20VC: a16z's $15BN Fundraise with Alex Rampell | The Best Companies Have Hostages Not Customers | The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers and Labour | Mid-Sized Funds with Die and The Future of Venture Capital

I think you want to invest in people that can materialize labor, capital, and customers. The way that I do it, just kind of to be pithy about it, is like we either want to buy any percent, any percent of something that is absolutely working, or high ownership of something that could work. The best companies have hostages, now customers. So probably of the unicorn class, I would bet that maybe 5% will ever be able to go public. We are buying out-of-the-money call options and we hope they expire in the money.

We don't necessarily think you could take it as a given that a small fund will outperform a large fund. $15 billion. That is how much Andreessen Horowitz just raised. It is over 20% of the entire pool of capital raised by venture firms. Today I'm joined by Alex Rampel, general partner at Andreessen, where he leads their $1.7 billion apps fund.

He's also led deals in Mercury, Plaid, Opendoor, and many more. And this is one of the best shows that I've done in a long, long time. I actually think to one of Alex's statements every single day. It's taught me so much. And it's very simple.

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