AI + a16z

a16z

Artificial intelligence is changing everything from art to enterprise IT, and a16z is watching all of it with a close eye. This podcast features discussions with leading AI engineers, founders, and experts, as well as our general partners, about where the technology and industry are heading.

  1. How AI Will Change Photography Forever

    2 HR AGO

    How AI Will Change Photography Forever

    What if you could retake your favorite memories years after they happened, fixing the lighting, catching the smile, or even opening your eyes? In this conversation, a16z General Partner Martin Casado and Partner Yoko Li sit down with scientist and Lytro founder Ren Ng along with Phota Labs cofounders Cecilia Zhang and Zhihao “Zach” Xia to explore the past, present, and future of computational photography.  They trace the story from the invention of light-field cameras and the evolution of smartphone photography to today’s AI powered retakes that preserve identity and context in ways filters never could. Together they reflect on how AI is changing what it means to capture a moment, why authenticity matters as much as aesthetics, and how the future of photography may no longer depend on a lens at all but on models that know you. Resources:  Find Cecilia on GitHub: https://ceciliavision.github.io/ Find Zach on GitHub: https://likesum.github.io/ Find Ren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renng Find Yoko on X: https://x.com/stuffyokodraws Find Martin on X: https://x.com/martin_casado   Timecodes: 00:00 The Decisive Moment in Photography 00:33 Introduction to Computational Photography 01:05 Personal Histories and Connections 02:27 Evolution of Computational Photography 04:15 The Birth of Light Field Photography 07:28 From Hardware to Software Innovations 08:52 Founding of Photo Labs 11:10 Generative AI in Photography 13:54 The Future of Photography 14:47 Personalized Visual Gen AI 16:27 User Reactions and Real-World Applications 17:44 Technical Innovations and Challenges 24:11 New Use Cases and Exciting Prospects 25:34 The Essence of Slide Photography 26:16 The Future of Photography: Generative AI 28:58 Authenticity in Photography 32:11 Generative AI and User Behavior 34:39 The Impact of Generative AI on Photography 37:02 The Evolution of Photography Styles 46:20 The Future of Computational Photography   Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    52 min
  2. How OpenAI Built Its Coding Agent

    29 AUG

    How OpenAI Built Its Coding Agent

    OpenAI’s Codex has already shipped hundreds of thousands of pull requests in its first month. But what is it really, and how will coding agents change the future of software? In this episode, General Partner Anjney Midha goes behind the scenes with one of Codex’s product leads- Alexander Embiricos - to unpack its origin story, why its PR success rate is so high, the safety challenges of autonomous agents, and what this all means for developers, students, and the future of coding. Resources:  Find Alex on X: https://x.com/embirico Find Anjney on X: https://twitter.com/AnjneyMidha   Stay Updated:  Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

    1h 20m
  3. Models, Modalities, and Memes: Creating Compelling AI Characters

    14 AUG

    Models, Modalities, and Memes: Creating Compelling AI Characters

    Models, Modalities, and Memes: Creating Compelling AI Characters In this episode of AI + a16z, Hedra founder and CEO Michael Lingelbach joins a16z partners Justine Moore and Matt Bornstein to talk about building AI-native video — and why the next wave of generative content is all about characters, not just clips. They discuss how Hedra’s expressive, full-body, dialogue-centric video models are powering everything from viral meme content to enterprise training tools. Michael explains why “character” is the core design primitive in Hedra’s architecture, how consumers are leading the charge in discovering new use cases, and what it takes to productionize those behaviors for real-world applications. Along the way, they explore what makes multi-modal generation uniquely hard, the role of user control in shaping believable AI performances, and why being a founder sometimes means responding to thousands of support emails — at 6 a.m. Key takeaways: How Hedra’s real-time video model blends audio, image, and character controlWhy generative content is shifting from static avatars to programmable personasThe surprising crossover between consumer creativity and enterprise adoptionWhere existing LLMs fall short in generating emotionally authentic charactersWhat vibe coding, hands-on design, and founder obsession look like in practiceFor anyone curious about building AI characters, scaling creative workflows, or the future of human-computer interaction — this one’s not to be missed. Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

    47 min
  4. Performance and Passion: Fal's Approach to AI Inference

    1 AUG

    Performance and Passion: Fal's Approach to AI Inference

    If you've been experimenting with image, video, and audio models, the chances are you've been both blown away by how good they're becoming, and also a little perturbed by how long they can take to generate. If you've been using a platform like Fal, however, your experience on the latter point might be more positive. In this episode, Fal cofounder and CEO Burkay Gur and head of engineering Batuhan Taskaya join a16z general partner Jennifer Li to discuss how they built an inference platform — or, as they call it, a generative media cloud — that's optimized for speed, performance, and user experience. These are core features for a great product, yes, and also ones borne of necessity as the early team obsessively engineered around its meager GPU capacity at the height of the AI infrastructure crunch. But this is more than a story about infrastructure. As you'll hear, they also delve into sales and hiring strategy; the team's overall excitement over these emerging modalities; and the trends they're seeing as competition in the world of video models, especially, heats up.  Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

    40 min
  5. How to Vibe Code Securely

    25 JUL

    How to Vibe Code Securely

    In this episode, a16z partner Joel de la Garza sits down with Socket founder and CEO Feross Aboukhadijeh to dive into the intersection of vibe coding and security. As one of the earliest security founders to fully embrace LLMs, Feross shares firsthand insights into how these technologies are transforming software engineering workflows and productivity — and where there are sharp edges that practitioners need to avoid. The TL;DR: Treat AI-assisted programming the same way you'd treat other programming, by vetting packages, reviewing code, and generally make sure you're not sacrificing security for speed. As he explained, LLMs can make developers more productive and even make their software more secure, but only if developers do their part by maintaining a safe supply chain. Follow everyone on social media:  Feross Aboukhadijeh Joel de la Garza Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

    27 min
  6. AI Is Upending SaaS Pricing

    18 JUL

    AI Is Upending SaaS Pricing

    In this episode, a16z GP Martin Casado sits down with Metronome CEO Scott Woody to unpack how AI is fundamentally changing the value proposition of software—and why that shift demands a rethink of the traditional SaaS business model. They explore how, in the cloud era, value scaled with the number of users accessing a shared system (think Salesforce). However, in the AI era, value shifts to the work the software performs on your behalf, automating tasks such as writing code or resolving support tickets. As a result, the old value metric of “users” is being replaced by “output,” and it’s upending how companies monetize. This conversation goes deep on: What new pricing models will emerge in an AI-native world  Why usage-based billing is gaining ground—and where it breaks  How to align GTM teams and customer success orgs with evolving value metrics  Strategic advice for SaaS founders navigating hybrid business models and incentive designIf you’re selling software today, you don’t want to miss this discussion. Follow everyone on social media: Scott Woody  Martin Casado  Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

    43 min
  7. The AI Infrastructure Stack with Jennifer Li

    11 JUL

    The AI Infrastructure Stack with Jennifer Li

    In this episode, which originally aired on the Complex Systems Podcast, a16z General Partner Jennifer Li discusses how AI is reshaping every layer of the software stack, creating demand for new types of middleware. Jennifer talks about emerging infrastructure categories and why the next wave of valuable companies might be the unsexy infrastructure providers powering tomorrow's intelligent applications. Subscribe to Complex Systems: Spotify Apple Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

    46 min
  8. AI's Unsung Hero: Data Labeling and Expert Evals

    27 JUN

    AI's Unsung Hero: Data Labeling and Expert Evals

    Labelbox CEO Manu Sharma joins a16z Infra partner Matt Bornstein to explore the evolution of data labeling and evaluation in AI — from early supervised learning to today’s sophisticated reinforcement learning loops. Manu recounts Labelbox’s origins in computer vision, and then how the shift to foundation models and generative AI changed the game. The value moved from pre-training to post-training and, today, models are trained not just to answer questions, but to assess the quality of their own responses. Labelbox has responded by building a global network of “aligners” — top professionals from fields like  coding, healthcare, and customer service, who label and evaluate data used to fine-tune AI systems. The conversation also touches on Meta’s acquisition of Scale AI, underscoring how critical data and talent have become in the AGI race.  Here's a sample of Manu explaining how Labelbox was able to transition from one era of AI to another: It took us some time to really understand like that the world is shifting from building AI models to renting AI intelligence. A vast number of enterprises around the world are no longer building their own models; they're actually renting base intelligence and adding on top of it to make that work for their company. And that was a very big shift.  But then the even bigger opportunity was the hyperscalers and the AI labs that are spending billions of dollars of capital developing these models and data sets. We really ought to go and figure out and innovate for them. For us, it was a big shift from the DNA perspective because Labelbox was built with a hardcore software-tools mindset. Our go-to market, engineering, and product and design teams operated like software companies.  But I think the hardest part for many of us, at that time, was to just make the decision that we're going just go try it and do it. And nothing is better than that: "Let's just go build an MVP and see what happens." Follow everyone on X: Manu Sharma Matt Bornstein Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence here, including articles, projects, and more podcasts.

    47 min
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About

Artificial intelligence is changing everything from art to enterprise IT, and a16z is watching all of it with a close eye. This podcast features discussions with leading AI engineers, founders, and experts, as well as our general partners, about where the technology and industry are heading.

Information

  • Creator
    a16z
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    57
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    AI + a16z

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