20VC: a16z's $15BN Fundraise with Alex Rampell | The Best Companies Have Hostages Not Customers | The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers and Labour | Mid-Sized Funds with Die and The Future of Venture Capital

**Alex Rampell** (0:00)
I think you want to invest in people that can materialize labor, capital, and customers. The way that I do it, just kind of to be pithy about it, is like we either want to buy any percent, any percent of something that is absolutely working, or high ownership of something that could work. The best companies have hostages, not customers. So probably of the unicorn class, I would bet that maybe 5% will ever be able to go public. We were buying out of the money call options, and we hope they expire in the money. I don't necessarily think you could take it as a given that a small fund will outperform a large fund.

**Harry Stebbings** (0:30)
$15 billion. That is how much Andressen Horowitz just raised. It is over 20% of the entire pool of capital raised by venture firms. Today, I'm joined by Alex Rampell, general partner at Andressen, where he leads their $1.7 billion apps fund. He's also led deals in Mercury, Plaid, OpenDoor and many more. And this is one of the best shows that I've done in a long, long time. I actually think to one of Alex's statements every single day. It's taught me so much. And it's very simple. Will the startup acquire distribution before the incumbent acquires innovation? I have Alex to thank for that and it always sticks with me. But before we dive into the show today, over 80% of Fortune 100 companies are running their businesses with Airtable. Airtable combines AI with the scale of an award-winning, infinitely flexible no-code system. A platform where you can see all of your data in one place and use it to make really big-picture decisions. Think of it like mission control for your company. Airtable goes beyond organization and automating repetitive tasks. It lets you use your data to inform strategy, monitor progress and take action. Every cell is capable of performing hundreds of AI-powered tasks like web research or localization and using those results to inform and update hundreds or thousands of other cells and workflows in real-time. Unlock the true scale of your workflows at www.airtable.com/20vc.
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You have now arrived at your destination. Alex, dude, it's been eight years. I'm hoping that my question asking ability has gone up in terms of quality in those eight years. Now, listen, I want to start. $15 billion you raised today. And I was just looking at that. And I was wondering, in an age of venture today, do you have to go really big or go crafts and very small and boutique to win in venture today?