Conversations Versus Interviews
I’ve been interviewed many times and while interviews are OK, what I enjoy a lot more are public conversations between two people.
Listening to two people talking as friends and peers is more enlightening to me.
My friend Chris Dixon was in NYC a few weeks ago and he came by my office and we talked about stuff for about an hour.
I told him it would be fun to do the same thing but record it and put it up online.
So I went over to the A16Z offices in NYC a few days later and we did that.
And this is an hour-long conversation between the two of us about what we are thinking about right now.
I hope you enjoy it.
Comments (Archived):
When I first read the title, I thought this would be about hiring. Would be curious to hear your thoughts on conversations VS interviews in that context!
You are my gym listen later this morning.Big believer in the value of informalizing communications. In fact, when I mentor entrepreneurs, in prepping for meetings, we talk most about how to turn it into a conversation not a presentation.
This is exactly the approach we take with Crypto Explorers (which was more or less born here out of AVC: https://avc.com/2017/12/cry… )Our ~40 participants per event discuss topics in a roundtable fashion. We have no “speakers”, instead we have discussion leaders: speaker-level industry people who encourage very interactive discussions that are NOT pre-scripted.That “not pre-scripted” aspect is certainly the key factor Fred is talking about here, that makes conversations superior to panels and interviews.
Downloaded this to listen to during jury duty today.These informal dialogues between friends is a wonderful way to explore ideas, refine existing ones and to learn. I was an exchange student to Spain twice and these professor and student “tertulias” or informal chat about ideas were one of my favorite activities.
The Dixon Tapes, the memoirs of a VC.A conversation is defined by spontaneity, and goes where it goes, meandering.An interview seems more about destination. Got to get ‘there’, but there being often two different places.
Nice. Now we’re talking!
You said it. And so did Fred.
VCs in Cars Getting Coffee…that’s the name of this new podcast series.
Two of the best in the business. Sadly CD has never forgiven me for a joke i made about going “full stack” many years ago…
Wow, this is so awesome. Pressing play now and will share my thoughts!
Coming next: something from left field!
NFT business model haiku inspired from the podcastFirst you buy a cat,Then you buy your cat a hat,Now cat owns the hat.Matt likes your cat.But when you sell Matt the catThe cat takes the hat.The hat acts like bat (the animal with sonar location),Rats pay hat to locate cat,Then hat pays Matt’s cat.And the cat pays Matt.Don’t you wish you still owned catAnd it’s money making hat?
Damn it. There’s too much to *really* comment on here in any reasonably small and succinct way…but of course I’m going to try because there a few points I *have* to comment on:1. Comparing cars and tv industries to software doesn’t feel right to me. First, I think it’s more likely ‘transportation’ and ‘communication’ than cars & tvs (and those things have changed quite a bit over the years)…but really I think the stages have been more, hardware alone, a combination of hardware & software, and software alone…hardware alone is becoming very rare…the other two seem like the path for the foreseeable future.2. The pace and work of what you can build now, even compared to just a few years ago (let alone 20+ years ago) continues to be amazing. 20+ years ago, hardware and cost of hardware was a barrier to entry. 10+ years ago, software infrastructure was a barrier to entry. These days, it seems it’s more “marketing” (breaking through the noise) that’s the barrier to entry than anything else. There are still hard problems to overcome to build ‘anything’ successful…but one-by-one, the *really* big barriers have come down quite a bit. #Amazing #Awesome3. The idea that once fiat money goes into the crypto world, I don’t take it back out to fiat is really insightful (and I think the real ‘why’ behind why so many people are fascinated by the idea and the opportunity).4. I have not been able to completely pull it off as a side project on my own, but the idea of ‘taking your game objects’ with you that is mentioned here is *specifically* what CryptoGameObjects.com is all about (project is in the works but not actually working yet). I don’t know if I’ll get my take/version working, or that mine will be the one that takes off (see note above about marketing)…but I do believe %1,000 that it’s going to be one of the big waves of the future (especially as eSports continues to grow).5. I don’t think physical sports is going away, but I *do* think eSports is just going to get bigger and bigger. There is room for passionate and crazy fan base for both.Honestly, every one of these things could/should involve their own hour plus conversation…and these are just the “big” things that struck me from the listen…Anyone else exhausted?* Side note and shameless promotion: I have spent a number of my drip posts over this past year digging into my Crypto Game Objects idea and the work involved behind it. You can catch up on any of that if you like via https://d.rip/falicon
20+ years ago, hardware and cost of hardware was a barrier to entry. 10+ years ago, software infrastructure was a barrier to entry.Also lack of knowledge barrier to entry removed quite a bit, no?One other thing that has gotten vastly easier to do as well is to be able to easily find the answer to how to do what you need to accomplish. I am not sure how much this applies to the type of ‘real’ programing that you do but it definitely does to what I do.Old days were spent slaving over a book and up to 8 hours or even days to solve some small issue syntax wise for something that didn’t work correctly. Today it’s almost to easy. You just do a google search and pull up a page with the near exact answer to what you are looking to do or something close that gives you the hint that you need. Because some helpful person has taken the time to post their own experience. Of course this does not help or speed up the process with things that you don’t know to even look for. But it vastly improves and allows you to iterate (at least at the prosumer level that I am at) over in the past where you needed to actually read books and experiment to get to where you are going. (Talk about overcoming adversity to get a job done).And this works particularly well with a digital thing like programming (as opposed to something analog like business advice where nuance and seat of pants is often lost in online advice.)
Agree – knowledge is (and was always) one of the very first barriers to entry….I think this is a core principle that Albert’s World after Capital argues is directionally lower than ever ( http://worldaftercapital.org )
Knowledge Loop, although Knowledge Spiral would impart a critical additional dimension of understanding of the dynamic process, the power of knowledge and its creation and sharing, but also how it is used. We want to ascend the spiral (presumably), but we can also descend. how it is used decides.
5. I don’t think physical sports is going away, but I *do* think eSports is just going to get bigger and bigger. There is room for passionate and crazy fan base for both.Didn’t hear what they said about this but if it is going downhill (viewership is apparently) then you have to watch out below. At a certain point momentum is lost and it then doesn’t matter anymore.Look model trains and stamp collecting haven’t ‘gone away’ but are vastly less attractive (and this is important) back when there were no other viable alternatives for (and this is important) ‘entertainment’.
Dixon was pro eSports (at least that was my impression).I haven’t seen stats or research that suggests it’s going downhill (but would love to explore if you have links/direction)…I have seen some leagues or attempts go under, but that’s going to happen in any industry I think…
NFL viewership is down a lot and has been each year over the past 4 years at least. NBA in-game attendance keeps setting new all-time highs over past few years. i don’t think this is as much about physical sports in general being replaced by video games, but more so about the failure of the NFL to adapt to modern consumer needs and the NBA’s willingness to do so. also, NFL got too greedy and tried to stuff its product down our throats with games on every night in multiple countries. NBA is too greedy as well, 82 game season would be much better if it was 64 game season, but it’s hard to stop greed even when the long term benefits to doing so are clear.
Long term NBA will lose it’s importance as well. Dad of future NBA viewer is all distracted with other things he won’t brainwash his kid into liking the game. Point also is if Dad is watching the game but kid has more interest in his cell phone he won’t be brainwashed.Why don’t I watch sports? My dad was an immigrant and never watched sports so I avoided the brainwashing. Of course there are many children of immigrants that like sports (you for one) but I think the largest influence is what happens in your house and your father or brother.
Or the social circles…I didn’t grow up (positively) influenced by my father (or any man actually)…so my draw to sports is entirely through playing them myself and/or being interested in what my friends were interested in…
It’s also about access, availability, and relatability — people are drawn to competition that they can appreciate and admire.In the U.S. much of my generation grew up playing football and having high school football front and center in our communities and social worlds…these days that’s not so much the case, and I think you are seeing that reflected in the interest on all levels (self-feeding problem).Basketball was always a strong second where I grew up…if/when number one gets old our interest/focus falls to number two by default (and in this case, the NBA has done a fantastic job of recognizing it, and picking up the slack — so far).
Ok kid I have a beef: It’s up 0.1% in four years. It took seven years to get back to 2007 levels. In a word that is crap. 200k total over 4 years. That’s 20 people a game. 20 a game!!! Might that number get fudged a bit?Nope, don’t believe Disney (the rat) numbers.NFL is flat is you don’t count a record 2016.Average 34,000 a game for NFL versus less than 9,000 a game for NBA. About a 4x difference.Now does the NFL have issues? Yes. The two big ones are the “sissyfication” of the game in people’s eyes. All I will say on that is the rules on clean tackles like Clay Matthews on quarterbacks is HORRIBLE press. Everybody gets no helmet to helmet. Not being able to tackle?And the anthem thing. I really don’t care, but I can tell you so many of my friends that served, REALLY do.As always I give facts to prove my beef’s. Here are the NBA numbers.2017-18: 22,124,5592016-17: 21,997,4122015-16: 21,972,1292014-15: 21,926,5482006-07: 21,841,480
For NFL I thought it was tv viewership that was down, not live attendance. I haven’t looked too deeply into the subject, jidt believing articles I skimmed, so maybe it’s wrong. Techcrubch had an article yesterday suggesting alt sports were rising and mainstream were declining because mainstream doesn’t embrace streaming, and more and more are cutting the cord and accepting whatever sports they can get that way (mainly stuff like bags or karate)
Of course he will be pro esports (have not heard that part). He can make money off of that or knows people that will make money off of that.NFL drop? Here you go:http://www.foxnews.com/spor…Don’t believe the reason for the drop that they explain. And it’s not going to get fixed by tweaks like ‘speeding up the game’.An addiction doesn’t get improved by ‘tweaks’. They are no longer in ‘low hanging fruit of opportunity’ territory.Take the porn industry. That went from commercial porn to home grown porn. The home grown porn was poor visually (web cams) and completely overtook the glossy well produced porn. (This was actually a theme way back to “Boogie Nights” the movie. Anyway making the commercial product nicer does not make it more attractive to the person who likes the ‘content’ better with the home grown product. HD of something is not always better than SD of what you want. So sure tweak the game all you want and say it’s because of protests but most likely it’s not. It’s that people are distracted by other more exciting things. Not only that if they don’t like the exciting thing they just turned on they can turn it off and find something they like. So no friction (ie going to video store).With sports there are many canaries in the coal mine that contribute to less interest:https://www.washingtonpost….
I mis-understood your orig. comment – I thought you were saying that eSports interest was dropping.I do think that there is significant data to argue that the NFL (and football in general really) is losing it’s luster to many fans…but I don’t think that’s nec. a sign of people being less interested in sports as a whole…I think, like many things, people’s interest is just getting spread into lots of other corners and niches.And really when you step back and think about it all, the thing people are interested in (at it’s core) is competition.There is something to physical competition that I think will continue to draw people one way or another (though maybe in more fragmented corners and niche) via sports…but I think there is no denying that eSports also brings a very compelling bit of ‘competition’ itself and so I think it’s only going to grow in exposure and popularity from here (and for the near future).
And really when you step back and think about it all, the thing people are interested in (at it’s core) is competition.Agree but is it competition at the core or is it intermittent reinforcement?I think IR drives much of behavior. [1]My point is the reason competition (or watching a game) is interesting is because the team doesn’t always win. (If money involved a separate set of principles apply). Maybe if there is a long streak then it’s interesting to see how long the streak will last. (Suspense).So with watching sports there is also ‘suspense’ ditto I am just guessing to watching someone else play fortnite. Other is thinking you will learn from some master and improve your game. (Guess).Suspense doesn’t exist though unless the game is live by and large. That is also a driving motivator. For learning it doesn’t matter.You are right about competition I am just bumping it up to the next highest level of human emotion.I like to boil things down to secret sauce. For Facebook? At the core it’s the ability to brag and have it be acceptable. (Ditto for linkedin..)[1] For example skiing and boating you have both good and bad days. If it was always sunny and nice weather (or equivalent with skiing) the appeal actually drops.
It’s not really eSports, but one of the really big things about watching famous streamers (at least from watching my kids do it) is because it’s their version of “network television”…it’s the thing they talk about, mimic, and reference at the lunch table and in the playground.It’s the “everyone who is anyone knows about Ninja!!!”…”I just fragged that noob Ninja style”…etc. etc.Yeah they learn stuff, but it’s just a form of (shared) entertainment in a non-analog world.eSports is different than just game streaming/watching (skilled competition as entertainment vs. just entertainment).The entertainment version is driving the eSports surge (and there’s *way* more money in the entertainment version right now).
Hah. Just confirmed the behavior with stepson.a) He knows who Ninja isb) Not all the time but yes he discusses what happens with friends.c) He wasn’t at all curious why I facetimed him and asked him the question.
Look up your step-sons internet usage. I bet he watches people play games like Fortnight. https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Boy does he do this. Here is how he spends 100% of his free time in no particular order:a) Playing Forniteb) Watching Netflix (fwict; ‘Friends’ binging)c) Watching people play Fortnite (your point).He was previously very into sports prior to fortnite (and mindcraft before that). Sports he still does a bit of but actually not that much.Using screen sharing I have caught him watching Netflix as late as 1am when he has to get up to school at 6am. That is 5 hours of sleep.Have to say this is worse in my mind than if he were watching porn. Reason is there is an automatic ‘governor’ built into that activity that limits amount of time spent on that.Most parents (even my wife) are totally ‘sleeping at the switch’ on the danger of all of this access to entertainment and distraction.And sure every generation says that and that is what is used for a justification for not doing anything by the ‘stupids’.The other day Mom wanted to take him out to look at a new car. He was whining about having to go. To go shopping for a new car. That’s right. For him. He finally ended up going with her. To look for his new car.
This is frightening. I see it with my nephew and I am determined not to let it happen for my daughters. Sleeping at the switch is right. They are never going to self-moderate their behaviour with such powerful pleasurable activities available on tap.
I think Chris was searching for ‘super modularity’ to describe the dynamic qualities of software verses earlier ‘set hard’ technologies. He offered up “plasticity”.
has something happened to Charlie Crystal? AWOL.
He has been tied up and focused on his health and his business this past year (both had some troubles)…but he’s still around and I think/hope coming around the corner soon!
Sad about Charlie anyone interested can read this recent story about him here in his local paper:https://lancasteronline.com…
Oy. I had no idea. Wishing you well, Charlie, if you are reading this!
I’m getting a 451 denial of access. Could you paste it please?
Unable to raise new capital, the idled Lancaster Food Co. has dropped its plan to hire a new leader and has put itself up for sale instead. Charlie Crystle, co-founder and former chief executive officer, said Tuesday that the small organic bakery had selected his successor but the company “couldn’t develop new investment to bring him on.” The four-year-old business has not set an asking price, he said. Crystle stopped working full time in April when he was diagnosed with a non-aggressive form of lymphoma. He was the company’s only salesperson. Production at the nine-employee certified organic bread and cookie bakery stopped July 3 as the company looked for new funding, a new sales effort and a new CEO. At the time, Crystle was hopeful that the company would resume production in September. Lancaster Food, on Commerce Park East, off Greenfield Road, previously stopped production in November after a prospective big investor backed out. After an eight-week hiatus, Lancaster Food resumed production in January upon securing $500,000 from nine investors and a hefty order from a California based discount grocery chain. But subsequent big orders from the chain didn’t materialize. Lancaster Food has equipment capable of baking 7,000 loaves per week; its 8,200-square-foot space has room to double that output. Its customers included Wegmans, Whole Foods, Giant, Stauffers of Kissel Hill, dozens of small independent stores and numerous restaurants. The company drew national attention as a “second-chance” employer of people with prison records or other impediments to hiring, and by offering a living wage of at least $15 an hour.
Thanks L.My Nan had lymphoma. She beat it. You can too Charlie. Sorry to hear about the bakery uncertainty. The world’s not working as it should when an organic bread producer can’t get the orders in.
He seems to have his health thing under control and recently moved to Grand Rapids because he fell in love with woman there
that’s good news, and love is a great healer.
To what extent do you think the blockchain protocols will unleash themselves? (something you hint to, at the beginning) Are we going to end-up with a dozen dominant ones, or hundreds or thousands?
If it’s done right, very few people will know or care about the answer to these questions….but if I had to guess right now, my answer would be more likely dozens rather than thousands…
It’s an important question, because that’s where the monetization is going to come from, at least…we assume so.
I think it’s important too – I’m just saying that I think, partially because of my belief/answer of ‘in the dozens’, that the protocols will be mostly invisible to the average person.
I don’t know
Fred,I loved your idea of how Token Based economies can be used to reward the users who create/enhance the value of the network like you mentioned at 30:30 about allow users to participate in the economic value of what they help to create (i.e., “using” == “investing” or “early listening to songs” == “owning equity in the song IP” ).For example, imagine if each future crypto-token in an influence-rewarding economy remembered its original owner and then paid back not only the current owner (at some public exchange rate) but also the original owner (at a pre-defined success rate) when the influence-network that had been created reaches some target liquidity value (e.g., a $100 million ICO investment or a $10 billion IPO or a $100 billion post-IPO value).In your Facebook or song playing examples, the first 1 million Facebook users (especially those early adopters who “mined” FB tokens by adding their first 10+ friends to Facebook) or 1 million song players (especially those early listeners who “mined” FW-Song tokens for sharing the song 5+ times) would earn their shares of a pre-defined allocation of N influence-tokens reserved for the early adopters. If these folks mistakenly sold these early-adopter tokens too early (i.e., because they didn’t want to be long term investors and to support token liquidity), it wouldn’t really matter because they would still be listed on the influence-token as being the Original Owners when the network was just getting started.Said another way, I’m proposing a system where Facebook or the song owner can be like an “influence-token savvy” version of “the little Red Hen” who offers to reward each of the folks who help her out when she really needs help with her planting/growing/harvesting/grinding of the wheat with one “BreadSliceCoin” token for each unit of help provided and then allows these early-adopter helpers to exchange their “mined” BreadSliceCoins for actual bread slices when the wheat has been turned into flour, baked into bread and sliced for consumption.To make this happen, the key influence-token innovations would be the ability to remember the original owners of the tokens so they can be paid off many years later even if they no longer still own the “early adopter” tokens and to provide these “first owners” a way of mining as many “buried” task-related tokens as the influence-token business model allows by following a pre-defined “early adopter” token task list (e.g., add 10+ friends, share the song, harvest a bushel of wheat, etc.)What do you think?
Commenters have often remarked on how seeing the title to an AVC post leads them to believe the topic will be something other than what it is.So, of course, I have a bit of a one-track mind and excitedly thought Fred was going to address how the job interview process is broken and that rather than Q&A sessions, interviews should be conversations. ;)Even though different than what I expected, I look forward to listening.
It feels like old (and not so old) school journalism, where the editor slaps on a headline that catching the eye but distorts the essence of the article. I wonder if having no post headline/ title would be a worthwhile experiment?
In this particular case I take full responsibility for the wishful thinking that influenced my interpretation of the title.I was a page editor on my high school paper with a faculty advisor (also the journalism instructor) who would slap us down for misleading headlines.
The podcast seems to be about the future of making money by investing in information technology.Okay. As we know from pet rocks, etc. at times it’s possible to make money from some really goofy things.Lesson 1: With some goofy ideas, tough to be sure they won’t make money.But the suspicion is strong that making money from goofy pet rocks requires a lot of luck, and the average ROI from betting on luck should be and has been low. So, we are looking for thinking better than luck and pet rocks.”Framework”: IMHO, too far from anything solid to be really useful. At best it’s a crude effort at merely empirical, without real causal reasoning, extrapolation from the past. Maybe at times can get lucky or ride a wave from a fad, but I wouldn’t trust a pair of cotton socks based on a framework. Crypto: IMHO, for now it’s playing with hype and fad. Likely soon these will be over with. So far crypto is too close just to enabling illegal activities and, thus, can’t be good investments for very long. There may be some legal applications of crypto, but for now I don’t see any such applications that make crypto a compelling technology of choice. For the attributes distributed, open, decentralized, etc. I see those as no more than hype or siren songs.E.g., as user, I just care if works well. As an experienced computer guy, I see distributed as a serious obstacle for getting things to work well.For AI, that’s a little utility, some essentially impossible dreams, and a lot of hopeless hyperhype.Much of the work is based on L. Breiman’s regression and classification trees. For more, there is a recent article at Quanta that connects some of the neural network work with emulation of some low level functionality of some biological vision systems. So that work has a shot at some progress in some low level aspects of vision systems, but that’s a very long way from anything like intelligence and nothing like progress to that goal.I know; I know; it’s neural, and the brain has neurons, is also neural, so, presto, bingo, real intelligence, self-driving cars, full automation of everything, and really big bucks are just around the corner!!!! Hyperhype!!Good software is still possible, and we can give it a coat of hyperhype by calling it AI, but the real mother lode of value is not, Not, NOT, NOT in the work of current AI which, compared with the mother lode, is baby drool, often wrapped in Pampers.For much of the current value of the Internet, we all can describe that well:(1) Now the data rates are good enough to distribute essentially all old media content on demand to Web browsers. So, old media is on the way to some weeds soaked last week with some Roundup or some insects belly up soaked with some Ortho bug spray.(2) To find content, we can use Google/Bing as improved electronic versions of an old library card catalog subject index.(3) As at Amazon, we can do a lot of good shopping and save on shoe leather and car tire wear shopping in malls. One of the big advantages is that Bezos is smart enough to get the product information people need up on the screen. Other shopping Web sites had, and still, have their feet locked solidly 6 feet deep in reinforced concrete, bitterly, with astounding determination, refusing to let shoppers get the necessary information for good shopping. So, Wal-Mart, New Egg, and tens of thousands more put up dinky, teeny, tiny, itty, bitty, vague, too small pictures with information that could have been better written by a one year old Orangutan and scream “BUY NOW!!!”.(4) E-mail and much more provides really fast, new means of communication between people. Big stuff.What the heck is the economically valuable future of information technology? In one word, information. For more, control. For more, quite general automation.E.g., yesterday by accident, I found a video of a freight train that had maybe 100 freight cars and didn’t have draw bar pulling force enough to make it up a hill. Well, the train had to stop, split in two to reduce the force needed, move the front half of the freight cars over the hill and to a side track, return for the second half, join the halves again, and continue on. Sounds expensive. Hmm.Sounds like a need for getting some new information by manipulating some old information. The old information is the length and weight of each of the 100 freight cars. The new information is the best sequence to join the cars to minimize the maximum draw bar pull needed to get the whole train over the track to the destination. So, the new information is the sequence of cars in the train. So, that’s a problem in optimization. If optimization shows that there is no sequence that will work, then what else to do is also a problem in optimization. I’m surprised that the railroads don’t have good solutions yet.As I type in these efforts at rational reactions, it occurs to me that everyone on the blog has long since been fully aware of these points. So, I conclude that such rationality is, really, off the main topic which is elsewhere.
Your train situation is a prime example of what AI will be used for. I’m not particularly interested in “general” AI–goalposts keep moving and there are too many issues–but there are literally millions of situations that AI is going to transform, most boring/invisible to nonspecialists. Power transmission rates. The train you mention. Design, deployment, and monitoring of online ads. I think it’s going to be another example of software eating everything: AI will be the equivalent of the heavy machinery at the turn of the century (turbines, tractors, locomotives…) that transformed everything. We still don’t have hardware that will do everything for us. But we don’t care. We have hardwares that can do any of the specific things we ask of them, mostly.
On crypto.Marx described the four means of production, land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship. old machines separated labour and capital (industrial age manufacturing). are new machines + crypto now uniting labour and capital? Are we moving to a world where potentially we each become our own means of production once more? I am my labour and i own its value creation.
loved your comment on the developers and early users being able to participate in the wealth creation, i remember giving Bill Gates and senior apple folks feedback on bugs etc on the first commercial compilers on the Apple II. Wished I had gotten some MSFT shares and Apple shares earlier thatn I did (they did have a developer program for the second public offering) w
Yes, Numerai and staking, Taleb and skin in the game…….and then there is Goldman Sachs.
Is Chris seeing crypto capitulation?