One of the entertaining moments in VC this week was a bit of rage-bait advertising and marketing from Common Catalyst.
In a now-viral submit on X that parodies the outdated Mac vs. PC commercials, the enterprise agency — higher referred to as GC — posted a “VC vs GC” video on Wednesday. The VC was performed by a tall actor in a dishevelled shirt and vest with a distinctly giant, bald head — an obvious dig at Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen. (However the actual Andreessen by no means appears that matted).
The GC character was performed by a person with a thick head of darkish hair, white kicks, and a bent to stare deeply into the digital camera. He was clearly presupposed to symbolize actor Justin Lengthy’s cooler, “hipper” Mac character from the unique commercials, in distinction to John Hodgman’s straight-laced “sq.” PC persona.
GC asks VC about his robotic canine.
VC explains, “That is Woof AI” after which extols the virtues of the bogus companion (you don’t must stroll it or break the information to the youngsters when it dies!) and declares, “You’ll by no means need an actual canine after this.” VC mentions that his agency is main the seed spherical and pitches GC to hitch the cap desk.
GC explains how individuals like actual canine and remarks, “I’d love to listen to extra, however we even have a extremely excessive bar round accountability for these items.”
Then VC kicks the AI canine and the canine chases him off the display. The submit has now been seen 2.4 million instances with lots of of shares and feedback, and hundreds of likes.
I would must learn up to now between the strains that I would be off the web page and peering into one other guide to unpack this, however I will attempt anyway. The message, roughly: Different VCs, and a16z particularly, will fund something. GC will not. (I requested about this. GC hasn’t responded.)
It is a pointed argument if that’s the case, and never fully with out foundation. Andreessen’s agency incessantly invests in corporations which are thought of controversial, just like the surveillance startup Flock Safety, AI notetaker Cluely, and Adam Neumann’s Flow. However the identical measure might simply as simply be utilized to Common Catalyst. GC’s portfolio contains Anduril, Percepta, and Polymarket.
My takeaway is that GC needed to indicate an a16z-type character kicking a canine, with out anybody really kicking an precise canine as a result of that might be a significant downside.
Most of the feedback on the video appeared to seek out the video, and the selection to submit it, cringe. Loads favored and cherished it, too.
Compulsive X consumer Andreessen himself could not resist responding, many, many instances. He stated it made GC look “smarmy” and stated, “Keep tuned for our upcoming advert marketing campaign, ‘We’re the VC who doesn’t sneer at your idea.'” He stored going from there. My private favourite was: “The factor they obtained proper is the relative heights.”
As others famous, you already know you’ve got hit the appropriate rage bait when the goal takes it.
There have been plenty of a16z companions and staffers who got here to Andreessen’s protection, too. A lot in order that their reactions drew lots of comments. My private favourite on this class was from VSC Ventures VC Jay Kapoor: “GC vs. A16Z beef is like Kendrick vs. Drake for individuals who know what a 409A valuation is.”
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