The a16z Show · Thursday, October 1, 2026
Barrett Lyon argued that existing VPN services are not sufficient for true online privacy, describing them as mere entry and exit points that lease servers from third parties. He proposes DocsNet as a more robust alternative that offers greater control and security.
“So a lot of the VPNs I would say are just entry and exit points. So they lease a server from a landlord and set up their software on it. And then you connect to it encrypted and then your requests and things that you do on the internet come from out that node.”
“And that's to solve your IP address as your identity problem. Yeah, it kind of is a way around that, I guess. But it's also kind of people feel like there's more security to that. And I could argue against that.”
“It's very basic. If you think about it, those networks are real-time adjustable.”