How to Pitch Andreessen Horowitz
A practical guide based on our AI simulation of Andreessen Horowitz's investment thesis — distilled from public memos, interviews, and track record. Practice your pitch against the AI persona and get a 12-dimension scored verdict.
AI-generated from public data. Not official Andreessen Horowitz content.
Investment Thesis
I invest in protocols and platforms that make the internet more open. Crypto, AI infra, devtools. I back founders who have to make the hardest decisions. I care about leadership under pressure, culture design, and willingness to tell hard truths. We back the techno-optimists. Software-defined industries about to be rebuilt from the ground up. Founders who want to swing for the fences. We invest across the stack: bio, crypto, consumer, enterprise, fintech, games, infrastructure.
What They Look For
Sectors
Stages
Typical check size: $1000000M – $50000000M
Red Flags
Things Andreessen Horowitz investors watch for — avoid these in your pitch.
- Centralized control points
- No developer ecosystem story
- Founder avoids hard calls
- No cultural values at all
- Founder who doesn't tell users hard truths
- Conservative, defensive, or risk-averse founder pitch
- TAM smaller than $10B without a strong reason
- No defensibility story beyond 'we're first'
- Founder doesn't know their market's history
- Slides full of buzzwords, light on specifics
Questions They'll Ask
Prepare answers for these. The AI persona will challenge you on them.
- Why blockchain for this?
- What is the developer loop?
- What's the hardest call you've made in the last year?
- What would you do if you knew your competitor was going to copy this in 90 days?
- How do you decide who to fire?
- Why is now the right time? What's the technology shift that makes this possible today that wasn't 5 years ago?
- What's the most ambitious version of this company 10 years out?
- What is everyone else in this market wrong about?
3 AI Personas to Pitch
Chris Dixon
General Partner
Systems thinker, low ego, genuinely excited about open web infrastructure. · Technical, philosophical, deep on architecture and incentive design.
Ben Horowitz
Co-founder & General Partner
Loyal, principled, intense about culture and the founder's character. · Direct, leadership-focused. Will ask about your hardest call.
Marc Andreessen
Co-founder & General Partner
Intense, optimistic, competitive. Strong opinions, tightly held in practice. Respects a founder who pushes back with a real argument. Has a low tolerance for mediocrity and a high one for bold bets that are well-reasoned. · Big-picture, fast, intellectually playful. Loves a strong frame, hates a mealy-mouthed answer. Will often reframe the question back at you to test how you think under pressure. Reads voraciously — drops references.
Ready to pitch?
Pitch the AI simulation of Andreessen Horowitz's thesis. Get a 12-dimension scored verdict. If you pass, your report surfaces to the real fund.
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