a16z General Partner Alex Rampell sits down with VGS Executive Board Member, Terry Angelos, to unpack what happens to payments when AI agents go from recommending what to buy to actually making the purchase.

Terry explains the infrastructure required to safely give agents access to payment credentials, why wallets like PayPal, Shop Pay, and Link are competing to become the default payment layer for agents, and how new agentic tokens could preserve the chargebacks, identity checks, and merchant relationships that make today's payment networks work. VGS, which already secures payment credentials across a significant share of e-commerce, is now provisioning millions of these agentic tokens each week. 

They also discuss what happens when merchants don't want to transact with agents, how delegated authority changes liability when an agent makes a mistake, and why AI could simultaneously increase consumer spending while eliminating the subscriptions, fees, and other forms of economic "breakage" that depend on people not paying attention.

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Follow Terry Angelos on X: https://x.com/terryangelos 

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a16z Partner Lisha Li sits down with AI researcher and Trillium founder Nathan Lambert to ask how durable the gap really is between frontier AI labs and open models.

Nathan argues that OpenAI and Anthropic have structural advantages in compute, capital, and the ability to pioneer new training paradigms, but open-model labs, particularly in China, have proven remarkably capable of following close behind. They unpack how much of that comes from distillation versus technical talent, why compute remains a major constraint, and how data, RL environments, and post-training are increasingly shaping model progress. 

They also discuss Nathan’s new nonprofit research lab, Trillium, and its plans to open up parts of AI research that are increasingly difficult to study from the outside. That includes releasing RL environments and documenting how AI is actually being used to automate AI research, with the goal of demystifying recursive self-improvement and giving researchers and policymakers a clearer picture of what frontier systems can and cannot do.

Resources:

Learn more about Trillium: https://trilliumlabs.org/ 

Follow Nathan Lambert on X: https://x.com/natolambert 

Nathan Lambert’s Newsletter: https://www.interconnects.ai/ 

Follow Lisha Li on X: https://x.com/lishali88

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Could AI break the cryptography protecting everything from crypto wallets and banking to private messages? Recent advances in AI-driven mathematical research have sparked new warnings about the security of today's encryption systems, but how much of the concern is supported by evidence?

a16z crypto's Liz Harkavy is joined by Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, a16z crypto General Partner Eddy Lazzarin, and Research Partner Justin Thaler to separate what we know from what remains speculation. They explain why modern cryptography relies on mathematical assumptions, what OpenAI's recent results do and don't demonstrate, and how the potential threat from AI differs from quantum computing.

They also discuss why existing security practices and cryptographic alternatives offer reasons for confidence, the importance of building systems that can adapt if an assumption fails, and how AI could ultimately help researchers and developers make software more secure.

Resources:

Watch the original a16z crypto discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_CoOoDsZ5Y

Follow Eddy Lazzarin on X: https://x.com/eddylazzarin

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a16z General Partner Martin Casado sits down with MakerMaker.AI co-founders Dhaval Adjodah and Owen He to unpack recursive self-improvement, or RSI, and separate the increasingly popular term from what it would actually mean for an AI system to improve itself.

Dhaval and Owen distinguish true RSI from simply using AI to automate pieces of AI development. Their goal is a closed loop where the system being improved is also doing the improving, across components including models, harnesses, and eventually more of the AI stack. They explain why closing that loop still doesn’t guarantee runaway “takeoff,” and why measuring real progress requires accounting for both capability gains and the resources required to achieve them.

They also share what they’re seeing in their own research, including early signs that self-improving systems can increase performance while improving efficiency. And they dig into the practical challenges of proving those gains are real, from variance and reward hacking to the enormous difficulty of distinguishing genuine improvement from noise.

Resources:

Follow Dhaval Adjodah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rand0m

Follow Owen He on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-he-b7b064279/

Follow Martin Casado on X: https://x.com/martin_casado

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Nick Bostrom joins Theo Jaffee and Sofia Puccini on MTS to revisit the ideas about superintelligence and existential risk that he helped bring into the mainstream, now that increasingly capable AI systems actually exist.

Nick discusses why reinforcement learning may be pushing models toward more goal-seeking behavior, what recent agent experiments tell us about instrumental convergence, and why he favors preserving the ability to slow frontier development rather than committing now to a broad or indefinite AI pause. He also makes the case that the risks of AI need to be weighed alongside its potential upside, from advances in medicine and longer lifespans to entirely new ways of being human. 

They also get into whether today's models could already have some form of consciousness, the tradeoffs of open-source AI, whether machines can do original philosophy, mind uploading, and what the simulation hypothesis might mean for the superintelligence we create.

Resources:

Nick Bostrom / Macrostrategy Research Initiative: https://nickbostrom.com/ 

Follow Theo Jaffee on X: https://x.com/theojaffee

Follow Sofia Puccini on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofiapuccini/

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a16z co-founder and General Partner Ben Horowitz joins James Norman on the inaugural episode of Vintage x Vintage for a conversation spanning entrepreneurship, investing, hip-hop, and what changes when AI makes building dramatically easier.

Ben reflects on going from Netscape to becoming a first-time CEO, why every founder eventually hits a “we’re fucked, it’s over” moment, and what he learned from building a16z around the needs of entrepreneurs. He explains why great investors should look for world-class strengths rather than an absence of weaknesses, and why expanding the ways we recognize talent can raise the bar rather than lower it.

They also look at the current AI cycle, why Ben believes it is bigger than the internet, how AI changes who can become a builder, and why the infrastructure beneath today’s models may need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Resources:

Follow Ben Horowitz on X: https://x.com/bhorowitz 

Follow James Norman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/motown/ 

Learn more about Paid in Full: https://paidinfullfoundation.org

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a16z's Raghu Raghuram and Guido Appenzeller sit down with Playground Global General Partner and former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to discuss the next wave of semiconductor innovation and the physical constraints shaping the AI buildout.

Drawing on his experience designing Intel's 386 and 486 processors, Pat explains how AI could transform chip design, but also why faster design alone won't solve the industry's biggest problems. They examine the bottlenecks in manufacturing, memory bandwidth, advanced packaging, and power, and why today's explosion of specialized AI chips may eventually consolidate around a smaller number of architectures.

They also discuss the potential for new memory technologies, the shift from copper to optical networking, and why energy capacity could become a major constraint on AI growth. Finally, they revisit Pat's VMware years to ask what virtualization might look like when infrastructure is built for agents rather than humans.

Resources:

Follow Pat Gelsinger on X:  https://x.com/PGelsinger

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a16z’s Raghu Raghuram sits down with AWS CEO Matt Garman to discuss how AI is reshaping the cloud, from the needs of AI-native startups to infrastructure increasingly designed for agents.

Matt explains how AWS is adapting as agents write code and manage infrastructure, why it’s reserving scarce GPU capacity for startups, and where custom chips like Trainium and Graviton fit into the AI stack.

They also discuss Amazon's $220 billion capital investment, the shifting bottlenecks in the infrastructure buildout, what enterprises need to trust autonomous agents, and how AWS's own teams are building with agents.

Resources:

Follow Matt Garman on X:  https://x.com/mattsgarman 

Follow Matt Garman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgarman

Follow Raghu Raghuram on X: https://x.com/RaghuRaghuram

Learn more about AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/

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a16z General Partner Angela Strange sits down with Valon’s Andrew Wang and Linda Du to unpack what it takes to rebuild the infrastructure underneath a $13 trillion mortgage market that still relies heavily on systems designed before the internet.

Linda and Andrew explain why Valon chose the hardest path: becoming a regulated mortgage servicer, translating decades of federal and state regulation into software, and proving the platform on its own loans before selling it to the industry. That foundation made Valon roughly three times as efficient as traditional servicing and created the system of record it is now using to bring AI into complex mortgage workflows. They also discuss what AI makes possible on top of that infrastructure, from agents handling long-tail servicing tasks to voice interfaces and more personalized customer experiences. And they explain why deploying the technology into large regulated enterprises is ultimately as much a change-management challenge as a technical one. 

Resources:

Follow Angela Strange: https://x.com/astrange

Follow Andrew Wang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wangandrewd

Follow Linda Du: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xlindadu/

Learn more about Valon: https://valon.com

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a16z General Partner David George sits down with Armadin founder and CEO Kevin Mandia to discuss what happens to cybersecurity when attackers can operate at machine speed.

After 30 years in security and building Mandiant, Kevin says AI convinced him to get back on the field. He explains how AI changes the economics of cyberattacks, allowing attackers to probe thousands of paths simultaneously, and why that means defense will ultimately need to become autonomous too. 

They also unpack Armadin’s approach: continuously attacking customers’ systems with AI to find exploitable vulnerabilities before adversaries do, then building toward autonomous defenses that can respond in real time. Kevin shares what Armadin has learned from finding more than 90 zero-days in production environments this year, why humans can’t remain in the detect-and-respond loop, and how the entire security stack could change over the next few years.

Resources:

Learn more about Kevin Mandia and Armadin: https://www.armadin.com/team-members/kevin-mandia

Follow David George on X: https://x.com/DavidGeorge83

Learn more about Armadin: https://www.armadin.com/

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a16z Editorial Partner Elena Burger sits down with investing partners Olivia Moore and Josh Elman to unpack the seventh edition of a16z’s Top 100 Consumer AI Apps, including a new dimension this time: what consumers are actually paying for.

The data reveals a striking power-user economy. Only a small share of consumers currently pay for AI, but among those who do, spending is heavily concentrated at the top. Olivia and Josh discuss why developers, creators, and other power users dominate spending today, and why subscriptions may not be the business model that ultimately brings consumer AI to everyone. 

They also dig into the rise of personal agents, the different trajectories of ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, how ads could reshape AI economics, and the enormous amount of consumer white space still left to build, from shopping and entertainment to social, dating, and marketplaces.

Resources:

Read the Top 100 Consumer AI Apps, Seventh Edition: https://www.a16z.news/p/top-100-consumer-ai-apps-seventh

Follow Olivia Moore: https://x.com/omooretweets 

Follow Josh Elman: https://x.com/joshelman 

Follow Elena Burger: https://x.com/VirtualElena

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