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Andreessen Horowitz has two partners sitting on the boards of companies that now compete with each other: Ben Horowitz at Databricks and Martin Casado at Fivetran. Nothing too scandalous on the surface, except the Department of Justice has reportedly been investigating the arrangement for almost a year, dusting off a 112-year-old antitrust law that's rarely used against VCs.
Board conflicts aren't exactly new, and these companies weren't necessarily direct competitors when a16z first invested in them. But as portfolio companies expand into each other's markets, the DOJ's scrutiny raises a much bigger question for venture firms: How do you manage board seats when the boundaries between your portfolio companies keep moving?
On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the a16z probe, what it could mean for VCs, and more of the week’s headlines.
Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
1:02 TechCrunch Disrupt and the Startup Battlefield 200
3:17 The DOJ is investigating a16z over board seats
14:47 Why Stripe just paid $7.5B for “the Stripe for AI”
18:18 The mid-tier AI scramble: gateways, pivots, and acquihires
23:17 Anthropic's revenue surges while OpenAI's losses deepen
27:08 Also raises $150M and drops the “micro mobility” label
32:30 Uber teams up with Zipline
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