The purpose of category creation, argue the guests in this episode of the podcast, isn't just about making a dent in the way companies work and changing what people do every day... it's about setting the price. And with that, comes creating the concept in people's heads, defining the value, and setting the rules of the game. But when you're going for a big change, you have to play by the current rules of the game, too. And to make things even more complicated, theories about how "IT is dead" -- or the conviction that companies and departments beyond IT will become empowered through software -- are still very much in transition. Somehow we don't talk about that enough. That means startups need to do everything in two phases: for the now, and for the later and towards two constituencies: both direct lines of businesses and IT. So what does that mean for startups trying to navigate a complex enterprise, including internal debates around build vs. buy? How do you move beyond a few internal champions only? And just how long can a company cash out on founder charisma? In fact, all of these things can give entrepreneurs very confusing, mixed signals about whether or not they have product-market fit yet. So what patterns reveal that it's working? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, general partner Martin Casado -- who helped create the category of "software-defined networking" in the enterprise through Nicira and then VMware (and has also written about the mixed messages involved in going to market when no market exists) -- and Michel Feaster, CEO and co-founder of Usermind, and who previously (as VP of products at Apptio) also defined the category and discipline of "technology business management" -- share their insights, in conversation with Sonal Chokshi. It's a long game, but if you can tease apart the signals, and nail some key moves early... you can win.
Infrastructure. It powers everything from cities to computing, yet is sometimes considered "boring" because it is so invisible to so many of us. But as software continues to eat the world, infrastructure has come to the forefront. And some of the most exciting technology innovations are now happening at the infrastructure level: It's changing everything, observes a16z's newest general partner Martin Casado -- from how new tech is created to how new tech is sold. Casado -- one of the pioneers of "software-defined networking" -- joins this episode of the a16z Podcast to share his journey from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to Stanford to Nicira Networks to VMware to a16z. He also discusses the tradeoffs in theoretical v. applied computer "science", including lessons learned as a PhD and technologist who then had to run a startup through hard times. Finally, Casado shares what he thinks are the key vectors and trends in networking, what's coming next, how the "as-a-service"(ification) of infrastructure is creating entirely new patterns of buying tech, and how selling to developers is so different (hint: open source is a lot more important than you might think!).
"Raise prices." Regular listeners of our podcast have heard this advice more than once. But why is this so key and yet so hard for many technical founders? And how should startups go about raising prices -- or more specifically, creating value -- for their products? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, former sales VP Mark Cranney (and head of a16z's EBC and go-to-market practice for startups) and former startup founder (and general partner focused on all things infrastructure) Martin Casado talk to managing partner Scott Kupor about pricing for startups ... especially for category-creating businesses. It's not all "pricing, pricing, pricing" though -- there's another important "p" in there too!
with Martin Casado (@martin_casado), Andrew Chen (@andrewchen), Russ Heddleston (@rheddleston), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) What happens when the bottoms up, organic growth usually associated with consumer companies starts to go.... enterprise? Part of our continuing podcast series (you can listen to part one on user acquisition and part two on engagement/retention) on growth, this episode explores the increasing trend of enterprise growth shifting to be more "bottoms up" -- with a16z general partners Martin Casado and Andrew Chen, and DocSend CEO and co-founder Russ Heddleston, in conversation with Hanne Tidnam. So what exactly does more bottoms up growth for enterprise look like? And then how does organic growth map into the direct sales model we traditionally see in enterprise? How does it affect company building overall? What changes in how we evaluate growth, what do we look at... and how can those two different models work best together?
Two words have caught the Internet by storm. DeepSeek. The Chinese reasoning model r1 is rivaling others at the frontier with an open-source MIT license, methods that some claim may be 45x more efficient, an alleged $5.6m cost, the release of reasoning traces, a follow-on image model, and the fact that all of this was released by a hedge fund China. Many are already referring to this as a Sputnik moment. If that’s true, how should we – whether founder, researcher, policy maker – not just react, but act? Joining us to tease out the signal from the noise are a16z General Partner Martin Casado and a16z board partner, Steven Sinofsky. Both Martin and Steven have been on the frontlines of prior computing cycles, from the switching wars to the fiber buildout, and have witnessed the trajectories of companies like Cisco to AOL to ATT – even Worldcom. So what really drove this DeepSeek frenzy and more importantly what should we take away? Today, we answer that question through the lens of Internet history. Timecodes: 00:00 - DeepSeek's release 04:06 - Teasing signal from noise 09:19 - OS license and reasoning traces 11:22 - Monetizing layers of the stack 18:42 - What’s different this time around? 22:09 - Scaling up vs scaling out 29:24 - Changing benchmarks 31:48 - Building defensibility 35:27 - AI’s Sputnik moment? 41:17 - Impact on frontier companies 43:00 - Participating in the next wave Resources: DeepSeek Has Been Inevitable and Here's Why (History Tells Us): https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/228-deepseek-has-been-inevitable Why DeepSeek Is a Gift to the American People: https://www.thefp.com/p/why-deepseek-is-a-gift-to-the-american Follow Martin on X: https://x.com/martin_casado Follow Steven on X: https://x.com/stevesi Stay Updated: Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.