The a16z Show · Thursday, October 1, 2026
Barrett Lyon explained that DocsNet is an attempt to address the stagnation in internet protocol design and the increasing erosion of user privacy. He noted that much of the internet's current infrastructure is built on top of older protocols, and DocsNet seeks to create a more open and experimental environment.
“And I'm also very fascinated about protocol design and the fact that the internet has really kind of stagnated a bit from protocol design. not a lot of new stuff. All of it's built on top.”
“So there's that. And then just noticing the shift of censorship and people's privacy being eroded and all of this kind of thing kind of, and then the uprise of VPN made it really interesting to make kind of an alternative network.”
“The Internet originally, like you said, was kind of designed with this like more open kind of concept. So bringing that back, one of the things I was kind of interested in doing, trying to figure out new ways of doing things that might kind of leverage before the Internet.”