Marc Andreessen is not taking the bait. Well, actually, he is.
In what's being called the most entertaining VC moment of the week, rival venture firm General Catalyst dropped a parody ad that targets Andreessen Horowitz and its co-founder's investment philosophy.
The video mimics the classic Mac vs. PC commercials. It features a disheveled VC character (with a suspiciously large bald head) pitching General Catalyst on investing in Woof AI—a robotic dog that never needs walking and won't break anyone's heart when it dies. When General Catalyst declines, citing "responsibility," the VC literally kicks the AI dog across the screen.
The message is clear: a16z will fund anything. General Catalyst won't.
The post has racked up 2.4 million views, hundreds of shares, and thousands of likes. Andreessen's response came on Twitter.
The a16z co-founder jumped into the replies—multiple times—calling General Catalyst "smarmy" and firing back. "Stay tuned for our upcoming ad campaign, 'We're the VC who doesn't sneer at your idea,'" he wrote.
His sharpest dig: "The thing they got right is the relative heights."
Andreessen kept replying, proving his compulsive attachment to X. When Marc Andreessen responds repeatedly to a parody ad, you've hit the right nerve.
The internet fixated on the exchange. Some found the ad cringe-worthy, others loved the audacity. Either way, General Catalyst landed a viral campaign, and Andreessen amplified it by engaging.
General Catalyst's own portfolio includes companies like Anduril and Polymarket, which aren't exactly uncontroversial. But that detail doesn't matter when you're executing a successful viral moment against your biggest rival.
