Abby Green

Partner @a16z | Events Strategy
Ex-MD @jpmorgan (US Private Bank events) · Dreamforce @Salesforce · Created @eBay Live
Bay Area native | UC Davis

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

2012: acquire company for users
2021: acquire company for engineers
2026: acquire company for training data

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

@MicrosoftLearn Now more than ever.

[Josh Elman @joshelman]

Over 10 years ago, I led an investment in Operator - to make businesses textable.

While it didn’t quite hit the timing right, so much of this feels like it is happening right now, with AI agents on the other side.

Excited for the new wave!

https://t.co/UdyNndAcbb

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

@joshelman History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

Humans are the minority user of AI

Agents burn nearly 5x the tokens people do, up 14x since February

[a16z @a16z]

Humans are the minority user of AI

Agents burn nearly 5x the tokens people do, up 14x since February

Charts of the Week: https://t.co/7YT2BXvuUu

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

I feel like the right corollary for compute is not oil but electricity. It’s way easier to financialise oil because you can store it, whereas compute and electricity are a sort of use it or lose it story

[Nat Levy-Westhead @Natlevywesthead]

https://t.co/Am0h6NqbVB

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

The most important skills in Building and Deploying AI Applications.

[Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg]

The most important skills in Building and Deploying AI Applications. https://t.co/IyWIKLIzeM

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

Polls will show everyone hates AI overall but also everyone will secretly use AI all the time. AI companies will be underwater in public opinion but also many people will feel strongly attached to their own favorite model & care about it

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

The case for building agent-friendly products 👇

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

The problem with datacenters is that we don't have enough, by a very wide margin.

[a16z @a16z]

It's time to build mega data centers. In counties where they're already operational, the picture is uniformly better since 2024:

- More housing
- Higher home values
- Less unemployment
- More job growth

Charts of the Week: https://t.co/7YT2BXvuUu

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

Presented without comment.

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

AI would take white collar jobs, while robots would take blue collar jobs.

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

People are about twice as likely to approve of **coal plants** being built nearby as opposed to data centers.

Coal plants use more water and pollute more. They create comparable noise pollution. There's no way this makes sense outside a media panic.

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

AI is the first technology where you can put in $10 and reliably get something back.

[a16z @a16z]

Martin Casado says Cursor's founders spend 30-40% of their time on hiring and culture, and that focus is how they iterate so fast:

"A lot of these AI companies that I work with are so research-heavy. If you're not working on a new model architecture, it's kind of hard to actually interest the core teams."

"They always kept the main thing the main thing, which is changing how you write software. They believed fundamentally it was a product problem... The model's very, very important, but it was a product problem."

"There's actually not a lot of companies that are actually focused on product... There's a lot of research companies... But they were like, 'We are a product company.' And I think that's actually a key differentiator in this era."

@martin_casado w/ @sophiadew and @theojaffee on MTS

[a16z @a16z]

Martin Casado says AI has made capital more productive than ever before:

"One of the very famous models, probably one of the most popular models, was built with a team of about 20 people. And I would say the cost of that was probably $2 billion plus."

"In the history of humanity, in the history of engineering efforts, we've never been able to have 20 people productively use $2 billion."

"We like to look at this wave in the context of technical sophistication, but one of the major stories is that we're able to apply large amounts of money productively, in short amounts of time, to whatever problem we're trying to solve."

@martin_casado w/ @sophiadew and @theojaffee on MTS

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

AI has made capital more productive than ever before.

[a16z @a16z]

Martin Casado says AI has made capital more productive than ever before:

"One of the very famous models, probably one of the most popular models, was built with a team of about 20 people. And I would say the cost of that was probably $2 billion plus."

"In the history of humanity, in the history of engineering efforts, we've never been able to have 20 people productively use $2 billion."

"We like to look at this wave in the context of technical sophistication, but one of the major stories is that we're able to apply large amounts of money productively, in short amounts of time, to whatever problem we're trying to solve."

@martin_casado w/ @sophiadew and @theojaffee on MTS

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

Data centers also mean a lower cost of intelligence, which is a public good for everybody.

[a16z @a16z]

It's time to build mega data centers. In counties where they're already operational, the picture is uniformly better since 2024:

- More housing
- Higher home values
- Less unemployment
- More job growth

Charts of the Week: https://t.co/7YT2BXvuUu

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

More companies will be borderless.

[Gabriel Vasquez @GEVS94]

https://t.co/0JwKo5sa8y

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

@GEVS94 More companies will be borderless.

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

I 100% support this, but, design in human to human needs and solve the time zone challenge.

[a16z @a16z]

Over 40% of the a16z Apps team's investments over the last two years went to international founders. Half are headquartered outside the US.

Angela Strange and Gabriel Vasquez own the bet behind that number, a bet that the best founders can come from anywhere. In Poland, ElevenLabs became the national AI champion. In Spain, Supersonik landed Salesforce as its first design partner. In Colombia, Angela's first check went to Addi, which now serves a quarter of the country and recruits Capital One's best credit talent to Bogotá.

In this episode, they sit down to discuss the playbook: why AI opens every market but concentrates the epicenter in the Bay Area, and why country diasporas beat elite alumni networks.

00:00 Intro
00:54 From a WhatsApp group to a global strategy
05:29 Why AI pulls founders to the Bay Area
10:29 Defining the borderless founder
12:29 How diaspora networks help companies scale
18:11 The three advantages of borderless founders
22:36 Preferential attachment across borders
25:11 The bridge to Silicon Valley works both ways
27:11 Mapping and building global ecosystems
33:15 Backing repeat founders
40:31 Silicon Valley speed and global ambition

https://t.co/t3kDg0dned

@astrange @GEVS94 @VirtualElena

[Abby Green @GreenHorowitz]

@a16z I 100% support this, but, design in human to human needs and solve the time zone challenge.