What Ben Horowitz Says To Fund Now
The man-year rule that protected every software startup just broke, and if you keep underwriting deals on the old moat you are paying for defensibility that no longer exists.
What Ben Horowitz Says To Fund Now
The man-year rule that protected every software startup just broke, and if you keep underwriting deals on the old moat you are paying for defensibility that no longer exists.
Guillermo Flor
Oct 25, 2026
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For decades one law held: a small team with a three-year head start was untouchable, because Google was never going to hire 2,000 engineers to catch them.
Ben Horowitz just declared that law dead.
Three things follow:
money now replicates talent, scarcity collapsed to roughly 40 people on earth, and half of what investors still price as a moat is worthless.
That’s the thesis Ben Horowitz has
In this issue you'll find:
Why the market is wrong that incumbents are finished
, even as AI products grow revenue faster than anything before
The old law that just died
: you could never hire your way past a three-year head start
Why Elon catching the frontier models proves money now replicates talent
The new scarcity: roughly 40 people on earth can build a frontier model, and schools can't make more
AI is the greatest equalizer of opportunity we've seen, and crypto already showed how the little guy wins
The job-destruction bet almost no one is pricing correctly
The IPO bar moved from $50M to $1B, and it changed what you fund before exit
The trade Horowitz calls a really good business idea: AI-powered PE roll-ups, and why a16z won't run it
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1. Why the market is wrong that incumbents are finished, even as AI products grow revenue faster than anything before
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