General Catalyst deployed a taste of VC wrath and it worked, especially on a16z

The character of GC was played by a man with a thick head of dark hair, white chins, and a tendency to stare deeply into the camera. He was apparently meant to represent actor Justin Long’s “spirited” Mac character from the original commercials, as opposed to John Hodgman’s “square” PC character.

GC asks VC about his robot dog.

“This is Woof AI,” the VC explains, then extols the virtues of the artificial companion (you don’t need to walk him or break the news to the kids when he dies!) and declares, “You’ll never want a real dog after this.” The VC mentions that his company is leading the seed round and is pitching a GC to join the cap table.

JC explains how people love real dogs and comment, “I’d like to hear more, but we actually have a very high level of responsibility for these things.”

The VC then kicks the AI ​​dog and the dog chases him off-screen. The post has so far been viewed 2.4 million times, with hundreds of shares, comments and thousands of likes.

I’ve had to read so far between the lines that I’m going to get off the page and look at another book to unpack this, but I’ll try anyway. Pretty much the message: other VC funds, and a16z in particular, will fund anything. JC Ln. (I asked about this. GC did not respond.)

It’s an obvious argument if so, and not entirely without foundation. Andreessen’s firm often invests in companies that are considered controversial, such as surveillance startup Flock Safety, AI feedback company Cluely, and Adam Neumann’s Flow. But the same procedure can easily be applied to General Catalyst. GC’s portfolio includes Anduril, Percepta, and Polymarket.

What I concluded was that the GC wanted to show an a16z type character kicking a dog, without anyone actually kicking a dog because that would be too problematic.

Many of the comments on the video seemed to find the video, and chose to post it, feeling frustrated. I loved it so much and I loved it too.

Compulsive X user Andreessen himself couldn’t resist responding multiple times. He said it made the GC look “smart,” and “stay tuned for our upcoming ad campaign, ‘We’re the venture capitalists who don’t laugh at your idea.’” And keep moving forward from there. My favorite was: “The thing they got right is relative heights.”

As others have noted, you know you’ve hit the right rage when the target takes it.

There were plenty of partners and employees at a16z who came to Andreessen’s defense as well. So much so that their reactions sparked a lot of comments. My personal favorite in this category was from VSC Ventures VC Jay Kapoor: “The GC vs. A16Z beef is like Kendrick vs. Drake for people who know what a 409A valuation is.”