Over 70% of people in China are optimistic about AI and less than 30% in America were optimistic about AI.
We have placed the largest bet in American history on the proposition that this country will win the next century of technology. We won the industrial revolution and we did that because we had superior technology. And here we are on the dawn of a new technological revolution, the AI revolution. Every interesting company that gets started is a technology company. Now, America does give everybody a chance and entrepreneurs can really count on that.
If America loses its technology edge and its dominance, the entire world will lose as well. What makes the American system irreplaceable for the world at large?
Everybody's in the same game, but the rules of the game have changed. And what I mean by that is...
So we've had a lot of excellent discussions. We've talked a lot about policy. But we're actually going to start this more on the venture capital and technology side. You recently shared a blog post that the firm has raised over $15 billion in a new fundraising set of funds for the firm, the largest in a16z history. What do you think are the new obligations that come with that kind of scale? We are the largest venture capital firm in the world. And how does that tie into the mission?
Yeah. So, it's interesting. My old mentor Andy Grove said to me, he said, "Ben, when you're a leader in an industry, then the whole industry, the size of it, the ethics of it, the morality of it kind of depends on you." And I remember thinking when he said that to me, he was running Intel at the time, I thought, "Wow, I'm glad I'm never going to be the leader of an industry because that's a lot of responsibility." But here I am. Here we are. And I think you know for us you have to take a step back and say okay for the technology industry and particularly for kind of new technology companies what does it need to be and you know you have to think about it on a large scale. And the way we've been thinking about it is well if you go all the way back to humanity like what's important for humanity what advances humanity. And it really kind of comes down to do people have a chance to contribute because when people have a chance to contribute then they can have an impact and then they can kind of advance the state of things for everybody. And there's really been no country in the world that comes close to America at giving people a shot. You know giving them a chance to succeed and you know it's not a completely equal chance. Some people are born rich, some people are born poor, some people have better genetics, some people live in dysfunctional families and so forth. But a chance and most countries people don't have a chance you know or they have a very small chance, a very slim chance. And so that ends up being really important. And then if you think about why does America have the influence it has today from a military standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a cultural standpoint, it comes back to well, we won the industrial revolution. And we did that because we had superior technology. And here we are on the dawn of a new technological revolution, the AI revolution. And are we going to win? And are we going to have that influence? And are we going to be able to give people a shot and kind of to continue to advance humanity. I think that's an open question right now. And so when I think about our role in the industry, it's what can we do to help America win technologically? And that's everything from what we invest in to how we integrate into the government and make it accessible to all the citizens and you know integrate with our allies and so forth. And so it's a big mission. It's a lot of work. And you know it's why we have American Dynamism and the conference and everything.
Yeah. You know you have said that the American way, you know giving people a shot, that if we lose this technology race, if America loses its technology edge and this dominance, that the entire world will lose as well. What makes the American system irreplaceable? Why is our technological dominance not just good for America but actually good for the world at large?
Yes. So I think a lot of things go into it but to me it always comes back to there's a line in the Declaration of Independence that is very well known but also underrated which is we hold these truths to be self-evident. And what does that mean? Well it means that you know these truths didn't come from us. They're truths they are self-evident. They came from a higher thing. They came from God. We didn't make these rules. We didn't give you these rights. We didn't give you this freedom. It came from something else. And that's really really important because it means like if I'm the president, if I'm Congress, no matter who I am, I can't change it. No matter how much I want to change it. And you know there are many who would like to change some things who think they know better than each other. Yeah. Yeah. And you know like that is a thing. But because of that those freedoms that you have in America are really really protected to a degree that they're not in any other country and they're very hard to lose. And we've seen this you know there's just a great talk about free speech. We've seen this with free speech where countries are like, well, you know, maybe that's not such a good idea anymore. But if it can't be taken, if it didn't come from people, it can't be taken away from people. And that's been very very powerful and very persistent, I think, over the entire history of the country. And it's really unique. You know, there aren't other countries who have quite as strong a version of that.
Absolutely. You've seen since we've launched, you know it's now been four plus years since we launched the American Dynamism practice. We're on our second fund. You and Mark have been incredible supporters of this effort of investing in the national interest at the intersection of advanced software and hardware and you know rebuilding not just the defense industrial base but manufacturing and all the precursors that go along with it. What's been most surprising to you that you've learned about investing at these intersections of national security and venture capital? You know, along with it came a big presence in Washington. So what's been the most surprising? What do you think the biggest learning has been?
Well, you know, it's been interesting because if you go back to kind of pre-ChatGPT, the conventional wisdom was, you know, China had this big AI lead on us. And then ChatGPT comes out and says oh well maybe no we have a lead now and then you know things have evolved from there. But the thing that was true about the kind of old incorrect idea was that they were way ahead of us in integrating their AI technology with their government you know on a kind of military basis on a bureaucracy basis you know and all facets. And so you know when we started we were coming from I would say very far behind you know in that idea. The thing that's been surprising though is like how fast we've been catching up. And I think that that's been really kind of heartening from both the number of entrepreneurs that want to help and then the willingness of the US government to say, "Hey, we're interested in these new technologies. We're interested in these new companies. We're not stuck in our ways. We'll change the rules if we have to." And that's been you know it's been amazingly fruitful and I think that you know we're seeing it in the kind of current conflicts that we have and you know it gives me great hope that you know if we keep at it that we'll be very strong going forward.
Yeah, I agree. I think this is a moment of optimism to see just how quickly things can shift when there's a sense of urgency and a sense of change makers. I want to talk about AI and policy. We had Emil Michael earlier, the under secretary of war for research and development, CTO of the department of war here. He was obviously in the news talking about Anthropic over the last week, but this isn't an issue. It may have bubbled up to the mainstream news in the last week, but this has been an ongoing issue. Let's just actually talk about Anthropic and AI that's like directly head-on right now. Yeah. And then we'll talk broader about policy in Washington.
Yeah. So, look, I think to me the thing on the whole Anthropic kerfuffle that nobody's really said out loud, but is the obvious thing that happened is, you know, if you understand deals, particularly software deals, you realize that that deal did not fall apart because of philosophical differences. It fell apart because Anthropic wanted out of the deal. And you know that because they had all the leverage. You know, they were already deployed. We're about to go to war. Like that, nobody's ever had more leverage than that in a software deal. So anything reasonable that they would have asked for, they would have gotten like even probably beyond what they should have. But the fact that they, you know, found something they could walk away on and then didn't return Emil's calls for whatever the three calls and then the call to the admin or all those things that happened. It's just why would you not return the call if you wanted in the deal? They just wanted out of the deal. Now, I don't know why they wanted out of the deal, whether it was an employee thing or Dario thing or what have you, but you know, that's what happened. And I think the fact that it's getting reported on like there's some ethical conflict, I don't think there is. I think that and in fact, if you wanted somebody to use your AI safely, nobody has more rules than the US government, you know, particularly the Department of War. And nobody is more by the way. And since I'm speaking to a Washington crowd, you know this. If you were to break those rules, there is a 100% chance it's getting leaked to the press immediately. You know, like there are no secrets in Washington. So, you know, the whole thing was a little bit surreal to me to watch at least at this point.
Well, what do you think that is? Is there anything that founders should be thinking about? People that want to sell to the government, work with the government. How should they approach it inside their own companies? Do you, you know, maybe Anthropic's a one-off? Yeah. But you and I have been in Silicon Valley long enough to know that these issues tend not to come up and go away. They tend to stick around. What would you say to the founders that want to build for the national interest, but you know, still are coming from a Silicon Valley mindset? What do they need to think about? How should they talk to their teams? You know, how can they build the products that are needed for our government to effectively have the best and most capable technologies?
Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. When I spoke to the firm about it the first time when we started American Dynamism and so forth, I said, look, you know, like you can have whatever geopolitical views you want to have, but like the world is what it is. You know, it's not like everybody has agreed on peace worldwide and it's not as if everybody's agreed not to commit crime ever. So like we do have crime, we do have war, we have these things and then you have to think about okay the people that we grew up with who have gone into the military risk their lives to save our lives. You are making the call because you are better ethically and you know more about geopolitics than the people in the State Department and the people running the Department of War and the people running the intelligence agencies. You're going to decide that those people who are sacrificing their lives, putting their lives on the line to protect us don't get the best technology. Like I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So like you don't have to work here if you want to do that. That'd be crazy.
Yeah. Think you know better than the State Department.
Yeah. I mean, we have this issue. I mean, you know, we're board members of these companies and you know, the founder will call us, the CEO will call us and say, you know, I have some employees that don't think we should do business with this country or this country. And it's like, are you the State Department? Do you know better? That's crazy. And by the way, what a slippery slope to go down. You don't want to be in that position.
