SHOW DIRECTORY
The a16z Show
The venture firm’s view of startups, AI, software, markets, company building, and the technological shifts creating new categories.
BIDCLUB DESCRIPTION
The $1 Trillion Firm That Refuses The Private Equity Label | a16z
Apollo’s slightly-over-$1 trillion platform is 80% investment-grade credit, making origination capacity—not available capital—the binding constraint on growth.Daily estimated valuations for private investment-grade products by June 30 and all credit by the end of September could widen access as $800 billion of 2026 capex from four public companies tests financing capacity.
Building Blackstone, Backing Costco, and Working with Munger | Tony James on The a16z Show
Tony James’s compounding playbook paired early S-curve positioning with operating discipline, from DLJ using leveraged buyouts to “buy clients we couldn’t actually win competitively” to Blackstone increasing market value about 170-fold while fund IRRs improved.Costco shows the customer moat in practice—if sourcing saves a nickel, “100% of that nickel gets lower prices”—while James sees a private-credit correction ahead and favors seasoned assets through co-investments and continuation vehicles.
How AI Will Transform Fintech In 2026
Fintech is entering an early-to-mid-spring cycle where survivors are expanding from digital access into cash-flow underwriting, embedded finance, fraud controls, and full-stack products.AI’s clearest institutional opportunity is software that performs compliance, servicing, treasury, and trading work, while consumer agents still face a trust barrier around unexplained money movement.Fraud is growing 18% to 20% annually as AI accelerates adversaries, making Plaid’s cross-network Protect and Lens Score important 2026 catalysts amid unresolved defensive challenges.
Mark Cuban on the NBA, Cost Plus Drugs, and How to Fix Politics
Cuban’s clearest business thesis pairs transparent pricing and AI-native operators with broad employee equity, arguing that ESOP workers earn dramatically more and turn over less while small firms gain immediate productivity tools.He would replace opaque insurers and PBMs with patient shopping, catastrophic reinsurance, and government-guaranteed financing, while NBA media rights and second-apron constraints make subscription growth and patient team-building the next tests.