From selling startups to Google to backing multibillion‑dollar AI winners - Anish Acharya [a16Z] episode artwork

EPISODE · Mar 12, 2026 · 55 MIN

From selling startups to Google to backing multibillion‑dollar AI winners - Anish Acharya [a16Z]

from BILLIONS · host Guillaume Moubeche

Today on BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Anish Acharya.He sold his first company to Google. His second to Credit Karma — then stayed and helped scale their U.S. Card business to nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue.In 2019, Andreessen Horowitz made him a General Partner. Since then, he's led the Series A in Deel, which just hit a $17.3 billion valuation in October 2025.Most VCs have never operated anything. Anish built, scaled, sold, and then learned how to pick.Anish, thanks a lot for being here !TIMELINE : 00:00:00 - 00:02:30 : Anish Acharya’s entrepreneurial journey00:02:30 - 00:06:28 : Why 2008 and today are the most exciting times for founders00:06:28 - 00:11:38 : The AI model competition and Google's comeback00:11:38 - 00:14:50 : Why the "LLM wrapper" fear is no longer relevant00:14:50 - 00:20:07 : Multi-model approach and the future of AI applications00:20:07 - 00:24:01 : Learning from Credit Karma and the importance of winning00:24:01 - 00:29:14 : Why paternalism kills products and going with human nature00:29:14 - 00:35:28 : AI's human impact and why it's different from social media00:35:28 - 00:42:45 : The future of coding, jobs, and why SaaS isn't dead00:42:45 - 00:55:21 : Investing in Deel, AI companionship, and what it costs to winREFERENCESMark Zuckerberg Sam Altman Sergey Brin Nicolas Dessaigne - Billions EP2Andrej Karpathy Alex Bouaziz Shuo Wang Harry Stebbings - Billions EP4Eugenia Kuyda Credit KarmaDeel ChatGPT Gemini Claude GrokCursor Lovable HarveyReplikaWabiLife360 PapayaQwen

Today on BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Anish Acharya.He sold his first company to Google. His second to Credit Karma — then stayed and helped scale their U.S. Card business to nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue.In 2019, Andreessen Horowitz made him a General Partner. Since then, he's led the Series A in Deel, which just hit a $17.3 billion valuation in October 2025.Most VCs have never operated anything. Anish built, scaled, sold, and then learned how to pick.Anish, thanks a lot for being here !TIMELINE : 00:00:00 - 00:02:30 : Anish Acharya’s entrepreneurial journey00:02:30 - 00:06:28 : Why 2008 and today are the most exciting times for founders00:06:28 - 00:11:38 : The AI model competition and Google's comeback00:11:38 - 00:14:50 : Why the "LLM wrapper" fear is no longer relevant00:14:50 - 00:20:07 : Multi-model approach and the future of AI applications00:20:07 - 00:24:01 : Learning from Credit Karma and the importance of winning00:24:01 - 00:29:14 : Why paternalism kills products and going with human nature00:29:14 - 00:35:28 : AI's human impact and why it's different from social media00:35:28 - 00:42:45 : The future of coding, jobs, and why SaaS isn't dead00:42:45 - 00:55:21 : Investing in Deel, AI companionship, and what it costs to winREFERENCESMark Zuckerberg Sam Altman Sergey Brin Nicolas Dessaigne - Billions EP2Andrej Karpathy Alex Bouaziz Shuo Wang Harry Stebbings - Billions EP4Eugenia Kuyda Credit KarmaDeel ChatGPT Gemini Claude GrokCursor Lovable HarveyReplikaWabiLife360 PapayaQwen

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From selling startups to Google to backing multibillion‑dollar AI winners - Anish Acharya [a16Z]

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Today on BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Anish Acharya.He sold his first company to Google. His second to Credit Karma — then stayed and helped scale their U.S. Card business to nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue.In 2019, Andreessen Horowitz...

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