The a16z Show · Thursday, September 10, 2026
David George argues that unlike traditional startups where excess capital can be a liability, frontier AI companies can convert dollars directly into compute, which then compounds their advantages. This shift is making the venture capital power law more extreme, as companies can leverage capital to rapidly scale their capabilities.
“For the first time, you can take capital and throw it at a company and it compounds their advantage.”
“But David argues that frontier AI is different. Dollars can be converted directly into compute, and compute can make the product better, reinforcing advantages of companies already at the frontier.”
“Now, that's not the case. You can throw dollars at compute and compute can make products and the businesses better. And so to me, it's not terribly surprising that the power law is more extreme.”