Chris Dixon: From Quant Trading to Building a16z Crypto

And, at the time I joined, there were only a couple of investing partners and there's only one fund. Now we have sort of this complex of funds. And I was, you know, reasonably prominent sort of angel investor, blogger. They were probably, you know, looking at people that had some had been doing it for some period of time. I mean, I don't know exactly why. But, I think in the end, we just sort of hit it off. Chris Dixon grew up in Ohio, got a computer in the nineteen eighties, and taught himself c and assembly language by making video games. After college, he wrote Monte Carlo simulations at an options market making firm in New York, then left to co found SiteAdvisor, an Internet security company sold to McAfee in 2006. Two years later, he started an AI company called Hunch, built on neural networks that didn't yet have the GPU power to work well. It sold to eBay in 2011. In 2013, he joined Andreessen Horowitz, where he led a $75,000,000 round for Oculus, made the firm's early investment in Coinbase, and eventually built a sixteen z's dedicated crypto practice, now in its fourth fund. In this conversation, Dixon traces the full arc from quant finance to seed investing to Washington policy work on stablecoin legislation and explains the framework behind his most unconventional bets. This episode previously aired on the Internet History Podcast. Brian McCullough speaks with Chris Dixon, general partner at a sixteen z. Chris Dixon, thanks for coming on to talk to us today. Thanks for having me, Brian. Yeah. You and I have spoken many, many times, and I feel like we have gotten some of your beginning before. Mhmm. But, let me go back to the very, very beginning and ask you about, becoming a programmer. Like, what what was what were your first encounters with computers, and how did you know in terms of programming and computers that this is what I want to do? Yeah. I mean, I was I think this is a fairly common thing in tech, but I just, as a kid, like, got a computer, this is back in the nineteen eighties and, like, just, you know, wanted to make video games and enjoyed programming. And it was real you know, it was kind of a cultish, I don't know, niche activity back then. And, and just, you know, really enjoyed it. Like, I I think kind of, you know, we'd say today, got into a flow state and just sort of designing stuff and sort of figuring it all out. And, Yeah. And it just really and I so I'm I know I was doing, C programming and assembly language programming and making graphics stuff and video games, and was really into it. And then I, I was in a school in college in the early nineties, and, at the time, I kinda felt like computing had gotten to corporate. And, like, it …