The Kleenex Phenomenon: Why Speed to Default Is the New Moat in AI | Jennifer Li, a16z
April 28, 2026
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38:17Now PlayingThe Kleenex Phenomenon: Why Speed to Default Is the New Moat in AI | Jennifer Li, a16z
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as posted by the channelJennifer Li, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), breaks down why the firm allocated $1.7 billion of its latest $15 billion fund specifically toward AI infrastructure, and what she's betting on next.
Jennifer has backed ElevenLabs from Series A all the way through Series D, watching it grow to an $11 billion valuation. In this episode, she explains what she saw in voice AI before anyone else did, what makes a founder worth backing regardless of the tech, and why the next wave of AI infrastructure is being rebuilt from the ground up.
In this episode:
- Why a16z bet $1.7B on AI infrastructure (and why now)
- The shift from cloud to AI-native infrastructure: storage, compute, orchestration, memory
- How ElevenLabs crossed the uncanny valley in synthetic voice
- Voice agents as the first AI category to truly scale in the enterprise
- What "king-making" in AI go-to-market actually looks like
- The traits that made Jennifer write a check for ElevenLabs on founder conviction alone
- Open source vs. frontier models: what 2027 looks like
- Why world models and vision language models are the next unlock
- AI and human creativity: why directors and authors won't be replaced
- How a 1-2 person studio can now make a full movie
Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow
Guest: Jennifer Li, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
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Keywords: a16z AI infrastructure, Andreessen Horowitz AI fund, ElevenLabs investment, Jennifer Li a16z, AI infrastructure investing, voice AI startups, AI go-to-market strategy, frontier models 2025, open source AI, AI developer tools, world models, vision language models, AI creativity, venture capital AI, GTMnow podcast
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