# Frontier investors accept category risk to avoid being late

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/frontier-investors-accept-category-risk-to-avoid-being-late/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Chris Dixon](https://realalpha.app/people/chris-dixon/)
- Host: Erik Torenberg · General partner, Andreessen Horowitz · Helped build Product Hunt; founded On Deck, Village Global and Turpentine.
- Show: a16z Podcast
- Episode: [The Frontier Ideas a16z Wants to Fund Now | Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz & Chris Dixon](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/), Oct 22, 2026
- Moment: 15:25 to 18:13 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/frontier-investors-accept-category-risk-to-avoid-being-late/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=925

## Quote

> “We want to err on the side of being **too early**. We understand that sometimes things will be too early, and we're okay with kind of quote category risk.”
> — [Chris Dixon](https://realalpha.app/people/chris-dixon/) at [16:15](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=975) · a16z Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Timing is harder to predict than whether a good idea will work.
2. Frontier investing accepts that some categories may fail.
3. AI could pull years of technical progress forward.

## About this segment

Chris Dixon says good technology ideas usually work eventually, but timing is the hardest variable. Frontier is willing to fund categories that may fail as AI could pull decades of progress forward.

From “The Frontier Ideas a16z Wants to Fund Now | Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz & Chris Dixon”, Oct 22, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[15:32](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=932) this a lot like I think we I think I can speak for Mark and Ben they can comment but we believe that basically every good idea that we've ever seen that involved technology has eventually worked or we believe will work okay if it hasn't worked yet and and again the important qualifier good idea there are bad ideas but um and it's just kind of remarkable especially having lived through the internet um how many things um just you know almost everything that ended up working had a precursor that didn't work and maybe was 10 years too early.

[16:02](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=962) And so, you know, that's the hardest thing, I think, in technology is to predict the timing of these things. And there's just, it's so complicated, right? There's the technology, there's the culture, there's the business environment, there's the political environment, there's so many factors that go into these things and having it all line up. So, you know, and so I would say with, you know, I think generally at the firm, I would say specifically in the frontier.

[16:22](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=982) We want to err on the side of being too early. We understand that sometimes things will be too early, and we're okay with kind of quote category risk. Some categories may not work. Look, I mean, even things that sort of work didn't work. Like, you know, we sold Oculus, got bought, but the reality is, like, it's now 13 years later. I still believe very strongly in VR. We'd love to make VR investments, but it's 13 years later, and it's not, you know, it hasn't got as mainstream as we would have liked, so it took long.

[16:47](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=1007) It turned out there was just many more hard technical problems to solve. I kind of believe, I don't know, but Mark believes, I think that there, that with the stuff we're seeing in AI now, you know, you see the first sort of tipping happening in first software engineering, getting dramatically better than math. I think there's a scenario, and I believe this, and I kind of want to invest behind it, where we may be pulling forward 20 years of things that, you know, our whole mindset of how we think about technical risk.

[17:11](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=1031) And, oh, that's a science project, not an engineering project. I think we have to reevaluate that whole frame right now because I think things, you know, the sort of the, you know, if you look at these, the growth of, I mean, math is not the last thing that's going to change. Yeah. You know, you're about to have physics. A lot of stuff's going on hardware right now. I think it's dramatically, I think you can, a 30-person team can credibly build like a full stack device company in a way that you might have needed 1,000 people or something a decade ago.

[17:38](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=1058) Right. And I think, and you have these very, you know, very thoughtful, deep entrepreneurs who are looking for how do I take these new capabilities and do dramatic things? And, you know, so some of it's tactical, like how do I create more defensibility? How do I, you don't want to be two feet in front of the AI frontier and get sort of washed over by the tidal wave. But a lot of it's about just these amazing new capabilities and people have only begun to explore what you can do.

[18:03](https://realalpha.app/v/-9XQMHhpypc/?t=1083) Um, and so it, I don't know, it feels like an especially exciting time.