“It's a business where scale matters, and therefore the industry wants to concentrate. No matter how much you finance them, the little ones are always weaklings. … If you're NVIDIA, you don't like that. You don't want three customers. You want 50 customers. So you fund them, but at some point, they're going to die, because whenever it's a scale business, the industry wants to consolidate. We could fund 100 airlines in America, but in the end, you're going to have three. So my point is not that it's a bad idea, it's just that it's futile.”
a16z Podcast · Startups & Venture · November 2026
Context
Volpi had said NVIDIA is trying to shape the industry by financing smaller cloud players, and his co-host defended it. This is Volpi's reply on why funding neo-clouds can't change the number of winners.
Transcript
well, I think both of you make very valid points. The thing I would say, Guido, is that an industry wants to look a certain way because when it does, it creates maximum utility, maximum economic value. Why are there three hyperscalers? Because it's a business where scale matters.
Software.
It's a business where scale matters, and therefore the industry wants to concentrate. No matter how much you finance them, the little ones are always weaklings. So, and obviously, if you're in video, you don't like that. You don't want three customers. You want 50 customers. So, you fund them, but at some point, they're going to die. It just, because the industry, whenever it's a scale business, wants to consolidate. You know, we could fund 100 airlines in America, but in the end, you're going to have three. So, my point is not that it's a bad idea, it's just that it's futile.
Yeah.
So, so noble intentions, but
now to your point, it could be a very good return on. I don't know that they, I don't know if they actually care about the return on capital. They might. And if they get out at the right time,
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