Time for a Margit update! Here is the news: I’m “graduating” from operating partner to partner emeritus @a16z. First, let me back up. It seems that I do things in decade and a half increments. I got to the US in 1991 (October 19 is like a sort of birthday. Ask any immigrant and they will know their US birthday!). There was a tech recession at the time. Also, no American resume. Nor academic credentials. But this is America! And it came through for me. I spent a few years trying to get a job. I got a temp job at a tech PR firm. Then I got my first real break. A huge thank you to @simonecoxe and @maureenblanc for giving me my first real job and a shot at an actual career. That was a job as Account Executive at Blanc & Otus. I worked there for 4+ years. Then the talented @carynm650 and I started The Outcast Agency, which turned out to be the very best tech comms firm in the world. We built Outcast into the most sought after firm for tech franchises for over a decade and a half. We sold it to Nextfifteen (thank you, @timdyson . So that house was built; it’s still around and has amazing clients. @bhorowitz and @pmarca came calling. Before they ever raised money. These guys were ballsy. It was the height of the financial crisis, there was zero liquidity. Ben and Marc wanted to raise $300m. Just the two of them. When probed on this, Marc just said, “Let’s assume success, shall we?” Despite the risk…. It was a chance to build the top brand in venture capital. Period. Mind you, back then no VC firm was doing any marketing at all. It was seen as almost unseemly! I love building so I took a chance. The founders made me - I think - the first VC firm CMO. Now every firm has one of those, and that’s a good thing. Over the last 15 fabulous years, we’ve done so many things: - We marketed ahead of any result. We had to. So we marketed people and their ideas. - We invented going direct, creating a powerful content operation that allows us to communicate on our terms. - We produced events where people tried to crash multiple times and had to be escorted out by security. - Literally so many firsts and big things, there are too many to list them all. Now we actually have results! And we’re still the most exciting brand. a16z is full of talented people giving their best, full of amazing portfolio companies, and a very large and powerful network that everyone in our orbit can plug into. I can’t possibly thank every single person in the firm here, so I will keep it to the founders for being committed to building the top brand, and to @garcegarce of course. She was my first hire - she also took a chance on me and our entire project. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to the indefatigable @Mili10 , who has made my life easier and more productive for a decade. My sincerest thanks. Many more of you deserve a thank you, I’ll ping you directly. What’s ahead? I will be an active advisor for the next 6 months. We all want to make sure the change is smooth, in particular for the folks in our network who have a long-standing relationship. After that, I will not be gone and dead, haha. While I’ll take a nice break, I’ll also be looking for what to build next. My number won’t change. So feel free to reach out if you need anything. The house is built. I will forever bleed a16z. Here’s to more building!

📢New conference where AI is the primary author and reviewer! Current venues don't allow AI-written papers, so it's hard to assess the +/- of such works🤔 #Agents4Science solicits papers where AI is the main author w/ human advisors. 💡Initial reviews by LLM reviewers w/ final assessment + selection by human experts. 💡Submissions are asked to clearly document AI contribution. 💡All submissions/reviews will be public to enable transparent study of the strength and limitations of AI as researcher and reviewer. We expect AI will make mistakes and it will be instructive to study these in the open! Many thanks to the fantastic co-organizers and expert advisory board! Please see the website for more information.

Peter Thiel on why 70% of Millennials say they are pro-socialist: “When one has too much student debt or if housing is too unaffordable, then one will have negative capital for a long time… and if one has no stake in the capitalist system, then one may well turn against it.”

On the decline: patriotism, religion, family values, community On the rise: greed

Big Food is entering its Big Tobacco moment. Just as the tobacco industry was finally held accountable for the health effects and associated healthcare costs of smoking, a reckoning is happening for the food industry for its role in an epidemic of diet-related diseases. Like tobacco, ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks are a health disaster. And in fact, many of them were developed with the same science when tobacco companies owned several of the big food companies in the 1980s. And the playbook defending them is also the same. As one expert put it: “Deny, denounce, and delay.” But as with tobacco, change is coming. Lawsuits have begun. Public awareness is growing. Companies are scrambling to diversify with healthier brands. And the science is unequivocal: ultra-processed foods are driving chronic disease, early death, and enormous healthcare costs. It’s time to act on the science and help people live longer, healthier lives. Read more in my latest piece for @FortuneMagazine: 

Bet on the future. a16z LP Summit 2025.

I’m honored to be named to the TIME100 Health list for 2025. But what this really signals is the shift you’re driving in the future of health. A future where you have game-changing tools to help take control—and no longer settling for a system that manages symptoms. That’s why I co-founded @function. By measuring over 100 biomarkers, from heart and metabolic health to nutrient levels and toxic exposures, Function empowers you with— - access to your health data - insights you can act on - the power to stay proactive Thank you for believing in this future and for helping build it with us. Read the full @TIME 100 Health feature here: #TIME100Health #FunctionHealth

prediction: AI will collapse traditional medical specialties as we know them. medical specialties emerged out of necessity. as medicine became more complex, no single physician could master its full scope. we began dividing care by organ systems, technologies, and life stages — structures that mirrored both biology and the way symptoms typically presented. over time, hospitals, licensing bodies, and reimbursement systems ossified these divisions. we learned to think this way not just because it made biological sense, but because it was the only way we could manage complexity.