POTUS calling Jensen at the All-in Summit was a modern and public version of Truman telling Oppenheimer to get lost when he warned them of a nuclear arms race. What a timeline though where a President tries to nip it in the bud.
https://t.co/wxO1C0Jed6
My conversation with Marc Andreessen (@pmarca), co-founder of @a16z and Netscape.
0:00 Caffeine Heart Scare
0:56 Zero Introspection Mindset
3:24 Psychedelics and Founders
4:54 Motivation Beyond Happiness
7:18 Tech as Progress Engine
10:27 Founders Versus Managers
20:01 HP Intel Founder Legacy
21:32 Why Start the Firm
24:14 Venture Barbell Theory
28:57 JP Morgan Boutique Banking
30:02 Religion Split Wall Street
30:41 Barbell of Banking
31:42 Allen & Company Model
33:16 Planning the VC Firm
33:45 CAA Playbook Lessons
36:49 First Principles vs. Status Quo
39:03 Scaling Venture Capital
40:37 Private Equity and Mad Men
42:52 Valley Shifts to Full Stack
45:59 Meeting Jim Clark
48:53 Founder vs. Manager at SGI
54:20 Recruiting Dinner Story
56:58 Starting the Next Company
57:57 Nintendo Online Gamble
58:33 Building Mosaic Browser
59:45 NSFnet Commercial Ban
1:01:28 Eternal September Shift
1:03:11 Spam and Web Controversy
1:04:49 Mosaic Tech Support Flood
1:07:49 Netscape Business Model
1:09:05 Early Internet Skepticism
1:11:15 Moral Panic Pattern
1:13:08 Bicycle Face Story
1:14:48 Music Panic Examples
1:18:12 Lessons from Jim Clark
1:19:36 Clark Versus Barksdale
1:21:22 Tesla Versus Edison
1:23:00 Edison Digression Setup
1:23:13 AI Forecasting Myths
1:23:43 Edison Phonograph Lesson
1:25:11 Netscape Two Jims
1:29:11 Bottling Innovation
1:31:44 Elon Management Code
1:32:24 IBM Big Gray Cloud
1:37:12 Engineer First Truth
1:38:28 Bottlenecks and Speed
1:42:46 Milli Elon Metric
1:47:20 Starlink Side Project
1:49:10 Closing
Includes paid partnerships.
ACP at first glance seems to be a game-changer for fintech. Deep dive on its effects: First, ACP standardizes AI-mediated transactions, allowing agents to handle discovery, negotiation, and payment without businesses losing control. This shifts fintech from passive payment rails to active, intelligent ecosystems.
We have three cool announcements today:
(1) @OpenAI is launching commerce in ChatGPT. Their new Instant Checkout is powered by @stripe.
(2) We're releasing the Agentic Commerce Protocol, codeveloped by Stripe and OpenAI.
(3) @stripe is launching an API for agentic payments, called Shared Payment Tokens.
It's clear that internet purchasing modalities are going to change a lot, and we're excited to start to lay some of the foundations.
Links below!
10/10: Overall, ACP isn't just a protocol; it's fintech's pivot to an agentic future. Early adopters win, laggards fade. Watch for rapid iterations as community contributes.
Bridge's Open Issuance is a game-changer: Businesses can now craft custom stablecoins with tailored reserves, zero redemption fees, and seamless interoperability. Ramifications? Explosion in innovation for neobanks & remittances, eroding USDC/USDT dominance, and accelerating global adoption of programmable money. Finance just got modular! #Stablecoins #FinTech
Launching Open Issuance
Stablecoins have arrived. Two years ago, we still faced a degree of skepticism over if and how financial services would adopt stablecoins, but today we’re seeing neobanks, remittance companies, creator platforms, marketplaces, treasury teams, and more all use stablecoins to grow their businesses.
That being said, it’s abundantly clear that while stablecoins are on their way to becoming core global infrastructure, there are some meaningful gaps to fill.
Currently businesses build with one of two major stablecoins, USDC or USDT. Circle and Tether have pioneered this space, and they’ve been (rightfully) rewarded for doing so. But an off-the-shelf solution will only take you so far. It’s like choosing a car for a big race—you’d want to assemble it carefully, selecting the right parts and customizing the design, rather than picking a factory sedan.
For instance, if you’re using an off-the-shelf stablecoin to build a neobank -
- You can’t fully access the rewards to build the best possible savings account,
- Your reserve mix cannot be customized to support increased liquidity or higher earnings, and
- You’d have to pay a 10bps redemption fee to withdraw your own money!
The status quo just isn’t good enough. If we want to maximize the impact stablecoins can have globally, we need to allow businesses to select the right parts and customize the design.
That’s why we built Open Issuance, a new platform that enables any business to create a stablecoin. With Open Issuance, you can:
- Customize the smart contracts to ensure this stablecoin meets your unique needs
- Issue on any desired blockchain(s)
- Adjust reserves composition and management strategy
- Fully participate in the reserve economics
- Control mint and burn fees (so you never pay to withdraw your own funds)
- And so much more
But what about liquidity? For a stablecoin to work, you need to make it easy to access, use and move. Through Bridge’s APIs and our new permissionless interoperability network, you can instantly convert between any two dollar formats, including all existing stablecoins (USDC, USDT, etc.), supported fiat currencies, and Open Issuance assets. Seamlessly convert your stablecoin into USDT and then into Mexican Pesos; convert Euros into USDC and then into your stablecoin; and so on.
And unlike building a car, this customization comes at little-to-no additional cost. You get better economics, day 1 liquidity, and interoperability with just a few lines of code.
We’re excited to unlock a whole new set of capabilities that builders around the world can use to create improved money experiences. We’re launching today with partners including Native Markets (USDH), Phantom (CASH), Metamask (mUSD), and Dakota (DKUSD). Each is using Open Issuance to build world-class stablecoin products.
The stablecoin market is early – come build with us and help shape the future. Get in touch at bridge[.]xyz