a16z's Marketplace 100 list is built from credit-card transaction data, which means it captures consumer marketplaces with high US volume but misses B2B marketplaces and international ones. The firm organizes teams, networks, and capital specifically to help marketplace founders hire, build partnerships, and scale.
So most of us, you know, know about a16z as marketplace founders here, and you did kind of give us a brief kind of overview. But, you know, maybe for those that aren't as familiar with it, and, you know, those of us that just kind of see some of the awesome resources that you guys put out, such as like the Marketplace 100 list, which I would say all of us here aspire to be on.
I will say that it's based just on credit card panels. So every time we publish that list, I get a bunch of people being like, you missed me. And if you're like a B2B marketplace, if you're not kind of, you know, if you don't have a lot of transactions in the US, it can be hard. So hopefully it's a helpful resource, but I understand there's limitations to it.
Yeah, it's a really great resource. Um, but, you know, yeah, could you kind of go a little bit deeper though, as far as, you know, like an overview of a16z and, uh, maybe even kind of like the org structure there and how you kind of work with and, uh, support, um, you know, marketplace, uh, founders?
Yeah, so I walked into the office and, you know, there was an office with don't know, call it like 150 people. And I was like, wow, this is crazy. And they're like, oh yeah, there's a second office that has another 100 people. And so a16z now, I think, has about somewhere between 300 and 400 people, the majority of whom are what we call people on our operating teams. And so their job is basically to build networks and then be the bridge between those networks and our founders and our portfolio companies. And so whether that's hiring and talent, whether that is corporate partners, whether that's creators and influencers, whether that's media, kind of like whatever those networks end up being, we just try to put a bunch of people in there who can help kind of build and maintain those networks. And then hopefully that accelerates the rate at which kind of our portfolio companies can grow because they can get much easier access to those networks. I think the way Mark and Ben envisioned it when they started it was basically, as a founder, there's a bunch of networks you need access to as you grow. And so a lot of— that starts with hiring, then it can be corporate partners, then it can be press and media, then it's downstream capital. And they've added to those networks as they've grown, but it was basically, where do you need to get plugged into in order to go from young, hungry product founder with a unique insight on technology, the world, to a kind of public market CEO. And so that's kind of the way the firm, the way the broader firm is structured. And so for different companies, that means different things, but I think it kind of reflects their commitment to putting themselves in the same position as founders.
