Andreessen Horowitz built a 150+ person operating platform providing recruiting, marketing, and technical support to portfolio companies, and transitioned from a traditional venture fund to a Registered Investment Advisor to make aggressive crypto investments and buy illiquid assets. The firm explicitly positions itself as "a media company now" that produces podcasts and research to capture founder mindshare, while using unusually large fund sizes to lead mega-rounds backing controversial, highly ambitious visions in frontier technology.