One of the funnest moments in VC this week was a piece of outrageous bait marketing from General Catalyst.
In a now-viral post on X parodying old Mac and PC ads, the venture firm, better known as GC, posted a “VC vs GC” video on Wednesday. The VC was played by a tall actor in a baggy shirt and jacket—an obvious dig at Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen. (But the real Andreessen never looks so disheveled).
The GC character was played by a man with a thick head, black hair, white kicks and a tendency to stare deeply into the camera. He was meant to represent actor Justin Long’s cooler, “hipper” Mac character in the original commercials, as opposed to John Hodgman’s straight-hatted “square” PC persona.
GC asks VC about the robot dog.
“It’s Woof AI,” the VC explains, then extols the virtues of an artificial companion (no need to walk him or tell the kids when he dies!) and declares, “You’ll never want a real dog again.” The VC notes that his firm is the lead in the seed round and pitches the GC to join the cap table.
GC explains how people like real dogs and says, “I’d like to hear more, but we really have a lot of responsibility for these things.”
Then the VC kicks the AI dog and the dog chases him off the screen. The post has now been viewed 2.4 million times with hundreds of shares and comments and thousands of likes.
I had to read between the lines so much that I’m off the page and looking at another book to figure this out, but I’ll try anyway. The message, roughly: Other VCs, and especially a16z, will fund everything. GC will not. (I asked this. GC didn’t answer.)
If so, it’s a strong argument, and not entirely unfounded. Andreessen’s firm often invests in companies that are considered controversial, such as surveillance startups. Herd SafetyAI notebook Cluely, and Adam Neumann flow. But the same measure could easily be applied to General Catalyst. Included in GC’s portfolio in the sensor, It is feltand Polimarket.
My takeaway is that GC wanted to show a character like a16z kicking a dog, it would be a huge problem if anyone kicked an actual dog because it.
Many of the comments on the video found the video confusing and the choice to post it. Many people liked and loved it.
Andreessen, a compulsive X-user himself, couldn’t resist answering multiple times. That said, it looked at the GC”capricious” and said, “Stay tuned for our upcoming ad campaign, ‘We’re the VC that doesn’t. mock your opinion.'” He kept going from there. My personal favorite was, “What they got right was the relative heights.”
As others have mentioned, you know you’ve hit the right rage bait when the target catches it.
there was a lot And so did a16z partners and employees who came to Andreessen’s defense. They reacted so much many comments. My personal favorite in this category was VSC Ventures VC Jay Kapoor: “The GC vs. A16Z beef is like Kendrick vs. Drake for people who know what a 409A rating is.”
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