with @mikeleiter @katie_haun What does the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) and updates to the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) mean for founders taking investments from or doing joint ventures with foreign entities or just doing business globally in general? What does and doesn't CFIUS cover, and how might one structure partnerships strategically as a result?

A bold proposal: You go to college for free, then pay back the school after graduation—but only if you get a job in your field of study and make a high enough salary to afford it. It's called an income share agreement, and Austen Allred, the CEO and cofounder of Lambda School, thinks it's the future of education.

with @shondarhimes @pmarca The creator of hit shows like Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and others, writer and executive producer Shonda Rhimes shares lessons she's learned about pitching ideas, storytelling, leadership, and scaling a business across mediums.

with @pmarca and @mjr2 In this special guest hosted episode -- cross-posted from the new show Starting Greatness (featuring interviews with startup builders before they were successful, hosted by Mike Maples jr) -- Marc Andreessen shares some rare, behind-the-scenes details of his story from 0 to 1... from the University of Illinois and Mosaic to Netscape.

with @stacey_cunning barrymccarthy @smc90 Another route to the public markets is the direct listing, recently reinvented for tech companies (with Spotify and Slack so far). This episode of the a16z Podcast brings together two experts from the frontlines -- the architect of the direct listings in their current form, the CFO of Spotify; and president of the NYSE, where they were listed -- in conversation with Sonal Chokshi to share more about the what, the how, and the why from an insider perspective. What does it, did it take?

with @bhorowitz @smc90 How do you build, set, shape, fix, change, culture? Sharing practical advice while drawing on examples of culture as code from a thousand years ago to today, as shared in his new book What You Do Is Who You Are, Horowitz shares the power of song and story. Including even violent, "shocking" ones that reset cultures, because they make you ask, WHY?!

The world's largest shopping days (Black Friday, Singles Day in China, Prime Day online, and so on) means shipping lots and lots of boxes, via big-box retailers and container ships -- but that's not the only reason we're re-running this episode of the a16z Podcast from 2017 with The Box author Marc Levinson. It's because we love logistics and infrastructure, and is really about how global innovation happens... through all sorts of invisible details.

with @imanabuzeid @julesyoo @jeff_jordan @omnivorousread For most of us, nurses are essentially the face of the healthcare system. In this episode, we take a look at the role of that unsung hero of healthcare, the nurse, from an industry level.

with @smc90 @conniechan Many believe that podcasts -- authentic, intimate -- are organic conversations without editing. But most of the work often happens before and after the conversation itself, in everything from the programming to the editing. In this special 500th (!) episode of the a16z Podcast, editor-in-chief and showrunner Sonal Chokshi (in conversation with a16z general partner Connie Chan) shares answers to FAQs about the how, what, and why of the a16z Podcast, and broader editorial operation. They also take us behind the scenes to reveal some unexpected moments and lessons learned along the way, positions on tics and swear-words, failed experiments, and new directions. And where is podcasting going?

with @wennmachers @smc90 Many technical founders believe that great products and ideas sell themselves, without any extra effort or marketing. But in reality, they often need public relations (PR). The irony is, most of the work involved in PR is actually invisible to the public. So how does such brand-building really work? In this 10-year anniversary episode of the a16z Podcast, a16z operating partner Margit Wennmachers shares the case study of her work at The Outcast Agency (which she co-founded) and of building the a16z brand, where she heads marketing -- answering some FAQs about how things work, and even revealing some details behind the scenes of popular op-eds and stories about a16z.

From Fortnite to Untitled Goose Game, next-generation video games are unlike anything we've seen before. These are the tech trends turning gaming into a massive, culture-defining phenomenon.

Consumer software may have adopted and incorporated AI ahead of enterprise software, where the data is more proprietary, and the market is a few thousand companies not hundreds of millions of smartphone users. But recently AI has found its way into B2B, and it is rapidly transforming how we work and the software we use, across all industries and organizational functions.

Today, despite the critical importance of open source to software, it’s still seen by some as blasphemous to make money as an open source business. In this podcast, Armon Dadgar, Cofounder and CTO of HashiCorp; Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks; and a16z General Partner Peter Levine explain why it's necessary to turn some open source projects into businesses.

with @fredbenenson @jenny8lee and @smc90 A whole new set of emojis are about to hit people's phone within a month, but that's not the only reason we're re-running this popular (and defining!) episode of the a16z Podcast from 2015. It's an evergreen classic, that is really about how innovation works -- from the politics and economics of creativity, to the design and governance of social communication systems, and much more...

It used to be that the only way for humanity to grow — and progress — was through destroying the environment. But is this interplay between human growth vs. environment really a zero-sum game? Even if it were true in history, is it true today? If capitalism is not responsible for environmental degradation, than who or what is? And where does (and doesn’t) technology come in? @pmarca and @smc90 interview MIT economist @amcafee about all this and more, given his new book, More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources — and What Happens Next.

News and trends covered this week include: * Amazon's move into care delivery, initially for employees, what it means for incumbents and startups, the future of healthcare -- with @julesyoo @jorgecondebio * Oculus Connect 6, Facebook's annual developer event, where announcements about devices and content signal the future of VR (and AR) --with @cdixon * Google quantum supremacy claim, as shared in a paper with/via NASA: what does it mean for cryptography and other applications, where are we in quantum computing? -- with @vijaypande …hosted by @smc90.

The biggest shift in gaming happened with the combination of cloud, social, and mobile. As with all great tech shifts, though, it's really the underlying business models that really create new startup opportunities. With blockchain technology and cryptoeconomic business models, what becomes possible in gaming?

News and trends covered this week include: * FBI's latest note on social engineering of two-factor authentication * Simjacker spyware via SMS * Google Project Zero vs. Apple, and Apple's year in security * what can we do to secure ourselves? …with @martin_casado joeldelgarza and host @smc90.

What is the nature of physical pain? Why do we even experience it? Is there one type, or many? Do people experience pain differently? What is happening in our brains and our bodies when we experience pain? What is the biological link between pain ...

with @benedictevans @vijaypande and @smc90 This is episode #8 of our news show, 16 Minutes, where we quickly cover recent headlines of the week, the a16z way -- why they're in the news; why they matter from our vantage point in tech -- and share our...