Using media to manipulate the future, what exactly is a16z up to?

Author: @aaronjmars

Translation: Deep潮TechFlow

Andreessen Horowitz Fund (简称 @a16z) is undergoing a fundamental transformation. This once regarded as Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firm is evolving into a more ambitious organization — an engine that coherently integrates technology with political realities.

August 2025 saw the clearest signal: Alex Danco (@Alex_Danco) joined a16z as a Contributor-at-Large, responsible for leading the company’s written content output. This appointment is not merely a public relations role. Danco views writing as a “power transfer technology,” believing that legitimacy is not unilaterally “bestowed” by institutions, but achieved through “mutual enlightenment” between authors and readers.

However, Danco’s addition is just a part of this enormous machine. November 2025, a16z published its “New Media Manifesto,” revealing an operational model far beyond traditional venture capital. The firm now explicitly offers a service called “Timeline Takeover”—coordinating video, podcasts, articles, and social media content to help portfolio companies achieve the goal of “winning a day on the internet.”

Building a media machine: a16z’s narrative revolution

a16z is constructing a complex, sophisticated media infrastructure. Led by Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg), the new media team gathers internal content creators known as “online legends,” and “frontline deployed New Media” personnel—who embed directly during portfolio product launches. Additionally, they have established a high-impact talent network to amplify selected narratives.

In October 2025, David Booth (@david__booth) joined a16z as Partner and Head of Ecosystem, focusing on building infrastructure he calls “preferential attachment.” This mechanism aims to direct resources, talent, and attention toward a16z’s portfolio companies rather than competitors. As Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) explained upon Booth’s joining, startups need to enter a “cycle of continuous resource accumulation… from qualified executives and technical staff, through future funding rounds, brand momentum, public perception, customers, revenue, and even influence within government.”

To further strengthen its media layout, a16z plans to launch an 8-week New Media Fellowship starting January 2026, training operators, creators, and narrators, and assigning them to portfolio companies. This isn’t just consulting; it’s a parallel talent pipeline dedicated to narrative warfare.

a16z’s operational capabilities are astonishing. The team publishes content five times a week through multiple channels, operates an internal video production unit inspired by “new media legends” like Mr. Beast, and trains on-site. They also maintain “group chats, dinners, events, and hidden networks” to help talented and trustworthy individuals connect.

One portfolio company exemplifies the logical end point of this media machine: DoubleSpeed (@rareZuhair). This company uses AI to control thousands of social media accounts, ensuring their behavior “looks as human as possible.” Their slogan is straightforward and bold: “No more hiring.”

Twitter Outpost

a16z’s media infrastructure development traces back to 2022, when the firm invested $400 million supporting Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. As of September 2024, this investment reportedly lost $288 million, but financial loss is not the focus. Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) said at the time: “Elon is someone we know, and perhaps the only person in the world with the courage, intelligence, and ability to solve these problems and create the public space we all expect and deserve.”

a16z quickly dispatched personnel to embed within the Twitter team. Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk), a general partner focused on crypto, publicly announced he was “temporarily assisting Elon Musk in managing Twitter” alongside other talented individuals, and stated: “I (and a16z) believe this is an extremely important company capable of having a significant impact on the world.”

Infrastructure for prediction markets

However, the media machine is just part of a16z’s strategy. In his article “Prediction: The Heir of Postmodernism,” Alex Danco proposed that prediction markets represent a fundamental reshaping of the foundation of civilization, comparable in importance to modernism and postmodernism.

In October 2025, a16z, valued at $5 billion, co-led a $300 million Series D funding round for prediction market platform Kalshi. Partner Alex Immerman said prediction markets “have the opportunity to become the largest and most important financial markets of the future.”

a16z attempted to nominate its executive and Kalshi board member Brian Quintenz (@CFTCquintenz) as head of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the regulator of prediction markets. However, due to major conflicts of interest and opposition from crypto figures like the Winklevoss brothers, the White House withdrew Quintenz’s nomination in September or October 2025. This failed nomination reveals both a16z’s ambition to influence regulation and the current limitations it faces.

Meanwhile, trading volume in prediction markets has exploded. From early June 2024 to the election week, trading volume grew 42-fold, with platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi reaching tens of billions in monthly turnover. During the 2024 election, reporters and Wall Street traders began relying on prediction markets, which “outperformed polls,” becoming a “signal that the world can learn from.”

When CEOs like Brian Armstrong start referencing specific cryptocurrencies based on market signals in investor communications, this feedback loop becomes obvious: markets are not just prediction tools but are also coordinating reality.

Even Scott Kominers (@skominers), a prediction market expert at a16z, admits that “prediction markets are not always an ideal information aggregation tool: even for macro events, prediction markets may be insufficiently reliable; for micro issues, the size of prediction pools might be too small to provide meaningful signals.” Still, Kalshi’s annualized trading volume has exceeded $50 billion, growing more than 25 times since early 2024. At this scale, the boundary between prediction and coordination is increasingly blurred.

Redefining the political landscape

Marc Andreessen supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and even posted on Twitter “I support her” (“I’m with her”). However, by 2024, his stance had completely shifted. He and Ben Horowitz donated over $5 million to groups supporting Trump, with Andreessen alone donating up to $33.5 million to pro-crypto political groups—more than six times what he directly donated to Trump.

Andreessen said the Biden administration’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains was “the last straw,” because it would force startups to pay taxes on valuation increases. He criticized the Biden government’s push for a “soft authoritarian social revolution,” and pointed out the pressure for direct government scrutiny of tech companies.

This coordination extends to more covert levels. Andreessen organized WhatsApp group chats that became “meme sources of mainstream opinion,” described as “modern editions of samizdat,” fueling a nationwide “vibe shift.” These encrypted, disappearing-message groups are called “dark matter of American politics and media,” where “an astonishing shift of political focus towards Trump is shaped and negotiated.”

Erik Torenberg, now head of a16z’s new media team, played a crucial role in organizing these groups. He coordinates a16z’s “Timeline Takeover” service and also manages the political group chats shaping discourse around the 2024 election.

a16z’s legitimacy architecture

a16z sees itself as a “legitimacy bank,” where entrepreneurs can “withdraw legitimacy on credit or deposit legitimacy.” This is more than mere metaphor. In their article “How to be Legitimate,” Alex Danco and former Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky described the history of legitimacy formation in tech—from 1960s special interest groups, to 1980s authoritative reviews in PC Magazine, to today’s ecosystem built on coordinated influence.

The core insight: once a legitimacy architecture is established, what you sell is no longer just a product, but a vision of the future. As Sinofsky explained, when Microsoft sells to enterprises, “they only want to hear my ten-year plan.” Legitimacy derives from your ability to “credibly predict the future.”

That is what a16z is building: infrastructure that controls our understanding of possibilities, making certain futures seem inevitable.

Fusion of tech ecosystems

In April 2025, a16z officially launched the “American Innovators Network” with Y Combinator and several AI firms, positioning itself as “America’s small tech ecosystem,” claiming to lead the next wave of innovation. Their public stance: “If a candidate supports an optimistic, tech-driven future, we support them. If they want to kill vital technologies, we oppose them.”

Here’s a look at the ecosystem a16z has built:

Media infrastructure: led by Torenberg’s new media team providing “timeline takeover as a service,” internal production capabilities, and frontline narrative experts.

Talent pipeline: cultivating embedded teams within portfolio companies through the New Media Fellowship.

Platform layout: investing $400 million to support Twitter/X, with personnel directly embedded during transition.

Market infrastructure: as a major investor in Kalshi (valuation $5 billion), betting on prediction markets as coordination mechanisms.

Coordination network: including WhatsApp groups, dinners, and a “hidden network” for talented and trusted individuals to connect.

Political alliances: establishing direct relationships with the Trump administration, political donations exceeding $40 million.

Attempting to influence regulation: though Quintenz’s nomination failed, it underscores ambitions and current limitations.

F1 pit stop metaphor

a16z uses the metaphor of F1 racing to describe itself. General Partners are drivers, but “the outcome of the race is decided well before the start, by those who design the best chassis, hire top engineers, train the repair teams, and build a fanatic fan base to sustain sponsorship flow.”

As David Booth wrote: “Adrian Newey hasn’t won any races, but his arrival as Red Bull’s CTO transformed them from a money-burning mid-tier team into an era-defining world champion team. And the top venture firms of the next decade will need not only the best ‘drivers’ but also thoughtful investments in their ‘race cars.’”

The machine a16z is building has multiple engines: one that creates legitimacy through coordinated media; one that aligns capital and attention through prediction markets; one that coordinates political outcomes via encrypted chats and strategic donations; and one that aligns talent flow through fellowships and “ecosystem” infrastructure.

What does this mean?

When prediction markets are widely adopted by institutions and integrated with media machinery, they cease to be mere prediction tools. Markets will generate “more disciplined real-time probabilities than polls, commentators, or headlines”—and when journalists, traders, and executives base decisions on these probabilities, markets become self-fulfilling.

According to a16z’s own framework, “prediction” is gradually becoming the new paradigm after postmodernism—a new way to organize human attention, capital, and action. a16z has already positioned itself at every critical node:

Investing in platforms that set odds;

Hiring media teams that decide which issues matter;

Organizing political strategy through coordinated chatter;

Training the next generation of talent;

Attempting (though currently failing) to embed itself within regulatory bodies.

This is not conspiracy; it’s a complex system designed by those who understand that “controlling belief infrastructure is more valuable than controlling production infrastructure.”

Quintenz’s failed nomination indicates that this strategy still faces limitations. Opposition from within the crypto industry, concerns over conflicts of interest, and complex political factors still prevent overt “regulatory capture” actions.

But the broader machine is still running. The new media team continues to expand, prediction markets grow, coordination networks deepen, and fellowship programs place trained narrative experts into portfolio companies.

The goal of this game is not merely predicting the future but building the infrastructure that determines what futures are comprehensible, what questions are raised, and which answers appear authoritative.

a16z is openly constructing this infrastructure, displaying remarkable transparency about what they are doing—while most are still arguing whether prediction markets are “more accurate than polls.”