AI + a16z

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103

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Artificial intelligence is changing everything from art to enterprise IT, and a16z is watching all of it with a close eye. This podcast features discussions with leading AI engineers, founders, and experts, as well as our general partners, about where the technology and industry are heading.

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60 recent

August 7, 202623 min

How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Cybersecurity | Truffle Security & Socket

Joel De La Garza is joined by Dylan Ayrey, co-founder and CEO of Truffle Security, and Feross Aboukhadijeh, founder and CEO of Socket, to discuss one of the biggest shifts happening in cybersecurity: AI models are no longer just finding vulnerabilities—they're exploiting them. As frontier models become increasingly capable of hacking, software security, supply chain attacks, and cyber defense are entering a fundamentally new era. The conversation explores AI-powered hacking, software supply chain attacks, leaked credentials, zero-day vulnerabilities, package manager security, and why the path of least resistance for increasingly autonomous AI systems may also be the most dangerous. They also discuss what enterprises, developers, and the open-source ecosystem need to do to adapt as the gap between vulnerability discovery and exploitation continues to shrink. Resources: Follow Dylan Ayrey on X: https://x.com/InsecureNature Follow Feross Aboukhadijeh on X: https://x.com/Feross Follow Joel De La Garza on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/3448827723723234/ Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

August 6, 202646 min

Inside vLLM: The Engine Powering Open-Source AI

Elena Burger and Matt Bornstein are joined by Simon Mo, co-founder and CEO of Inferact, the open-source inference engine powering many of today's most advanced AI applications. Together, they explore how open-source AI evolved from a research project into critical infrastructure, why inference has become one of the most important layers of the AI stack, and what it takes to bring frontier intelligence to developers around the world. The conversation covers vLLM's origins, the rise of open-weight models, why companies increasingly want control over their AI infrastructure, and how open-source inference enables the next generation of AI applications. They also discuss model licensing, the economics of open-weight AI, Kimi K3, distillation, AI infrastructure, and why Simon believes the gap between open and closed models is rapidly disappearing. Resources: Follow Simon Mo on X: https://x.com/simon_mo_ Follow Matt Bornstein on X: https://x.com/BornsteinMatt Follow Elena Burger on X: https://x.com/VirtualElena Follow Inferact: https://x.com/inferact Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

June 24, 202640 min

Building Self-Accelerating AI with Mirendil

Matt Bornstein speaks with Mirendil cofounders Behnam Neyshabur and Harsh Mehta about their vision for building self-accelerating AI. After leading research efforts at Google and Anthropic, the founders started Mirendil around a simple question: what happens when AI systems can meaningfully contribute to their own development? Rather than focusing solely on AI as a tool for productivity, they argue that the most important application may be accelerating scientific and technological progress itself. The conversation explores AI research, scaling laws, automated engineering, scientific discovery, and the challenges of building systems that can improve over time. They discuss the future of AI-assisted research, why they believe scientific progress remains bottlenecked by intelligence, and how more capable AI systems could help unlock advances across medicine, engineering, and the natural sciences. Resources: Follow Behnam Neyshabur on X: https://x.com/bneyshabur?lang=en Follow Harsh Mehta on X: https://x.com/HarshMeh1a Follow Matt Bornstein on X: https://x.com/BornsteinMatt Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

June 15, 202642 min

Ideogram’s Open-Weights Image Model and the Future of AI Design

Yoko Li and Justine Moore speak with Ideogram founder and CEO Mohammad Norouzi about image generation models, design workflows, and the evolving relationship between AI and creative work. The conversation covers Ideogram's decision to release an open-weight model, the challenges of generating text and layouts within images, and why controllability has become an increasingly important area of research. They discuss prompting, customization, editing, and the tradeoffs between general-purpose models and systems optimized for specific creative tasks. Along the way, Norouzi shares his views on open-source AI, design tools, agentic workflows, and how image generation models may evolve as creators and enterprises seek greater control over their outputs. Resources: Follow Mohammad Norouzi on X: https://x.com/mo_norouzi Follow Yoko Li on X: https://x.com/stuffyokodraws Follow Justine Moore on X: https://x.com/venturetwins Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z](https://x.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg 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 http://a16z.com/disclosures . Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

June 4, 202649 min

Building Search for AI Agents with Exa CEO Will Bryk

Sarah Wang speaks with Exa cofounder and CEO Will Bryk about building search infrastructure for the AI era. The conversation covers Exa’s origins, why traditional search engines were not designed for AI agents, and how search changes when the user is no longer a human but an autonomous system. They discuss retrieval, agent workflows, coding agents, data access, and why search may become a foundational layer for the emerging agent economy. Along the way, Bryk shares his views on AI-native products, the future of information discovery, and why some of the most important problems in technology can ultimately be framed as search problems. Resources: Find Will on X: https://x.com/WilliamBryk Find Sarah on X: https://x.com/sarahdingwang Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

June 2, 202650 min

AI Agents and the Fight for Customer Data

Martin Casado speaks with George Fraser, cofounder and CEO of Fivetran, about the future of data infrastructure in the age of AI. The conversation covers Fivetran’s merger with dbt, the changing role of data platforms, and why Fraser believes many companies are overestimating the threat AI poses to enterprise software. They discuss open data access, the backlash against AI agents accessing systems of record, and why businesses still need centralized data foundations even as agent-based workflows become more common. Along the way, Fraser shares his views on data gravity, coding agents, enterprise AI adoption, and how AI is changing the way software companies build and operate products. Resources Follow George Fraser on X: https://x.com/frasergeorgew Follow Martin Casado on X: https://x.com/martin_casado Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

May 19, 202629 min

Ben Horowitz on AI Infrastructure, Economics and The New Laws of Software

Recorded live at the a16z Fintech Connect conference in Deer Valley, Alex Rampell speaks with Ben Horowitz, cofounder and general partner at a16z, about how AI has rewritten the fundamental rules of software competition, why crypto infrastructure will become essential in an AI-dominated world, and what the future holds for venture capital. Follow Alex Rampell on X: https://twitter.com/arampell Follow Ben Horowitz on X: https://twitter.com/bhorowitz Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

May 12, 202638 min

AI Infrastructure, Distribution, and the Next Wave of Software

Sophie Buonassisi speaks with Jennifer Li, general partner at a16z, about why infrastructure is becoming one of the most important areas in AI. They discuss how the shift to AI-native systems is reshaping everything from storage and compute to developer tooling and orchestration. The conversation explores early insights from companies like ElevenLabs, why distribution has become the defining advantage in AI, and how founders can think about product, research, and go-to-market in a rapidly evolving landscape. Jennifer also shares her perspective on creative tools, the role of AI in storytelling, and what the next phase of the ecosystem may look like. This episode originally aired on the GTMnow Podcast. Resources: Follow Jennifer Li on X: https://x.com/JenniferHli Listen to more episodes of the GTMnow Podcast: https://gtmnow.com/podcast/ Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

May 5, 202646 min

From Vector Databases to Knowledge Engines: The Next Layer of AI

Peter Levine speaks with Ash Ashutosh, CEO of Pinecone, about the launch of Nexus and the shift from vector databases to knowledge engines. As agents become the primary users of software, they discuss why traditional retrieval systems break down and how AI systems need to evolve to support machine-to-machine interactions. The conversation explores how agents currently spend most of their time retrieving and reasoning over data, why that approach is inefficient, and how moving reasoning closer to the data can dramatically improve performance, accuracy, and cost. Ash also explains how Pinecone is rethinking the stack for agentic applications, introducing new abstractions, query languages, and developer workflows. Resources: Follow Ash Ashutosh on X: https://x.com/ashashutosh Follow Peter Levine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-levine-681386172/ Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

April 28, 202618 min

Why We Need Continual Learning

Elena Burger speaks with Malika Aubakirova, partner on the AI infrastructure team at a16z, about why today’s AI systems struggle to learn over time. They discuss the limits of in-context learning, the case for continual learning, and how models may need to evolve from static systems into ones that learn from experience. Resources: Follow Malika on X: https://x.com/MaikaThoughts Follow Elena on X: https://x.com/VirtualElena Read more on Why We Need Continual Learning: https://a16z.com/why-we-need-continual-learning/ Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here , including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.