Ben Horowitz
Co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, the venture firm he launched in 2009 with Marc Andreessen.
“I had never been a CFO. I didn't know what the hell that was. … But you still have to hire that person, which I always liken to, it's like hiring a Japanese interpreter, if you don't know Japanese. It's like, they all sound good.”
a16z Podcast · Startups & Venture · October 2026
Asked how founders should pick a seed investor, Horowitz starts with the core problem: first-time CEOs don't know how to do the job, including judging executives in functions they've never worked in. He says to look for an investor who can help with that confidence gap.
Transcript
…it's just tough. Like you hired all the smartest people you know. Like you went out and raised money. Your mom invested in the company. She's pissed. You know, like it sucks. It really does. So you, you know, anything to kind of help you succeed at that, I think, is always going to be attractive.
…they're going to be doing their demo day in front of a thousand investors in San Francisco. And they're going to be kind of speed dating a ton of angel investors and seed funds and all that. Do you have any tips and thoughts on how to evaluate who the best partner might be at that seed stage?
…been CEOs of giant companies like know how to do that. And it turns out to be like a really complicated skill set because you have to select the right talent. Sometimes you're selecting talent for jobs. I had never been a CFO. I didn't know what the hell that was. Like what's a control structure? What's a like, how do you talk to Wall Street? Like, how would I know any of that? Right. Like, so, but you still have to hire that person, which I always liken to, it's like hiring a Japanese interpreter, if you don't know Japanese. It's like, they all sound good. And so like, like you have that problem, and then you've got, you know, like, and everybody's got their own career ambitions. And, you know, and then, you know, Mark Zuckerberg's offering your people a billion dollars. Like, so it's a really hard job and you don't know how to do it. A lot of the times, like when I watch founders who kind of fail at kind of doing that job, it always comes down to…
Well, and I really think it's, it's part of a strength of the Bay Area tech ecosystem that over the last 20 years, you kind of went from, you know, like a lot of VCs, especially out in out in Europe and other places, are often really like former finance, you know, folks. And that's kind of like all…
universal. And different levels. There are levels to the game.
For you, how has A16Z changed and evolved kind of the biggest beats of kind of evolution? And what are you most excited to build at the firm over the next decade? I know it's a long time, but.
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