Chris Dixon - The Potential of Blockchain Technology

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This episode of Invest Like the Best is sponsored by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. I'd heard of Canalyst over the past few years and became more interested after meeting the founder and CEO last year to pick his brain about SaaS businesses. Founded by a former buy side analyst who encountered friction in sourcing, building and updating models, Canalyst is now used by over 300 institutions, including the largest money managers in North America and by a number of guests on the show.
With detailed company-specific models on virtually every investable public equity, Canalyst clients are able to react more quickly.
If you've been scrambling to keep up with the deluge of IPOs and SPACs these days, Canalyst has models on Coinbase, Roblox, Qualtrics and everything in between. Their pre-IPO models are built as soon as the S1 hits and include all segments, KPIs and non-GAAP figures.
If you're a professional equity investor and haven't talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalist.com/patrick. That's canalyst.com/patrick.
If you're curious to hear more about Canalyst, stay tuned at the end of the episode where I talk to Canalyst CEO, Demir Hatt.
This episode of Invest Like the Best is brought to you by Tegus. I started hearing about Tegus when several of my close professional investor friends sent me passages or ideas they'd found on the Tegus platform. Conducting effective primary research shouldn't take weeks, it should take hours. Searching for answers shouldn't be lengthy, cumbersome process. It should be easy and nearly immediate. Expert calls should not cost $1,000. Tegus solves these problems and makes primary research faster and better for professional investors. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for all investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you'd want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Still want to do your own calls? Tegus has a solution. Experts that are just as good or better than what you'd find on other networks for just $300 per call, not the $1,000 or more that others charge. If you're curious about Tegus, call the top performing investment manager you can think of. They're probably already a Tegus customer and they'll point you in the right direction. Because customers, myself included, love Tegus. Visit tegus.co/patrick to learn more.
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:52)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:17)
My guest today is Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Chris is a prolific investor and thinker, having been an entrepreneur, angel investor, and now focused on investing in crypto and blockchain at Andreessen Horowitz.
Our conversation focuses on Chris' overall thesis for investing in the cryptocurrency space, the opportunities and limitations of blockchain applications, and why this is the most interesting area for investing and building over the next 10 years. We cover it all, base protocols, DeFi, NFTs, social coins, and the future of the internet. I hope you enjoy this wide-ranging and fascinating conversation with Chris Dixon.
So Chris, I think the best place to begin probably would be for you to outline what I'll call your overall thesis or sort of philosophy of investing in the cryptocurrency space. You've been doing it for a long time. I think it's a comprehensive approach. You're not just attacking one part of the ecosystem. So maybe just frame this whole thing up for us to begin and then we'll dive into the details.

**Chris Dixon** (4:15)
If you kind of look back at the last and sort of the advent of computing in the World War II era, there's basically every 10 to 15 years is a new kind of major computing cycle. So you had early computing, you had mainframes, you had mini computers, PCs in the 1980s or so, internet developed, commercial internet in the 90s, mobile phones, late 2000s. It's sort of an obvious question if you're in technology or investing like I am is what's next. There's one possibility is sort of, it's the end of those cycles, right? The sort of mature industry now. If you look at other industries, electricity and cars and other things like, there was a period of rapid change and then at some point they can stabilize. That's one hypothesis. I don't believe that, but that's one view you could have. Another view is maybe the next wave of computing is artificial intelligence or virtual reality. I personally, and we as a firm are very excited about all of those categories.