How Andreessen Horowitz Turned Its AI Bets Into an $8 Billion Bonanza

Last month, Martin Casado and his team of AI investors at Andreessen Horowitz hit the jackpot when two of the group’s recent startup bets panned out. SpaceX bought coding tool Cursor, and Stripe agreed to buy model marketplace OpenRouter. The deals combined are worth over $8 billion to the venture capital firm, an early validation of Casado’s strategy when Andreessen Horowitz launched its first fund dedicated to AI tools and software two years ago.

Those and other investments flow in part from Casado’s own deep technical background. A startup founder and VMware executive before he joined Andreessen a decade ago, Casado has embraced AI tools in business and his personal life. He uses one AI agent to help him bid in wine auctions. Another manages his home. Yet another manages the other bots. “I’ve always been YOLO on technology—I just love it,” Casado said, using an acronym for the phrase “You only live once.” (He says he wouldn’t use agents if they were to “critically impact” himself or his family, however.)