a16z partners Angela Strange and Gabriel Vasquez argue that the most valuable founders in 2024 are not local operators but 'borderless founders': people who carry deep home-market networks and regulatory knowledge into Silicon Valley's capital and talent infrastructure to build companies that are global from day one.
The conversation traces a16z's international investing arc from early Latin America bets into a broader cross-border network, and makes a specific case for why AI is the accelerant: models collapse the cost of building, which means a founder in São Paulo or Lagos can now reach Silicon Valley product velocity without relocating permanently. The friction that once forced a binary choice between home-market depth and US scale is shrinking fast.
Read the full conversation for the tactical argument underneath the thesis. Strange and Vasquez get specific about what a16z actually looks for when evaluating a founder whose network is outside the US, how the firm thinks about market size when home and target markets are different countries, and where they see the next wave of borderless companies emerging.
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