One of the funniest moments in VC this week was a piece of rage marketing from General Catalyst.
In a now-viral X post parodying the old Mac vs. PC ads, the venture capital 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 vest with a distinctly large, bald head—an obvious dig at Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen. (But the real Andreessen never looks this sloppy).
The GC character was played by a thick-headed man with dark hair, white kicks, and a tendency to stare deeply into the camera. It was clear that he was supposed to represent actor Justin Long’s cooler, “hipper” Mac character from the original ads, as opposed to John Hodgman’s “square” PC persona.
GC asks VC about his robotic dog.
The VC explains, “This is Woof AI,” then extols the virtues of the artificial companion (no need to walk it or tell the kids when it dies!) and declares, “You’ll never want a real dog after this.” The VC mentions that his company is leading the seed round and gets the GC to join the cap table.
GC explains how people like real dogs and remarks, “I’d like to hear more, but we actually have a very high bar around liability for these things.”
The VC then kicks the AI dog and the dog kicks 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’d have to read so much between the lines that I’d fall off the page and look at another book to unpack, but I’ll try anyway. The message, roughly: Other VCs, specifically a16z, will fund anything. GC won’t do it. (I asked about it. GC didn’t answer.)
It’s a pointed argument, if so, and not entirely without foundation. Andreessen’s firm often invests in companies seen as controversial, such as surveillance startup Flock Safety, AI marker Cluely and Adam Neumann’s Flow. But the same measure could just as easily be applied to General Catalyst. GC’s portfolio includes Anduril, Perceptaand Polymarket.
My first point is that GC wanted to show a character like a16z kicking a dog, without anyone actually kicking a real dog because that would be a big problem.
Many of the comments on the video seemed to find the video, and the option to post it, cringe. They liked it and loved it very much.
Compulsive X user Andreessen himself couldn’t resist answering, many, many times. He said it made the GC look “hypocritical” and said, “Stay tuned for our upcoming ad campaign, “We’re the VC that doesn’t scoff at your idea.'” It just kept going from there. My personal favorite was: “The thing they got right is the relative heights.”
As others have noted, you know you’ve hit the right rage bait when the target takes it.
There were abundance of a16z partners and executives who also came to Andreessen’s defense. So much so that the reactions attracted them many comments. My personal favorite in this category was from VSC Ventures VC Jay Kapoor: “The GC vs. A16Z beef is like Kendrick vs. Drake for people who know what a 409A valuation is.”
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