to movement (07:00) Why venture returns exist in defense, energy, & infrastructure (07:11) The new supply-and-demand moment for American industry (11:00) Building a policy bridge between D.C. & Silicon Valley (15:29) Fixing defense procurement, the “bake-off” model (17:15) Private capital as America’s innovation engine (20:02) JP Morgan’s $1.5T commitment & what it signals (20:30) China, supply chains, & the race for energy independence (22:12) The new late-stage capital environment for defense tech (24:05) How AI is transforming defense, logistics, and public safety (27:42) Why this is a multi-generational mission
28:06

BREAKING: Inside a16z's American Dynamism Fund Why Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, & David Ulevitch Launched American Dynamism David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸), General Partner at a16z, who co-leads the firm’s AD practice w/ Katherine Boyle (Katherine Boyle) joins Sourcery to break down America’s comeback It's time to build. We discuss: - Story behind American Dynamism’s rise - Private capital boom behind national interest - JP Morgan’s $1.5T “Security & Resiliency” initiative - AI’s role across defense, logistics, & manufacturing - Why venture capital must “fund freedom like our lives depend on it.” Highlights: (00:00) David Ulevitch (01:54) The origin of American Dynamism (05:23) Why Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz backed the idea early (03:30) Partnering with Katherine Boyle, from rivals to co-leads (06:14) From meme to movement (07:00) Why venture returns exist in defense, energy, & infrastructure (07:11) The new supply-and-demand moment for American industry (11:00) Building a policy bridge between D.C. & Silicon Valley (15:29) Fixing defense procurement, the “bake-off” model (17:15) Private capital as America’s innovation engine (20:02) JP Morgan’s $1.5T commitment & what it signals (20:30) China, supply chains, & the race for energy independence (22:12) The new late-stage capital environment for defense tech (24:05) How AI is transforming defense, logistics, and public safety (27:42) Why this is a multi-generational mission

Molly O’Shea

100,490 views • 7 months ago

David Ulevitch on how AI is transforming categories like energy, drones, logistics, and public safety: “You can look from any dimension and recognize that AI is transforming all of these categories, as it should.” “AI is just transforming all of these industries, dramatically, and we’re all the beneficiaries.” Source: David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 on sourcery with Molly O’Shea
3:25

David Ulevitch on how AI is transforming categories like energy, drones, logistics, and public safety: “You can look from any dimension and recognize that AI is transforming all of these categories, as it should.” “AI is just transforming all of these industries, dramatically, and we’re all the beneficiaries.” Source: David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 on sourcery with Molly O’Shea

a16z

29,447 views • 7 months ago

American Dynamism made working with the government cool again: - Tech realizes defense matters - Companies like SpaceX and Anduril have proven startups can sell to the government - America has to build in the physical world to stay dominant David Ulevitch, Katherine Boyle, and Erik Torenberg join Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz to cover the origins of American Dynamism and where it's going, including Silicon Valley's roots in defense, the importance of American values winning globally, and how a special breed of founders is building for American Dynamism. 00:00 Intro 01:32 When Katherine Boyle coined “American Dynamism” 08:50 When emotional outrage replaced curiosity 14:14 “It’s Time to Build”: How COVID and The Social Network defined a decade 29:20 Space 2.0: Why you don’t need to build everything yourself 37:28 Attributable systems: Rethinking the economics of war 44:42 “The war won’t be about space, it will be in space” 46:33 Every country wants their own Silicon Valley 58:01 Winning by being more like us, not more like them 1:13:51 Why American Dynamism founders are different David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 Katherine Boyle Erik Torenberg Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 benahorowitz.eth
1:16:32

American Dynamism made working with the government cool again: - Tech realizes defense matters - Companies like SpaceX and Anduril have proven startups can sell to the government - America has to build in the physical world to stay dominant David Ulevitch, Katherine Boyle, and Erik Torenberg join Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz to cover the origins of American Dynamism and where it's going, including Silicon Valley's roots in defense, the importance of American values winning globally, and how a special breed of founders is building for American Dynamism. 00:00 Intro 01:32 When Katherine Boyle coined “American Dynamism” 08:50 When emotional outrage replaced curiosity 14:14 “It’s Time to Build”: How COVID and The Social Network defined a decade 29:20 Space 2.0: Why you don’t need to build everything yourself 37:28 Attributable systems: Rethinking the economics of war 44:42 “The war won’t be about space, it will be in space” 46:33 Every country wants their own Silicon Valley 58:01 Winning by being more like us, not more like them 1:13:51 Why American Dynamism founders are different David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 Katherine Boyle Erik Torenberg Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 benahorowitz.eth

a16z

313,735 views • 7 months ago

We asked David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 (partner at a16z) to break down the thesis behind the American Dynamism fund. "We're going to invest in anything that supports the national interest." "We need to have an energy storage infrastructure in this country that's not dependent on China." "I would include everything from transportation, logistics, to education. You know, the tent is big."
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We asked David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 (partner at a16z) to break down the thesis behind the American Dynamism fund. "We're going to invest in anything that supports the national interest." "We need to have an energy storage infrastructure in this country that's not dependent on China." "I would include everything from transportation, logistics, to education. You know, the tent is big."

TBPN

16,443 views • 1 year ago

I got to sit down with David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸) for E31 of We The Builders (We The Builders). He is a General Partner at a16z where he cofounded the $1.776 billion American Dynamism practice with Katherine Boyle about 4 years ago. Since then, it has taken over the timeline and become the language many use to describe frontier, deep or hard tech. Friend of the show Christopher Lochhead 🏴‍☠️ ✍🏼🎙 calls this Category Design, where you don’t necessarily have to be the first to become a category leader, you need to frame the problem and do it better than everyone else. We talk about investing strategy, founding story of American Dynamism and what made it a sticky brand, what he has learnt about how the world works from his anthropology background, surveillance concerns with public safety technologies, his best mentor who is not Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 and more. American Dynamism focuses on investing in areas such as public safety, aerospace, logistics, national security, defense, manufacturing, industrialization, logistics. Some of the companies in their portfolio include Anduril Industries , Amca, Applied Intuition , Apex Space, Astro Mechanica , Astranis Space Technologies , Base Power , California Forever , Castelion , Hadrian , Northwood , Radiant and of course SpaceX. Founders of many of these will be featured in upcoming episodes or are friends of the show. David was previously the founder and CEO of OpenDNS, a cloud-delivered security service that was acquired by Cisco in 2015 for $635 million. While at Cisco , David was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Security — a $2.4 billion annual revenue business with more than 5,000 team members — where he oversaw the company’s global cybersecurity strategy, product portfolio, and business (via A16Z). Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 01:57 - Defining American Dynamism 05:43 - Project Maven and Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy 07:24 - Competing with General Catalyst for Anduril 08:49 - Category creation and defining the market 10:57 - The marketing engine of “The American Dream” 15:20 - Replicating Silicon Valley 18:22 - Robot Dogs and General Catalyst 19:47 - 1776 Million: Building the American Dynamism Practice 20:59 - Why Hardware Outperforms Software Over Time 22:38 - Coupling Defense, Energy, and Space 26:28 - Investing in Public Safety 33:01 - Investment Committees are “stupid” 35:39 - Long-term partners over short-term bets 39:23 - Policy, Regulations, and navigating relationships in DC 43:11 - How regulations are slowing us down 46:54 - The Industrial Supply Chain Divergence 51:29 - Global Maritime Dominance and Expanding TAM 53:39 - Venture-Backable Bets in Critical Industrial Infrastructure 1:00:24 - Applying Anthropology: Study of People, Culture, and Political Power 1:04:08 - What Drives Innovation Across Nations? 1:11:49 - Regional Talent and State Incentives 1:15:48 - Moving from Benevolent Dictator to Minority Investor 1:20:42 - Life is Checkers, Not Chess: Agency and Knowing When to Sell 1:26:57 - OpenDNS and the Pivot to Enterprise: Letting Markets Dictate Your Revenue 1:30:13 - The High Bar for Talent: Grittiness, Grind, and Magnetic Leadership 1:33:09 - Attracting Capital via Narrative: Storytelling vs. Lying 1:35:07 - Toastmasters and Single-Topic Debates: Sharpening Communication 1:37:20 - Modern Credentials: Domain Expertise and Sourcing True Signals 1:44:23 - Government Sales 101: Enterprise Sales on Steroids 1:46:34 - Closing
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I got to sit down with David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸) for E31 of We The Builders (We The Builders). He is a General Partner at a16z where he cofounded the $1.776 billion American Dynamism practice with Katherine Boyle about 4 years ago. Since then, it has taken over the timeline and become the language many use to describe frontier, deep or hard tech. Friend of the show Christopher Lochhead 🏴‍☠️ ✍🏼🎙 calls this Category Design, where you don’t necessarily have to be the first to become a category leader, you need to frame the problem and do it better than everyone else. We talk about investing strategy, founding story of American Dynamism and what made it a sticky brand, what he has learnt about how the world works from his anthropology background, surveillance concerns with public safety technologies, his best mentor who is not Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 and more. American Dynamism focuses on investing in areas such as public safety, aerospace, logistics, national security, defense, manufacturing, industrialization, logistics. Some of the companies in their portfolio include Anduril Industries , Amca, Applied Intuition , Apex Space, Astro Mechanica , Astranis Space Technologies , Base Power , California Forever , Castelion , Hadrian , Northwood , Radiant and of course SpaceX. Founders of many of these will be featured in upcoming episodes or are friends of the show. David was previously the founder and CEO of OpenDNS, a cloud-delivered security service that was acquired by Cisco in 2015 for $635 million. While at Cisco , David was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Security — a $2.4 billion annual revenue business with more than 5,000 team members — where he oversaw the company’s global cybersecurity strategy, product portfolio, and business (via A16Z). Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 01:57 - Defining American Dynamism 05:43 - Project Maven and Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy 07:24 - Competing with General Catalyst for Anduril 08:49 - Category creation and defining the market 10:57 - The marketing engine of “The American Dream” 15:20 - Replicating Silicon Valley 18:22 - Robot Dogs and General Catalyst 19:47 - 1776 Million: Building the American Dynamism Practice 20:59 - Why Hardware Outperforms Software Over Time 22:38 - Coupling Defense, Energy, and Space 26:28 - Investing in Public Safety 33:01 - Investment Committees are “stupid” 35:39 - Long-term partners over short-term bets 39:23 - Policy, Regulations, and navigating relationships in DC 43:11 - How regulations are slowing us down 46:54 - The Industrial Supply Chain Divergence 51:29 - Global Maritime Dominance and Expanding TAM 53:39 - Venture-Backable Bets in Critical Industrial Infrastructure 1:00:24 - Applying Anthropology: Study of People, Culture, and Political Power 1:04:08 - What Drives Innovation Across Nations? 1:11:49 - Regional Talent and State Incentives 1:15:48 - Moving from Benevolent Dictator to Minority Investor 1:20:42 - Life is Checkers, Not Chess: Agency and Knowing When to Sell 1:26:57 - OpenDNS and the Pivot to Enterprise: Letting Markets Dictate Your Revenue 1:30:13 - The High Bar for Talent: Grittiness, Grind, and Magnetic Leadership 1:33:09 - Attracting Capital via Narrative: Storytelling vs. Lying 1:35:07 - Toastmasters and Single-Topic Debates: Sharpening Communication 1:37:20 - Modern Credentials: Domain Expertise and Sourcing True Signals 1:44:23 - Government Sales 101: Enterprise Sales on Steroids 1:46:34 - Closing

Suffiyan Malik

23,434 views • 14 days ago

"The next war is actually going to be fought in space." Katherine Boyle on investing in space defense: "We need to be thinking about attritable systems in space. We need to be thinking about offensive capabilities. We need to be thinking about how Golden Dome can potentially be a part of that." Source: Katherine Boyle with The Wall Street Journal
0:29

"The next war is actually going to be fought in space." Katherine Boyle on investing in space defense: "We need to be thinking about attritable systems in space. We need to be thinking about offensive capabilities. We need to be thinking about how Golden Dome can potentially be a part of that." Source: Katherine Boyle with The Wall Street Journal

a16z

31,135 views • 4 months ago

David Ulevitch on how AI is transforming energy, defense, and logistics: "If you start at the most fundamental level, energy—we have an insatiable thirst for energy in this country, and AI compute is driving a huge amount of it." "AI compute will then power lots of things. It's not just going to power ChatGPT, but it's going to power autonomy systems, all kinds of other language models, and all other kinds of use cases." "If you look at defense, computer vision is transforming the battlefield." "Then you see AI transforming logistics... flight operations and planning using AI, so you can have the most efficient flight planning, save the most amount of fuel, and make sure that the least amount of flights get canceled." David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 on sourcery
3:30

David Ulevitch on how AI is transforming energy, defense, and logistics: "If you start at the most fundamental level, energy—we have an insatiable thirst for energy in this country, and AI compute is driving a huge amount of it." "AI compute will then power lots of things. It's not just going to power ChatGPT, but it's going to power autonomy systems, all kinds of other language models, and all other kinds of use cases." "If you look at defense, computer vision is transforming the battlefield." "Then you see AI transforming logistics... flight operations and planning using AI, so you can have the most efficient flight planning, save the most amount of fuel, and make sure that the least amount of flights get canceled." David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 on sourcery

a16z

17,567 views • 4 months ago

Monitoring the Situation #3: Who Is Nick Land & the State of Energy Zach Dell is founder and CEO of Base Power, an energy tech company that builds affordable, reliable power via home batteries. In this episode of Monitoring the Situation, a16z General Partners Erik Torenberg, Katherine Boyle, and Erin Price-Wright sit down with Zach to discuss the current state of home power generation, what’s misunderstood about the data center buildout, and how to fix the US electricity grid. Plus, Erik and Katherine talk with a16z crypto CTO Eddy Lazzarin about Silicon Valley’s favorite Dark Enlightenment philosopher, Nick Land. Zach Dell Eddy Lazzarin ☀️ Erin Price-Wright Katherine Boyle Erik Torenberg
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Monitoring the Situation #3: Who Is Nick Land & the State of Energy Zach Dell is founder and CEO of Base Power, an energy tech company that builds affordable, reliable power via home batteries. In this episode of Monitoring the Situation, a16z General Partners Erik Torenberg, Katherine Boyle, and Erin Price-Wright sit down with Zach to discuss the current state of home power generation, what’s misunderstood about the data center buildout, and how to fix the US electricity grid. Plus, Erik and Katherine talk with a16z crypto CTO Eddy Lazzarin about Silicon Valley’s favorite Dark Enlightenment philosopher, Nick Land. Zach Dell Eddy Lazzarin ☀️ Erin Price-Wright Katherine Boyle Erik Torenberg

a16z

166,909 views • 8 months ago

Official preview with my next guest, Trae Stephens, co-founder and the executive chairman of Anduril Industries and a General Partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund. Trae Stephens Anduril Industries
6:45

Official preview with my next guest, Trae Stephens, co-founder and the executive chairman of Anduril Industries and a General Partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund. Trae Stephens Anduril Industries

Shawn Ryan

421,343 views • 8 months ago

Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael on being the CTO of the Department of War, applying lessons from Silicon Valley at the Pentagon, and his "holy cow" moment with AI vendors. 00:00 Silicon Valley to DC 02:03 Why the DoW cannot operate at "peacetime speed" 04:33 Making applied AI the top priority 09:04 "Holy cow" 13:52 On democratic oversight 16:19 The state of AI 18:42 Structural changes to the DoW 21:20 Startups & innovation 23:53 Patriotism & working for the government Emil Michael Under Secretary of War Emil Michael Department of War CTO David Ulevitch 🇺🇸
25:40

Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael on being the CTO of the Department of War, applying lessons from Silicon Valley at the Pentagon, and his "holy cow" moment with AI vendors. 00:00 Silicon Valley to DC 02:03 Why the DoW cannot operate at "peacetime speed" 04:33 Making applied AI the top priority 09:04 "Holy cow" 13:52 On democratic oversight 16:19 The state of AI 18:42 Structural changes to the DoW 21:20 Startups & innovation 23:53 Patriotism & working for the government Emil Michael Under Secretary of War Emil Michael Department of War CTO David Ulevitch 🇺🇸

a16z

261,032 views • 4 months ago

America has lost non-nuclear deterrence. Castelion CEO Bryon Hargis wants to change that. At Castelion, Bryon is building a new generation of hypersonic missiles designed for speed, survivability, and scalable production. He joined a16z's David Ulevitch for a conversation on Castelion, hypersonic weapons, the state of procurement and more. They cover: - America's lag in hypersonic weapons and why we need to catch up - The critical role of startups in weapons development - How Ukraine changed how we think about the future of warfare - Exciting developments towards procurement reform in Washington - How to build a company culture of urgency 0:00 Introduction 0:27 What are hypersonic missiles? 2:40 The continuum of deterrence 7:37 Breaking into government sales 8:14 Understanding the customer and building trust 14:29 Enterprise sales and government procurement 20:16 Lessons from Ukraine: Production and deterrence 23:15 Reindustrialization and dual use technology 25:00 Building company culture and urgency 26:45 Buy vs build: Supply chain decisions 28:55 Castelion's first launch 30:20 Optimism for American Dynamism Bryon Hargis David Ulevitch 🇺🇸
31:55

America has lost non-nuclear deterrence. Castelion CEO Bryon Hargis wants to change that. At Castelion, Bryon is building a new generation of hypersonic missiles designed for speed, survivability, and scalable production. He joined a16z's David Ulevitch for a conversation on Castelion, hypersonic weapons, the state of procurement and more. They cover: - America's lag in hypersonic weapons and why we need to catch up - The critical role of startups in weapons development - How Ukraine changed how we think about the future of warfare - Exciting developments towards procurement reform in Washington - How to build a company culture of urgency 0:00 Introduction 0:27 What are hypersonic missiles? 2:40 The continuum of deterrence 7:37 Breaking into government sales 8:14 Understanding the customer and building trust 14:29 Enterprise sales and government procurement 20:16 Lessons from Ukraine: Production and deterrence 23:15 Reindustrialization and dual use technology 25:00 Building company culture and urgency 26:45 Buy vs build: Supply chain decisions 28:55 Castelion's first launch 30:20 Optimism for American Dynamism Bryon Hargis David Ulevitch 🇺🇸

a16z

59,072 views • 6 months ago

Idea: Factory tour of Anduril wearing heart rate monitors "If you don't come out of the Anduril factory tour feeling fired up & excited, you need to check your pulse. You might not be alive. Palmer (Palmer Luckey) has always said, "We will never ship renders," so when you see an explosion in a video, that's a real explosion. They're not doing special effects. So when you see the eagle eye announcement yesterday & you see the camera & the optics, like, that is all real because they will never fake it." David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸) of a16z on Anduril Industries
0:21

Idea: Factory tour of Anduril wearing heart rate monitors "If you don't come out of the Anduril factory tour feeling fired up & excited, you need to check your pulse. You might not be alive. Palmer (Palmer Luckey) has always said, "We will never ship renders," so when you see an explosion in a video, that's a real explosion. They're not doing special effects. So when you see the eagle eye announcement yesterday & you see the camera & the optics, like, that is all real because they will never fake it." David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸) of a16z on Anduril Industries

Molly O’Shea

22,312 views • 7 months ago

Katherine Boyle says SpaceX’s legacy will be the thousands of companies that spawn from the school of Elon Musk: "What we've learned from the SpaceX story is that these kinds of companies can be built." "It is one of the most important companies in America. It's beloved by Americans across the country for what it's been able to achieve." "The legacy of SpaceX is going to be hundreds, if not thousands of companies—people who've gone to the school of Elon Musk, they've learned manufacturing and they've built companies, and built products in a way that they can take to new companies in manufacturing and defense, and drones and hypersonics—all of these other categories that SpaceX doesn't do." "We're incredibly excited about SpaceX. We're incredibly excited for what it's achieved for the American people and what it's going to lead to over the next 25 years." Katherine Boyle on FOX Business
0:37

Katherine Boyle says SpaceX’s legacy will be the thousands of companies that spawn from the school of Elon Musk: "What we've learned from the SpaceX story is that these kinds of companies can be built." "It is one of the most important companies in America. It's beloved by Americans across the country for what it's been able to achieve." "The legacy of SpaceX is going to be hundreds, if not thousands of companies—people who've gone to the school of Elon Musk, they've learned manufacturing and they've built companies, and built products in a way that they can take to new companies in manufacturing and defense, and drones and hypersonics—all of these other categories that SpaceX doesn't do." "We're incredibly excited about SpaceX. We're incredibly excited for what it's achieved for the American people and what it's going to lead to over the next 25 years." Katherine Boyle on FOX Business

a16z

658,860 views • 3 months ago

EPISODE 157: Scott Nolan on the AI Energy Crisis & America's Nuclear Renaissance Joe Lonsdale sits down with Scott Nolan Lessons from SpaceX early days; building General Matter; why we rely on Russia; how we fell behind China; nuclear power in space; and more! (00:00) Episode intro (01:20) Boeing vs SpaceX / lessons on speed & performance (05:20) What made SpaceX unique? (09:05) General Matter / how to make nuclear fuel (16:45) Disarmament and relying on Russia (19:50) The AI energy crisis / falling behind China (24:30) Founders Fund & energy investing (27:15) How to scale nuclear energy (32:00) How to fund the nuclear buildout (36:15) Nuclear in space & new possibilities
39:50

EPISODE 157: Scott Nolan on the AI Energy Crisis & America's Nuclear Renaissance Joe Lonsdale sits down with Scott Nolan Lessons from SpaceX early days; building General Matter; why we rely on Russia; how we fell behind China; nuclear power in space; and more! (00:00) Episode intro (01:20) Boeing vs SpaceX / lessons on speed & performance (05:20) What made SpaceX unique? (09:05) General Matter / how to make nuclear fuel (16:45) Disarmament and relying on Russia (19:50) The AI energy crisis / falling behind China (24:30) Founders Fund & energy investing (27:15) How to scale nuclear energy (32:00) How to fund the nuclear buildout (36:15) Nuclear in space & new possibilities

American Optimist

876,619 views • 1 month ago

In 2015, David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸) sold OpenDNS to Cisco for $635M, now he co-leads the $600M AD fund at a16z "It took me 10 years to basically have my overnight success" With a hard-earned operator background David shares his 3 key lessons 1.) Magnetic teams win. 2.) Capital flows to magnetic founders. 3.) Government & enterprise customers require deep, long-term (non-transactional !!) partnerships. & how its reflected in their portfolio among big names like Anduril, Base Power, Radiant, Castelion, & more BTW - While at Cisco, David was Senior VP & GM of Cisco Security, a $2.4 billion annual revenue business w/ more than 5K+ team members . . . "1.) I think the first thing is it starts with team & talent. The best companies in our portfolio have the best performing teams. And you know it's very easy in venture to fall in love with an idea, but what really matters is like is there a team there that can execute? Can that team magnetically the best talent in the world and get people to come work for them? People love working for Brian Schimpf (Brian Schimpf) at Anduril (Anduril Industries), they love working for Palmer Luckey (Palmer Luckey), they love working for Matt Grimm (Matt Grimm). Like they they just they love that team and they're able to magnetically attract the absolute best talent. Chris Brose (Chris Brose) is probably the most in-demand person in the like the defense space today and he's worked at Anduril since the very beginning. You have to be able to magnetically attract the best talent and and every company we look at whether it's Base Power (Base Power) whether it's Saronic (Saronic) it doesn't matter, Radiant Nuclear (Radiant) they just become magnetic attractors of talent. 2.) The second thing is these companies are expensive & you know we've learned that they have to be able to magnetically attract capital.. And it sometimes it sounds dumb to say 'cause like we're investing in these companies so obviously they got capital but they need to be able to attract capital from other people as well. And we found that these companies are so capital-intensive & sometimes the curve to revenue takes a little bit longer 'cause you're doing manufacturing and doing all these other things. ..nothing matters more than the talent at the top the founders of the company. Can they magnetically attract capital? Can they magnetically attract talent? Those 2 things matter the most. And then I think what I've learned and I learned that in my own experiences, and you know it took me 10 years to basically have my overnight success ..and if I think about the years that were not that last night before we sold the company.. like the lessons I learned were like every time I had to change the way the company was operating.. it always started with talent. I had to change out the executive team, change out the leadership team that we had, at one point we were a consumer company, we pivoted to enterprise halfway through 5 years in and totally rebuilt the team. Because the kind of people that were building a consumer company were totally different than building an cybersecurity company. 3.) I think the last thing I learned that was really important, especially to help me set me up for the American Dynamism practice, is at Cisco, at that point I was running one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world, and I recognized at Cisco that like when you sell to the government you need to have the people that know how to interface with the government, know how to sell the government. These are very very strategic sales processes. They're not transactional. Oftentimes the customer on the other side of the table is sometimes betting their career on picking your solution. The same thing is true now with government. When somebody who's a procurement officer, or a program officer, is betting on a defense startup to provide some solution they're really betting on their career in many cases to say like "I hope that Anduril or Saronic, or whoever, Castelion () can deliver this solution for me." And so I think you need to recognize & appreciate, and this is what I learned at Cisco that these partnerships are just not transactional. They're deep relationships. You're gonna work with these people for years on these complex large you know $10 million plus deals & I learned that on the enterprise side at Cisco I see it now over & over in the AD portfolio. I think those are some of the biggest lessons that that I learned talent & then really partnership with your customers."
3:40

In 2015, David Ulevitch (David Ulevitch 🇺🇸) sold OpenDNS to Cisco for $635M, now he co-leads the $600M AD fund at a16z "It took me 10 years to basically have my overnight success" With a hard-earned operator background David shares his 3 key lessons 1.) Magnetic teams win. 2.) Capital flows to magnetic founders. 3.) Government & enterprise customers require deep, long-term (non-transactional !!) partnerships. & how its reflected in their portfolio among big names like Anduril, Base Power, Radiant, Castelion, & more BTW - While at Cisco, David was Senior VP & GM of Cisco Security, a $2.4 billion annual revenue business w/ more than 5K+ team members . . . "1.) I think the first thing is it starts with team & talent. The best companies in our portfolio have the best performing teams. And you know it's very easy in venture to fall in love with an idea, but what really matters is like is there a team there that can execute? Can that team magnetically the best talent in the world and get people to come work for them? People love working for Brian Schimpf (Brian Schimpf) at Anduril (Anduril Industries), they love working for Palmer Luckey (Palmer Luckey), they love working for Matt Grimm (Matt Grimm). Like they they just they love that team and they're able to magnetically attract the absolute best talent. Chris Brose (Chris Brose) is probably the most in-demand person in the like the defense space today and he's worked at Anduril since the very beginning. You have to be able to magnetically attract the best talent and and every company we look at whether it's Base Power (Base Power) whether it's Saronic (Saronic) it doesn't matter, Radiant Nuclear (Radiant) they just become magnetic attractors of talent. 2.) The second thing is these companies are expensive & you know we've learned that they have to be able to magnetically attract capital.. And it sometimes it sounds dumb to say 'cause like we're investing in these companies so obviously they got capital but they need to be able to attract capital from other people as well. And we found that these companies are so capital-intensive & sometimes the curve to revenue takes a little bit longer 'cause you're doing manufacturing and doing all these other things. ..nothing matters more than the talent at the top the founders of the company. Can they magnetically attract capital? Can they magnetically attract talent? Those 2 things matter the most. And then I think what I've learned and I learned that in my own experiences, and you know it took me 10 years to basically have my overnight success ..and if I think about the years that were not that last night before we sold the company.. like the lessons I learned were like every time I had to change the way the company was operating.. it always started with talent. I had to change out the executive team, change out the leadership team that we had, at one point we were a consumer company, we pivoted to enterprise halfway through 5 years in and totally rebuilt the team. Because the kind of people that were building a consumer company were totally different than building an cybersecurity company. 3.) I think the last thing I learned that was really important, especially to help me set me up for the American Dynamism practice, is at Cisco, at that point I was running one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world, and I recognized at Cisco that like when you sell to the government you need to have the people that know how to interface with the government, know how to sell the government. These are very very strategic sales processes. They're not transactional. Oftentimes the customer on the other side of the table is sometimes betting their career on picking your solution. The same thing is true now with government. When somebody who's a procurement officer, or a program officer, is betting on a defense startup to provide some solution they're really betting on their career in many cases to say like "I hope that Anduril or Saronic, or whoever, Castelion () can deliver this solution for me." And so I think you need to recognize & appreciate, and this is what I learned at Cisco that these partnerships are just not transactional. They're deep relationships. You're gonna work with these people for years on these complex large you know $10 million plus deals & I learned that on the enterprise side at Cisco I see it now over & over in the AD portfolio. I think those are some of the biggest lessons that that I learned talent & then really partnership with your customers."

Molly O’Shea

73,555 views • 7 months ago

The Common Thread of All Technology: Monitoring the Situation, Ep.1 "Every piece of technological progress can be reapplied somewhere else." American Dynamism, AI infra, crypto, consumer tech. These aren’t separate silos, they’re deeply intertwined. Without GPUs used as "toys" by gamers, we wouldn’t have modern AI. That’s the spirit of Episode 1 of our new show, Monitoring the Situation, with Katherine Boyle and Erik Torenberg. Katherine Boyle Erik Torenberg Eddy Lazzarin 🟠🔭
59:18

The Common Thread of All Technology: Monitoring the Situation, Ep.1 "Every piece of technological progress can be reapplied somewhere else." American Dynamism, AI infra, crypto, consumer tech. These aren’t separate silos, they’re deeply intertwined. Without GPUs used as "toys" by gamers, we wouldn’t have modern AI. That’s the spirit of Episode 1 of our new show, Monitoring the Situation, with Katherine Boyle and Erik Torenberg. Katherine Boyle Erik Torenberg Eddy Lazzarin 🟠🔭

a16z

106,275 views • 9 months ago