The a16z Show · Sunday, July 26, 2026
Ben Horowitz expressed concern about a significant push, allegedly backed by substantial funding from Anthropic, to ban open-source AI. He characterized this effort as potentially 'nefarious' and driven by a desire for control, drawing parallels to past intelligence community resistance to cryptography due to a lack of understanding and a preference for control.
“Well, look, I think that there's a huge push, with a lot of money behind it, uh, particularly from Anthropic to ban open source. I think that it is, uh, a kind of nefarious from my point of view, but, uh, you know, whatever their motivation is.”
“And I think that's a similar thing here, where it just feels like more control.”