Amazon and Google are on a collision course. When I was at eBay, we had a belief that no one was going to compete with us by replicating exactly what we were doing. We had first mover advantages and network effects. Amazon and Yahoo! both launched auction marketplaces in response to eBay’s strong growth, and…
More »We at a16z believe we are seeing the “creative destruction” of traditional physical retailers by their online competitors. At a high level, this is happening for two reasons. First, e-commerce companies are substantially advantaged in terms of cost structures, particularly in areas like real estate, labor and inventory. Second, we believe that we’re seeing an…
More »Online is clearly taking share from brick and mortar…this is likely to continue —International Council of Shopping Centers, last week America has too many malls. I’ve recently blogged that many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are being threatened with “economic destruction” by their advantaged online competition. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, anchorwoman Nicole Lapin asked about…
More »Competition, send ‘em south. If they’re gonna drown put a hose in their mouth —Mark Knopfler, Boom Like That If you’re a physical retailer and you sell the same SKU’s as Amazon, you will not have a Happy Holiday this season. Starting with the hoopla around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the media has been…
More »We at a16z could not possibly be more bullish on the prospects for e-commerce, and we believe growth is poised to accelerate. Part of the reason for this is due to competitive market dynamics. As I’ve blogged before, e-commerce players have substantial cost advantages over their physical competitors. They are massively more efficient in terms…
More »Joseph Schumpeter said in his theory of “creative destruction” that the “process of industrial mutation…incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism.” I believe we’re approaching a sea change in retail where physical retail is…
More »Marc and Ben founded Andreessen Horowitz with some very explicit beliefs. We would invest in Information Technology companies, and not in things medical, green or clean. We would have a preference for companies with deep technical roots and innovations. We would have one office, in Silicon Valley, and would not seek to invest in companies…
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