Martin Casado - The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Infrastructure - [Invest Like the Best, EP.280]

My guest today is Martin Casado. Martin is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he focuses on digital infrastructure. Before joining a16z, Martin pioneered software-defined networking and co-founded Nicira, which was bought by VMware for $1.3 billion in 2012. Martin has studied, built, and invested in digital infrastructure his whole career and is the perfect person to discuss the most interesting aspects of the industry. Please enjoy this great conversation with Martin Casado.

 

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

 

-----

 

This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It’s all done on a single, modern SaaS platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick. And until 2023 every Tegus license comes with complimentary access to BamSec by Tegus.

 

-----

 

Today's episode is brought to you by Brex, the integrated financial platform trusted by the world's most innovative entrepreneurs and fastest-growing companies. With Brex, you can move money fast for instant impact with high-limit corporate cards, payments, venture debt, and spend management software all in one place. Ready to accelerate your business? Learn more at brex.com/best.

 

-----

 

Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 

 

Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.

 

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.

 

Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus

 

Show Notes

[00:02:43] - [First question] - The state of the digital infrastructure industry today 

[00:04:02] - The major stages and eras of cloud technology 

[00:06:30] - Overview of Dropbox’s story and the two major trends at the time of its emergence

[00:10:12] - Lost margin and lost market cap from big users of the public cloud 

[00:12:14] - Whether or not there is a headwind coming for public cloud providers

[00:14:07] - The base level primitives of the digital world and innovation within those areas

[00:17:33] - How entrepreneurs might go after the biggest public cloud providers

[00:19:37] - His view on API first companies and granular monetizable units in growing markets

[00:23:20] - Developer facing tools and what works well when going to market 

[00:25:34] - Lessons learned about successfully building relationships between a company and developers as a buying class 

[00:27:12] - The difference between a front-end and back-end developer and what is changing in their responsibilities 

[00:28:45] - What he looks for as an investor when he’s processing a new API first company

[00:30:31] - Common redflags and disqualifying observations for an API first company 

[00:31:59] - Pricing usage and building a revenue model around one of these businesses

[00:33:49] - Reasons why this proliferation is happening and important parts of the data stack

[00:36:35] - Frank Slootman Episode; Snowflake’s offering for their users, their explosive growth, and primitives in their sector

[00:39:06] - The history of digital security and potential opportunities as an investor

[00:40:19] - How digital infrastructure intersects with the real world and hardware world

[00:42:14] - What he’s most excited about that digital infrastructure might unlock in the future

[00:43:33] - How to screen out people for their potential to deliver transformative technology

[00:45:38] - What he’d like to know about the future that he isn’t sure of yet 

[00:47:45] - Things he’s most intrigued about by cryptocurrencies as an infrastructure person

[00:51:36] - Where he’s most bullish and bearish relative to his peers in digital infrastructure

[00:52:49] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him