Michael King

Partner @a16z, passionate about product marketing, recovering industry analyst, underperforming runner

[PME @itsyourcode]

GPU-accelerated plot engine written from scratch.

Visualize 5M+ points at 60 FPS on a standard MBP.

[PME @itsyourcode]

Announcing Probably: the verifiable data agent

We raised a $9M seed round led by @a16z and @Accel to build an AI agent that can ingest, transform, analyze and visualize raw data.

Single take, unedited video analyzing 1B+ row NOAA weather data from Clickhouse 👇

[Michael King @MobileDataMike]

So great openings at the most exciting AI companies around.. @RobertNWeber has the details!

[Robert Weber @RobertNWeber]

If you were recently laid off at Meta Gen AI, my dms are open. Plenty of exciting opportunities at companies in the a16z portfolio.

[Michael King @MobileDataMike]

@jamdac @arampell @jamdac Great Points, I agree 100% with the idea of finding a wedge to land and then working to displace. Of course a key piece of that is finding the right audience who is excited about how you(as a new technology) can help then grow. Great piece!

[Jennifer Li @JenniferHli]

1/ Exciting news to share! 🚀 We're thrilled to double down on our partnership with @burkaygur, @gorkem  and the @fal team, together with friends @KindredVentures and @firstround. https://t.co/NlzmGBQAtO

[angela strange @astrange]

https://t.co/2kJIecKglg

[Jennifer Li @JenniferHli]

Thrilled to share that a16z is leading the Series A of @usepylon - the customer support platform purposefully built for B2B companies. This problem space is near and dear to my heart given my personal experience, see blog & a 🧵 https://t.co/Epac0D7crD
cc @zeyalater @jeffreysilv

[Ian Webster @iwebst]

AI is insecure by default.

The open secret is that most AI apps launch with serious flaws. It takes MORE time to secure these apps than it does to build them.

I learned this firsthand from shipping LLM agents to 200M users at Discord and supporting LLM evals for hundreds of companies.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Today, we’re launching @Promptfoo, an open-source company that helps find and fix vulnerabilities in AI powered apps before they ship, and announcing a $5M seed round led by @a16z.

[David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 @davidu]

1/ 🤓🚀🇺🇸 Builders can make great investors. We know this well @a16z — we were founded by technical founders (@pmarca and @bhorowitz) and we're a firm run by founders and technologists. And we want more technologists on the team...

[John Doyle @JohnDoyleCape]

Proud to announce that @CapeWireless has raised $61M led by @A_StarVC and @a16z to build the privacy-focused mobile service.

This is a big step for Cape — here’s how we got here, why privacy matters, and how the cellular network is key to regaining control of our personal data:

[martin_casado @martin_casado]

We've raised a $1.25B infrastructure fund! We love all infra, compute, network, storage, databases, data science, gen AI, dev tools ... from silicon to UIs.

Infra is the true root of value in tech. And we're deepening our commitment to it.

https://t.co/RjqVmSkXSV

[David George @DavidGeorge83]

We’ve raised $7.2b to continue investing in the future. You can read more here:

https://t.co/7ESBSwn2tA

@a16z

[Michael King @MobileDataMike]

This is huge, if you are building or thinking about building in Games, there's no better team to work with.

[andrew chen @andrewchen]

BIG NEWS:
i'm investing $30M in the next 45 days via the a16z SPEEDRUN program 😎

Yes, $750k per startup that joins the SPEEDRUN program plus obv it'll be a great way to work together on something. So come work with me at a16z's SPEEDRUN program -- we'll invest, work with you, expose you to the world's top investors/mentors, etc.

here's the best place to apply:
https://t.co/lExlSgiixi

Important dates and program details
Deadline: May 19, 2024
Notified of Selection: End of June at the latest!
Program Dates: July 29 - Oct 20 in Los Angeles ☀️

Our intensive 12-week program is highly selective, with ~ 1% of applicants accepted in our last cohort. Participants are supported not just with capital, but also by a highly curated set of industry coaches, mentors, and a community of ambitious founders. 80% of companies from SPEEDRUN’s first cohort secured funding from investors following Demo Day.

for example, in the most recent program, we had an amazing set of speakers:
- Mark Pincus, cofounder of Zynga
- Emily Greer, cofounder of Kongregate
- Eros Resmini, cofounder of Discord
- Kevin Lin, cofounder of Twitch
- ... and dozens more

What kinds of startups are we looking for?
tbh -- we are very open-minded! Great teams with ideas, before a product is built, is totally fine. But we also have startups with real revenue, a great product out there already, etc.

We are investing at the intersection of TECH x GAMES which means AI/infra, 3D tools, VR/AR, web3 games, gamified consumer apps, and much more. For AI and B2B startups, there's a huge advantage in being able to meet startups in your space as potential customers, and when you are working out product/market fit.

[David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 @davidu]

Let’s gooooo! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[Michael King @MobileDataMike]

Infrastructure= making AI awesome (by making it work)

[Yoko @stuffyokodraws]

0/ 99% of AI apps today are *workflow apps*, which execute a sequence of actions to get to the final state.

This is the year for the infra backbone of AI to shine, and why we @a16z are proud to lead @inngest’s seed round.

Read on for how AI apps use workflow engines in prod 🧵

[angela strange @astrange]

Insurance is a $7 trillion global data and risk business. Yet large parts of the insurance industry struggle to take advantage of modern data infrastructure. @joeschmidtiv & I are excited to announce our investment in hx! 🧵👇https://t.co/AGUtgBIqk4

[David Ulevitch 🇺🇸 @davidu]

📣✈️ Situational Intelligence For The Skies — Investing in @AirSpaceIntel https://t.co/SWKPbePBPk

[Michael King @MobileDataMike]

@jhaynie Can’t it be both?

[Michael King @MobileDataMike]

Some of you all know my very first career was in music and sound system engineering. Timing-wise this was the start of general purpose computers replacing specific hardware in music production. AI is a even bigger shift and @venturetwins and @illscience wrote a great piece on it

[Justine Moore @venturetwins]

Introducing our thesis on AI x music 🎶

Just as synthesizers and samplers revolutionized the music industry, generative tools will power the next creative leap for consumers, artists, and producers.

More from me + @illscience 👇

[Michael King @MobileDataMike]

Thanks for sharing this story!

[Ben Schaechter @Bensign]

The dream of becoming a park ranger has not died for the record 🙂

Thanks @mercury for sharing my/Vantage's story a bit more in detail!