00:00Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is doubling down on its American dynamism thesis and practice,
00:05adding defense and space investor and former army captain Connor Love to the team.
00:10And Connor joins us now, joining from Lightspeed.
00:12It's great to have you on the show.
00:13Thanks for having me.
00:14Day one.
00:15You're very welcome.
00:16Day one on American dynamism.
00:20You, you know, reading about your investments at the last firm and like how you've approached
00:26your career, you would call it American exceptionalism.
00:30Right.
00:30But there's a close alignment between those two ideas.
00:34Just reflect on what it was that prompted you to join this firm.
00:38Yeah.
00:38Well, first of all, thanks for having me.
00:41We're in a pretty amazing opportunity right now to invest really in the fabric of America.
00:46And when Mark and Ben and team kind of approached me, look, this is a category that four years
00:51ago they didn't jump on the bandwagon.
00:53They said, hey, this is important to the fabric of America.
00:56This is important for the entrepreneurs and the technology future for our nation.
01:00And when given that opportunity, you know, you kind of get on, you have to get on board
01:05and join the team.
01:06So it's been amazing, you know, so far just to, you know, dive in and get to know everyone.
01:10I think in the end, when you take a step back and just look at the opportunity here, you
01:14know, as I said before, what's happening is a once in a generation opportunity where we're
01:18redefining what it really means to build in America.
01:21It's not just software primitives.
01:22I mean, it's things that are core to the fabric of America.
01:25It's defense technology.
01:27It's energy.
01:28It's many things.
01:29And so to join a team like Andreessen Horowitz and kind of continue to invest in back entrepreneurs
01:34in this ecosystem, I'm just really thrilled and excited to be able to do it.
01:38Connor, do you mind if I ask a bit more about the backstory?
01:41You know, you mentioned Mark Andreessen, Ben Horowitz.
01:44They approached you.
01:45You know, how did this all come together?
01:47It's actually funny.
01:48One of the partners and, you know, founders of American Dynamism, Catherine Boyle, I actually
01:53spoke to her about seven years ago.
01:55I had the privilege of serving in the military and was actually forward deployed in Iraq, you
01:59know, looking for what the next opportunity was in my professional career.
02:02And I connected with her really in just kind of a, you know, haphazard out of the blue way.
02:07And she said, hey, there's this company called Andrel.
02:09You should look at Andrel.
02:10Obviously, everyone knows what Andrel is these days.
02:13But I think importantly, I just got exposed to Silicon Valley.
02:17And I saw then what I know now that really technology will be a force for good, not just for
02:23the
02:23defense fabric of our nation, as I mentioned, but also just you can't have an industrial base
02:28in America if you don't have a burgeoning defense base.
02:31So it's to me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that is very much rooted in my background and
02:36just happens to connect at, you know, three in the morning with Catherine Boyle at, you know,
02:41when she was then at her previous firm.
02:45You've explained it, right, that it's not exclusively defense technology.
02:49American dynamism is broader than that.
02:51But right now, Andrel is the best-known case study, right?
02:55Sironic more recently in the news cycle.
02:58What is the next phase of American dynamism, do you think, Connor?
03:01Yeah, well, I put it in that lens, which is you really cannot have a defense industrial base
03:07without an industrial base.
03:09And when you look into what goes into these autonomous systems, these new platforms, it's
03:13really the subcomponents, it's really the parts, it's really the, you know, metal and
03:17the end components of what's going on.
03:19So when I think you take a step back and you look at, hey, obviously defense, we're creating
03:24a new opportunity for neoprimes to really capture and serve not just the United States, but also
03:29our allies.
03:30You see things like energy.
03:31You see things like core manufacturing.
03:34Importantly, you see things like space.
03:36Yes, there's a huge defense component to space, but as we put more kilograms of mass up to
03:40space in a lot cheaper way, you know, really it is, you know, kind of the next frontier
03:44of where we're going to be building, not just for defense and kind of government use cases,
03:48but all other parts of the economy.
03:51So I think when I take a step back and I look at American dynamism, as we call it now,
03:55I actually just view it as it's a proxy for how some of the most valuable companies in
04:00the world are created.
04:01I mean, historically, you look at Boeing.
04:02And historically, you look at, you know, all these companies that have been important
04:05to America, they've been very important to, you know, the American individual.
04:10They necessarily have not always been the most valuable companies.
04:14Technology is changing that.
04:15Technology is saying you can be both important to America and our allies and be some of the
04:19most valuable companies in the world.
04:21And that's what we and myself at Andreessen Horowitz are really excited to invest into.
04:26And a real is a big focus for the Bloomberg Tech audience.
04:29You will have seen the news this morning with Archer finally showing the autonomous VTOL
04:34platform.
04:35I think what would be interesting is, you know, you participated in Lightspeed's Anderil
04:40investment.
04:41Anderil, clearly important part of the American dynamism and A16Z more broadly portfolio.
04:48How are you going to approach that?
04:50Yeah.
04:50Well, I think I will say a couple of things about Anderil.
04:53The first thing is, when you think they've got to their last product, you're wrong.
04:58There's another product.
04:59And I think the beauty is, when you have such a complex use case that is the kind of, you
05:04know, Department of War and the American warfighter, there are a lot of problems that need to be
05:08solved.
05:09So, you know, to see this kind of partnership with Archer, I think, is only net good for
05:13the American warfighter and the American public.
05:15I think when you take a step back and say, you know, really, this market is massive.
05:19I mean, there are a lot of problems to be solved in the defense space.
05:23I mean, there's everything from missiles and what Castilian's doing to ground autonomy
05:26systems.
05:27I mean, it is really a massively large market where there's actually a ton of technology
05:32problems to be solved below it.
05:34I think the underlying substrate that I think is important, and what we look at, and Andresa
05:38and I've looked at in the past, is really what's happening in defense is this low-cost
05:43autonomy thesis.
05:45That is just, you know, it's playing out in the battlefield.
05:47Go look at what Saronic's done in kind of the conflict in Iran.
05:51Go look at, you know, the front battlefield of Ukraine.
05:53When you can introduce something that is literally 10 times cheaper and as performance and in
05:59mass, it really changes the game in terms of deterrence and what you can do for our
06:03nation.
06:04So I think, again, you take a step back, the market's big, and I think there's going to
06:08be a ton of opportunity.
06:10Kind of really quick, you know, you mentioned Catherine and Erin, regular contributors to the
06:14show, but with you, somebody joined the team that is a veteran, just in the 30 seconds we
06:19have.
06:19Would you reflect on that a little bit, the skill set and experience you bring?
06:23Yeah, I mean, there are more impressive people that have done some pretty amazing things for
06:27our country that I want to put in front of me.
06:29I do think, though, that time of service really just grounds me in why we are doing this.
06:35Like I said at the start, importantly, this is a category where you're not just doing good
06:40economically, but I do believe you're doing good for the world and for the American public.
06:43So having worn that uniform puts me in a position just to take a step back and say,
06:47hey, this means a lot, not just for our shareholders and for everyone, you know,
06:52back in Andreessen, but also for America.
06:54So I'm deeply thankful, and I'm going to keep doing it for decades.
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