In a recent episode of the firm’s podcast, a16z leaders laid out their vision for keeping America on the cutting edge — and it’s a vision that relies heavily on bringing allies and partners along for the ride.
“It’s been our belief, our strong belief that drop a person into any country in the world and they don’t have the culture, and they don’t have money and capital resources yet, and they just have an idea of how to make the world a better place — their best shot is in America,” said Ben Horowitz, co-founder and general partner at a16z. “And that’s just a very, very special thing. And so a big mission of our firm is kind of trying to preserve that special thing that is America.”
To do that, we have to be a leader technologically. We have to be a tech leader. And that’s kind of really our role in the ecosystem and in the world is to help America be a leader.
But as Horowitz and his colleagues have learned through their interactions with investors and policymakers around the world, preserving American leadership in tech is not something that can be done in a vacuum. Increasingly, countries are looking not just to benefit from American innovation, but to play a role in shaping it.
Enter Anne Neuberger, a former senior official in the U.S. intelligence community who recently joined a16z to head up its global affairs efforts. For Neuberger, the blurring of lines between technology and diplomacy is not just an opportunity for American firms to expand their reach — it’s a national security imperative.
“What I saw happen in the years in the intelligence community and the White House is technology move from being a tool of diplomacy and national power to the arena of it,” Neuberger explained. “The supply chain for chips was not a technology issue, as much as a foundational economic and national security issue. The supply chain for the components that go into drugs, when used by one country to constrain or have an impact on another country, becomes a tool of national power.”
Deterrence is no longer just the size of a military. It’s the pace of innovation in reacting to cheap software-built tech that adversaries may be using, whether they’re a country, criminal or terrorist group. And those technologies today are not being built by governments, they’re being built by the private sector.
For a16z, that means taking a more active role in shaping the global conversation around responsible technology development and deployment. It means advising policymakers on the kinds of frameworks and guardrails that can enable innovation while mitigating risks. And it means building relationships not just with governments, but with an entire ecosystem of partners who have a stake in the future of technology.
Of course, a16z is not just in the business of shaping policy — it’s in the business of helping startups become global giants. And on that front, too, the firm is ramping up its efforts to give its portfolio companies a leg up on the international stage.
“Products and technology travel faster than companies can,” noted Jen Kha, a general partner at a16z who leads the firm’s global expansion initiatives. “So what happens is for startup companies, usually in the older days, you didn’t care about going international until you had a few hundred million dollars in revenue. Now these companies have to go sooner and sooner.”
To help them do that, a16z is leveraging its global network and expertise to advise startups on everything from navigating regulatory landscapes to finding the right local talent to partner with. And it’s putting boots on the ground in key markets around the world to ensure that its companies have the granular, market-specific insights they need to succeed.
But even as a16z works to give its startups a global edge, its leaders are clear-eyed about the challenges and complexities of a world where technology is increasingly interwoven with politics, culture, and values. Nowhere is that more evident than in the realm of artificial intelligence, where the data and assumptions that underpin machine learning models can have profound consequences for how those models behave in the real world.
“When AI becomes the interface for everything, every tool we have, every technology we use, is going to be built on these models, and the models are not objective,” warned Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO and current chairman of the U.S. Defense Innovation Board, who joined the podcast as a special guest. “They have opinions. They have strong opinions on things like history, on culture, on values, and those are very different depending on where you are.”
Navigating those differences — and building AI systems that reflect shared values and principles — will require a level of global coordination and collaboration that has so far proven elusive. But for a16z, it’s a challenge that the U.S. tech sector cannot afford to shrink from.
Because in the end, the firm’s leaders argue, American technological leadership is not just about American competitiveness — it’s about the competitiveness of an entire model of innovation that has powered progress and prosperity around the world. And at a time when that model faces mounting skepticism and scrutiny, from Beijing to Brussels, Silicon Valley cannot afford to go it alone.
“The number one question we often get when we’re visiting different countries is, how do you recreate Silicon Valley locally?” Horowitz mused. “I don’t think that’s true, by the way. I think that’s happy talk.”
Instead, he argued, the key to replicating Silicon Valley’s success lies in a combination of talent, laws and policies that facilitate entrepreneurship, and a culture that celebrates rather than vilifies those who strike out on their own to build something new. And while the U.S. has all three ingredients in abundance, Horowitz cautioned, it cannot take them for granted.
“It’s something that I think we have to just be aware of how special that is and unique in the world, and then we can try and help other people do it,” he said. “But we also have to try equally hard not to wreck it ourselves.”
In other words? American tech may still be the engine that could. But in a world where innovation knows no borders, it’s going to need all the help it can get to keep chugging along.
To hear more insights from a16z’s global leadership team, check out the full episode of the a16z Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can also follow the firm on Twitter at @a16z and subscribe to its newsletter at a16z.com/articles for the latest on its global expansion efforts and other leading-edge technology trends.
