Sonal Chokshi
Editor in chief at a16z crypto
Editor in chief at a16z crypto
Every podcast episode featuring Sonal Chokshi that Attunex has found: 122 interviews and appearances across 2 shows between 2016 and 2025. Most often on The a16z Show (121). Often in conversation with Erik Torenberg, Hanne Tidnam and Marc Andreessen. Follow Sonal in Attunex to get new appearances automatically, each with an on-device transcript and summary.
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with @sambroner @meigga @darenmatsuoka @jneu_net @chrislyons and @rhhackett @smc90 Welcome to our special end-of-year episodes -- which also look ahead to 2025 -- covering our annual Big Ideas lists…
We know that technology has changed art, and that artists have evolved with every new technology — it’s a tale as old as humanity, moving from cave paintings to computers. Underlying these movements…
In 2022 and 2023, US IPOs hit decade lows after the record high of 2021. Now, in 2024, will the IPO window reopen? In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Jeff Jordan, former CEO of…
with @davidmarcus @smc90 This wide-ranging conversation covers company building, big to small -- including what cadence and when is the right "time" to ship; the relationship between centralization,…
with @alive_eth @danboneh @smc90 This week's all-new episode covers the convergence of two important, very top-of-mind trends: AI (artificial intelligence) & blockchains/ crypto. These domains…
with @skominers @smc90 In this deep dive and tour through key business concepts, from theory to practice, we cover the topics of strategy, competitive advantage, network effects, moats, and more --…
with @amandacassatt @kimbatronic @smc90 All about marketing, and web3 -- not just for marketers already in or seeking to enter web3, but also anyone doing community marketing/ community management,…
In this episode from October 2019, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen and former a16z podcast showrunner Sonal Choksi bring on MIT economist and bestselling author Andrew McAfee to discuss why the…
Blockchain, crypto, web3 – these terms get thrown around a lot and sometimes interchangeably, but what are the actual connections between them? And what are some mental models and analogies for…
In this special “innovation overview” episode from April 2021, the a16z crypto team and other experts take you from the ground up of crypto and web3 — from the basics, to more recent developments,…
In this episode from February 2021, early Amazon execs Colin Bryar and Bill Carr -- in conversation with a16z's Sonal Chokshi -- go beyond the well-known artifacts of Amazon innovation, like the memo…
After achieving product-market fit and starting to gain users, how do startups then avoid the "leaky bucket" problem of losing users as quickly as they gained them? By focusing on user engagement and…
Once known as “growth hacking”, the concept of Growth has now evolved into an entire discipline that spans marketing, product management, user experience, and more. Why? After achieving…
In the face of great uncertainty, how do you make decisions? Can you really apply the lessons of the past to the present and the future, to navigate seemingly new situations and get what you want out…
original episode notes and transcript here: https://future.a16z.com/podcasts/textiles-technology-science-math-cultures-civilization/ Longtime podcast showrunner (2014-2022), primary host, and editor…
original episode notes and transcript here: https://future.a16z.com/podcasts/innovating-in-bets/ Longtime podcast showrunner (2014-2022), primary host, and editor Sonal Chokshi shares three best-of…
original episode notes and transcript here: https://future.a16z.com/podcasts/pleistocenepark-geoengineering-iceagebiome/ Longtime podcast showrunner (2014-2022), primary host, and editor Sonal…
Given all the activity and interest recently around crypto and web3, as well as in upcoming holidays and art events, we’re re-running our episode all about NFTs (from March 2021) -- where we covered…
There are lots of challenges in being public while trying to innovate, and limits to being a private company as well; but it's rare to see a company go public then private then back to public again.…
There's been a false dichotomy in technology and management lore over the past decade, between "brain" and "brawn", digital and physical, independence and interdependence, software culture versus…
Playing out against the backdrop of a global pandemic (including recent massive surges in regions around the world) is the news that came out a week ago that a candidate "malaria vaccine becomes…
In our continuing exploration of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies, headlines of late have turned to NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. From NBA Top Shots to Beeple's artwork, NFTs are the…
This episode is all about NFTs. It seems like nothing has caught on and spread into mainstream interest like NFTs, where one hears everything from "I've never seen anything like this before" to "is…
This podcast -- which was recorded at the Computer History Museum in a live event, before the pandemic (first published in December 2019) is all about how companies create culture: A lot's changed...…
When you hear stories about Amazon's "invention machine" -- which led to a company with not just one or two products but several successful diverse lines of business -- we often hear about things…
The rise of developers -- as buyers, as influencers, as a creative class -- is a direct result of "software eating the world", and of key shifts in IT from on-prem to cloud & SaaS to the API economy,…
All about section 230 of the Communications Decency Act -- in what Wired senior writer (and host of the Get Wired podcast) described as "one of the clearest-but-still-nuanced explainers I've heard -…
"In a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other ”... so it's unprecedented that for the first time, the Oxford English Dictionary did NOT name a word of the…
There's a few ontologies for describing the phases leaders -- and their startups -- go through, whether it's product-sales-etc. or pioneer to settler. In any case, as companies evolve, so must the…
A vaccine for COVID seems to be (almost) here… or is it? What’s hype/ what’s real beyond the headlines (and beyond the press release), when it comes to the announcement last week from Pfizer and…
How to moderate good, productive discussions and navigate tricky conversations is top of mind -- whether doing a panel, conducting a live event, presenting a talk (or hosting a podcast), managing…
"The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they're indistinguishable from it." That quote from computer scientist Mark…
We've already talked a lot about podcasting , both evolution of the industry as well as the form, but where are we going with the future of audio , more broadly? Can we borrow from the present and…
"I'm in a movie, but it's the wrong movie." For better or for worse, we tell the story of entrepreneurs as one of the mythical hero's journey: that's there's a call, a test (multiple tests!), a…
We're living in an unprecedented era of online collaboration, coordination, and creation. All kinds of people are coming together -- whether in an open source project or company , an R&D initiative,…
In this episode -- cross posted from our 16 Minutes show feed -- we cover all the buzz around GPT-3, the pre-trained machine learning model from OpenAI that’s optimized to do a variety of…
We cover the tricky but important topic of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The 1996 law has been in the headlines a lot recently, in the context of Twitter, the president’s tweets, and…
This podcast (first recorded in 2019, now being rerun) -- is a podcast about podcasting: But it's really all about audio. A lot's changed... and a lot hasn't. How do we define "podcasts"; how does…
One of the recurring themes we talk about a lot on the a16z Podcast is how software changes organizations, and vice versa... More broadly: it’s really about how companies of all kinds innovate with…
This episode covers the following -- since our previous deep-dive on the novel coronavirus outbreak -- including: practical implications for the U.S. healthcare system given how it works today, and…
It's "Marketplaces Week" for us at a16z, thanks to our consumer team releasing a new index of the next industry-defining marketplaces, the Marketplace 100 . But what happens as such marketplaces and…
This episode of 16 Minutes on the news from a16z is all about the recent coronavirus outbreak -- or rather, a new type of coronavirus called 2019-nCoV for 2019 novel coronavirus. Since it's an…
How does the world’s largest producer of medicines in terms of volume balance the science and the business of innovation? How does an enterprise at such vast scale make decisions about what to build…
This is a turn of the decade (and January-themed) look backward/ look forward into personal genomics, given recent and past retrospective and prospective pieces in the media on the promise, and…
We’ve covered a lot of the strategic financing milestones for startups seeking to build a sustainable and enduring business -- from mindsets for startup fundraising to when and how to build a finance…
There are some common tropes that can kill your company culture -- whether it's that corporate values can be weaponized; "fake it til you make it"; the "reality distortion fields" of visionaries vs.…
This podcast rerun -- first recorded over two and a half years ago, now being rerun as one of our evergreen classics on the tails of the world's largest designated shopping days (Black Friday,…
"Hi everyone, welcome to the a16z Podcast..." ... and welcome to our 500th episode, where, for the first time, we reveal behind-the-scenes details and the backstory of how we built this show, and the…
Many technical founders, academics, and other experts often believe that great products -- or great ideas! -- sell themselves , without any extra effort or marketing. But in reality, they often need…
This rerun podcast (first recorded in 2015, now being rerun as one of our evergreen classics/ favorites) -- is ALL about emoji. But it's really about how innovation really comes about: through the…
It used to be that the only way for humanity to grow -- and progress -- was through destroying the environment. Sure, the Industrial Revolution brought about the growth of our economies, our…
Our news podcast, 16 Minutes -- where we quickly cover the top headlines of the week, the a16z way (why are these topics in the news; what's real, what's hype from our vantage point of tech trends)…
with @benedictevans @vijaypande and @smc90 This is episode #8 of our news show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they…
with @illscience and @smc90 This is episode #7 of our news show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter from our…
with @julesyoo @smc90 This is episode #6 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter from our vantage…
with @astrange @jeff_jordan and @smc90 This is episode #5 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter…
with @jorgecondebio @vijaypande and @smc90 This is episode #4 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they…
with @andrewchen @dcoolican and @smc90 This is episode #3 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter…
with @martin_casado @jorgeconde @jayrughani and @smc90 This is episode #2 of our new show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news;…
with @vijaypande @conniechan @jpm25 and @smc90 Introducing our new podcast, 16 Minutes, a short news podcast where we cover the top headlines of the week, the a16z podcast way -- why are these topics…
with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz), Scott Kupor (@skupor), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Continuing our 10-year anniversary series since the founding of Andreessen Horowitz (aka…
with Tony Blair (@InstituteGC), Scott Kupor (@skupor), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) If the current pace of tech change is the 21st-century equivalent of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution — with…
with David Ulevitch (@davidu) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Since the startup (and founder) journey doesn't go neatly linear from technical to product to sales, tightening one knob (whether engineering…
with @annieduke, @pmarca, and @smc90 Every organization, whether small or big, early or late stage -- and every individual, whether for themselves or others -- makes countless decisions every day,…
with Nick Quah (@nwquah), Connie Chan (@conniechan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) It's a podcast about podcasting! About the state of the industry, that is. Because a lot has changed since we recorded…
with Safi Bahcall (@safibahcall), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) A "moonshot" is a destination (like going to the moon, quite literally) -- but nurturing "loonshots" (which…
with Brian Koppelman (@briankoppelman), Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The writer-showrunner is a relatively new phenomenon in TV, as opposed to film, which is still a…
with Peter Ludwig, Qasar Younis (@qasar), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) When people talk about autonomous vehicles, we hear everything from "we're much closer than you think" to "we're much further than…
with Ryan Caldbeck (@ryan_caldbeck), Jeff Jordan (@jeff_jordan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) It's clear that all kinds of commerce companies and consumer products have been disrupted -- or enabled --…
with Jyoti Bansal (@jyotibansalsf), Peter Levine, Satish Talluri (@satishtalluri), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) One of the toughest challenges for founders -- and especially technical founders who are…
with Susannah Fox (@susannahfox), Anil Sethi (@anilsethiusa / @ciitizencorp), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The problem of "dark data" in healthcare isn't just a feel-good…
with Vas Narasimhan (@vasnarasimhan), Jorge Conde (@jorgecondebio), Vijay Pande (@vijaypande), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) On average, only 1 out of 20 medicines works when we actually bring them into…
with Andy Milenius (@realzandy), Jesse Walden (@jessewldn), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The history, evolution, and use of money revolves around the important concept of debt: It’s what allows us to…
with Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong), Chris Dixon (@cdixon), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Where are we, really, right now -- in terms of what we can/ can't do with crypto today? And what will it…
The period from 2000-2016 was one of the best of times and worst of times for tech and the Valley (dotcom, financial crisis, Google IPO, Facebook founded, unprecedented growth, and so on), and John…
with Shannon (Stubo) Brayton (@sstubo), Margit Wennmachers (@wennmachers), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) One of the company building topics that’s surprisingly mystifying is PR -- and only surprising…
with Steven Johnson (@stevenbjohnson), Chris Dixon (@cdixon), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) There's a lot of research and writing out there on "thinking fast" -- the short-term, gut, instinctual…
with Andrew Chen (@andrewchen), Jeff Jordan (@jeff_jordan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Once you have users, how do you keep them engaged, retain them, and even "resurrect" or re-engage them? That's…
with Andrew Chen (@andrewchen), Jeff Jordan (@jeff_jordan), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Growth is one of the most top of mind questions for entrepreneurs building startups of all kinds (and especially…
with Katie Haun (@katie_haun), Robin Weisnman (@robinweisman), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) What’s going on, regulation-wise, in crypto? How should people who want to join a company or build something…
When it comes to B2B2C business models -- which combine both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) -- who really "owns" the customer? That question might not matter as much in…
with Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan), Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Signaling and credential inflation -- not learning -- can explain why education pays in the labor market, and…
with Ray Dalio (@raydalio), Alex Rampell (@arampell), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Can one really apply the lessons of history and of the past to the present and the future, as a way to get what they…
with Nicole Forsgren (@nicolefv), Jez Humble (@jezhumble) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) From the old claim that "IT doesn't matter" and question of whether tech truly drives organizational performance,…
Focusing only on the technical, "crunchy, wonky stuff" behind policies or products sometimes misses the humanity at the center of why we're doing the thing in the first place. Because systems --…
with Cristina Cordova (@cjc), Augusto Marietti (@sonicaghi), Laura Behrens Wu (@laurabehrenswu), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) APIs (application programming interfaces), observe the guests in this…
with Martin Casado (@martin_casado), Michel Feaster (@michelfeaster) and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) The purpose of category creation, argue the guests in this episode of the podcast, isn't just about…
When you have “a really hot, frothy space” like AI, even the most basic questions — like what is it good for, how do you make sure your data is in shape, and so on — aren’t answered. This is just as…
with Frank Chen, Steven Sinofsky, and Sonal Chokshi There are many reasons why we’re in an “A.I. spring” after multiple “A.I. winters” — but how then do we tease apart what’s real vs. what’s hype…
with Ion Stoica, Peter Levine, and Sonal Chokshi We’ve already talked quite a bit about the Algorithms, Machines, and People lab at U.C. Berkeley (AMPLab) — all about making sense of big data — so…
with Russ Roberts, Noah Smith, and Sonal Chokshi Beyond the overly simplistic framing of trade as “good” or “bad” — by politicians, by Econ 101 — why is the topic of trade (or rather, economies and…
"Young hungry and scrappy" is how Hamilton described his country, and it's how many -- including the guests on this episode -- describe startups... or more precisely, the mindset that engineers in…
There are the things that you carefully plan when it comes to an IPO -- the who (the bankers, the desired institutional investors); the what (the pricing, the allocations); and the when (are we…
Here’s what we know: There’s a pair (father and son) of Russian scientists trying to resurrect (or rather, "rewild") an Ice Age (aka Pleistocene era) biome (grassland) complete with (gene edited,…
This episode of the a16z Podcast takes us on a quick tour through the themes of economics/historian/journalist Marc Levinson's books -- from An Extraordinary Time, on the end of the postwar boom and…
Is a network -- whether a crowd or blockchain-based entity -- going to replace the firm anytime soon? Not yet, argue Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson in the new book Machine, Platform, Crowd. But…
Rules, guidelines, regulations, and “laws” are all sometimes used interchangeably — but what’s legal and what isn’t is far more complex when it comes to policy, especially when politics (and…
There's feedback and there's guidance; there's praise and there's criticism. All of it is important to do better work, but to develop a better and more productive workplace and relationships --…
It’s the end of the beginning — not the beginning of the end — for wearables, argue the guests in this episode of the a16z Podcast. Especially as we move from the first, to the next, generation of…
A crisis is an opportunity to change one's culture, to model scenarios and set up a crisis plan/process, to become a better company. But it's also a bit like therapy, from the act of asking probing…
Here’s what we know about open source: Developers are the new buyers. Community matters. And there will never be another Red Hat (i.e., a successful “open core” business model … nor do we necessarily…
The culture of open source has changed across generations, from previous ones that had to fight for the brave new way -- to the current "GitHub generation" that not only accepts open source, but…
Most of us have probably heard of bitcoin and ethereum -- but did you know there were 15 new cryptocurrencies launched this past month alone? How then do we know which protocols to invest in -- not…
The irony of our systems working so well -- technological, corporate, and yes, even political -- is that we've become too comfortable: matching to others just like us, producing less, taking fewer…
The hardest thing about pivots (major shifts in company/product direction) isn't just the actual pivot. It's the courage to make the decision... and being honest with yourself as a CEO. Especially…
Thanks to freeways, cities became something to get through instead of something to get to. Now, as the next transportation revolution -- from rivers to trains to cars to autonomous cars -- promises…
Once upon a time, Robert Stromberg got a phone call from "Jim" Cameron (aka James Francis Cameron of Terminator and Titanic fame) about a little project called Avatar. Before he knew it, he was…
"Mobile-first" (and now too AI-first) has been a mantra of sorts in design, but what does that mean at a company, product management, and competitive level? Especially when someone in company X will…
"We throw around words like 'crisis' very easily, but this is a global crisis, and it is of historic proportions," says current U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken about the refugee crisis…
Nature is the ultimate complex system, of course — but with today’s technology, it’s now provided us with an “incredible toolkit” of different molecules that material scientists can treat like Legos…
"We live in a world where we use millions of variables to predict which ad you're going to click on. Whether or not you deserve to get a loan. What movie you might watch next. But when it comes to…
Once we sequenced the human genome, we'd know the cause of -- and therefore be able to help cure -- all diseases... Or so we thought. Turns out, 20,000 genes (and counting) didn't really explain why…
From glittery reaction gifs modded by grandparents to rage faces on Reddit, stickers (gifs and other layered images) and emotive “biaoqing” have taken over messaging culture in China and beyond.…
Just as "social networking" is a bland term that doesn't really capture the layers of what happens underneath (and on top of) social networking platforms, "crowdfunding" is a broader phenomenon than…
"Incremental change may be good theory, but in practice you have to have a big enough stick to hit everybody with to make everything move at once". So shares Adrian Cockcroft, who helped lead…
For better or worse, most of the computing systems that run much of our lives (whether invisibly or visibly) have become increasingly complex -- they're not fully engineered; they're almost grown.…
Seemingly overnight, a single game -- Pokémon Go -- has taken people by storm. But it's a game that was technically years in the making, building on a legacy of creative intellectual property and…
One of the biggest misconceptions around network effects (which are one of the key dynamics behind many successful and highly defensible software companies) is confusing growth with engagement. So…
"All of a sudden you can program the world" -- it's the continuation of the software eating the world thesis we put out over five years ago, and of the trajectory of past and current technology…
with Fei-Fei Li (@drfeifei), Frank Chen (@withfries2), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90) Who has the advantage in artificial intelligence — big companies, startups, or academia? Perhaps all three,…
Technology has always been a force in how we live, work, and play; only now it's accelerating and compounding in unexpected ways. But just because we don't know exactly what form that tech will take…
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,…