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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

a16z has become a joke in the VC industry. They invested upwards of $10 billion in "web3" startups, and are unlikely to see a single dollar of it back. And they keep doubling down on the idiocy, for example dumping $350M into Adam Neumann's new company (which not even he can actually describe).

A decade ago they had their fingers in every big tech exit. Today hardly any name in their portfolio is recognizable.

No wonder they are desperate for the cash.

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A decade ago a16z was new (less than four years old, founded in 2009) and had no track record. Today, they are in almost every major tech company in every category, and continue to win seemingly every competitive deal.

There's no vantage point from which they seem to be losing.

Take "web3". Consider the fact that a16z never invested in FTX, Terra, BlockFi — the largest crypto failures/scams, that their competitors invested in. Yet they led Uniswap, Optimism, Matter Labs, and OpenSea which have proven to be some of the most interesting and powerful projects in the space.

If you get all of your news from Hacker News you're going to get a distorted view of reality.

OpenSea is a zombie company. Sure, it's still running and they still have a platform, but the NFT craze collapsed and will never come back. I'm really happy that they weren't able to IPO prior to collapsing, unlike coinbase, who's main accomplishment was scamming public investors.

Interesting to see this. I’m familiar with one startup that’s received quite a bit of their series a from Andreessen Horowitz (don’t think they’re web3 but rather hospitality/real estate) and it seems like they are pushing their ties to a16z super hard, like that’s one of their biggest “assets” or advantages.

I’m not in the startup space so not really sure about how it all works but just kind of comes across like an appeal to authority to me and name dropping a16z all over the place etc. Also skeptical of the business in general (and don’t get along well with the founder heh) but that’s another thing.

This. Just the Andressen name falling so low is no sad to me.. here is the guy who (may be it was all just marketing) you know was part of the Netscape saga fighting the "Goliath" at the time and now seeing this. Not to get all mushy but is it possible to lead life where success and ethics are in harmony? And more importantly that this is the norm! (Ok as a loser il start with success first but still if I ever get successful in not having to work for a living could definitely use a way to keep ethics from not dying off)

> a joke in the VC industry

Bit like a hat on a hat.

Desperate? It’s not like they’re facing a margin call. They’re just looking for funds to be VC’s with, because that’s the business they’re in.

Your attempt to frame it as “desperate” is just kinda sad.

Egg man bad

(yes this is post irony)

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