Erik Torenberg

Who they are

Erik Torenberg is General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz — founded Turpentine, a tech podcast network that a16z acqui-hired in 2025, and previously co-founded Village Global and On Deck.

Person

Erik joined a16z in 2025 when the firm acqui-hired Turpentine, the podcast and newsletter network he'd built and run as CEO. He studied Economics at the University of Michigan, then cut his teeth as a founding team member at Product Hunt — one of the formative community products of the 2010s. From there he co-founded Village Global in 2017, an early-stage VC fund that threads founder networks into the capital model, and separately founded On Deck, an internet-native fellowship he described as a Stanford-like experience for ambitious people's career lifecycle. Then came Turpentine in 2023: a niche media network covering tech, VC, and business, which he ran as CEO before a16z folded it into its own media operation. He's co-founded or built at least four named properties: Village Global (early-stage VC fund), On Deck (founder fellowship), Turpentine (podcast/newsletter network), BriefLink (a tool helping startups cut VC meeting prep to nine questions), and Cookbook for Connection (a Substack on hosting and facilitated human experiences). The through-line is community as infrastructure — he keeps building the connective tissue between ambitious people, whether via capital, programming, or media. He writes actively on his Substack at eriktorenberg.substack.com on culture, politics, tech, and human nature, and keeps a personal site at eriktorenberg.com; his public voice mixes VC market takes with broader cultural and emotional-intelligence themes.

Company

The most active recent signal at a16z is an ambitious $20 billion AI-focused fund reportedly in marketing as of 2026, following the firm's January 2026 fundraise of more than $15 billion across five funds — its largest haul ever and more than 18% of all US VC capital raised in 2025. That January raise included a $6.75 billion growth fund, a $1.7 billion AI infrastructure fund, a $1.7 billion AI apps fund, a $1.176 billion American Dynamism fund (defense, housing, supply-chain), and a $700 million Bio & Health fund, pushing AUM to roughly $90 billion. On the deal side, 2026 has been busy: the firm led Anduril's $5 billion Series H at a $61 billion valuation in May, led a $2.2 billion crypto Fund V close also in May, co-led a $160 million round for AI national-security startup Cathedral in July, and backed compute marketplace Ornn with a $33 million seed in June. The firm also launched a Global Partnerships division in 2026 to give founders access to sovereign and institutional partners, including facilitating a $900 million Series C and a 2GW AI Supercluster project in Saudi Arabia for Luma and HUMAIN AI.

Market

a16z sits at roughly $90 billion AUM with an 18% share of 2025 US VC capital, effectively tied with Sequoia Capital as the largest US venture firm; primary rivals include Sequoia, Accel, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Bessemer, and Coatue. What distinguishes a16z from capital-only competitors is its full-service operating platform — talent, go-to-market, policy, recruitment — plus an increasingly explicit geopolitical posture: the American Dynamism fund targets defense and national-security tech, a $100 million political network aims to shape US AI regulation, and the firm expanded its Washington presence in 2026 to align investments with industrial policy and government spending.

Network

At a16z, Torenberg works alongside co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who remain the firm's central public figures, and collaborates on media and podcast content with both. He has a documented relationship with James Currier of NFX, having appeared together on the NFX 'Citizens of the Internet' podcast, and Balaji Srinivasan has featured as a guest on Turpentine/a16z podcast properties.

Marc Andreessen· Co-Founder & General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
Ben Horowitz· Co-Founder & General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
James Currier· General Partner, NFX
Balaji Srinivasan· Entrepreneur / Podcast Guest

How they likely show up

Serial company-founding across VC (Village Global), community (On Deck), media (Turpentine), and tooling (BriefLink) — suggests high agency and a pattern of building rather than joining.
Founding a media network (Turpentine) while running a VC fund → treats distribution and deal flow as linked problems, not separate functions.
Active Substack covering culture, politics, and human nature alongside tech → comfortable operating in the world of ideas, not just transactions; likely engages well with conceptual and thematic conversation.
Turpentine acqui-hire into a16z in 2025 → willing to fold a self-built vehicle into a larger platform when the strategic fit is right; not purely indie-operator-brained.
Side projects like BriefLink (cutting VC meeting prep to nine questions) and Cookbook for Connection (hosting and facilitation) → optimizes for efficiency and human connection simultaneously, an unusual pairing.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific Turpentine show or a post from eriktorenberg.substack.com — he'll know immediately whether you've actually read it.
→ Ask about the media-meets-VC thesis: he built Turpentine as a VC, which is a deliberate bet — there's a real story there worth drawing out.
→ On Deck and Village Global are points of genuine pride; asking what worked and what he'd do differently will get a more honest answer than asking what he's excited about now.
→ He thinks in community and network terms, not just capital terms — frame questions around who connects to whom, not just what gets funded.
→ Don't treat the a16z move as just a career step — the acqui-hire structure means Turpentine was the ticket; he'll have a view on what that says about media and VC converging.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on BriefLink — he built a tool that distills a startup's pitch to nine questions to minimize VC meeting prep time, a very specific UX bet about how founder-investor relationships should start.
Reference the Turpentine acqui-hire structure: a16z didn't just hire him, they bought the network — that's an unusual deal shape and he almost certainly has a view on why that mattered.
Bring up the NFX 'Citizens of the Internet' conversation with James Currier — it surfaces his thinking on internet community and belonging, which runs underneath all his company-building.

Discovery questions

Village Global threaded founder networks into the capital model from day one — how did that network-native thesis hold up against more traditional early-stage VC approaches over the seven years you ran it?
Turpentine was built as a niche media network inside a VC career — what was the bet: that media drives deal flow, or that media is itself a durable business, or both?
On Deck aimed to replicate a Stanford-like career lifecycle experience for the internet — what did you learn about what community can and can't replace in that context?

Avoid

Don't treat his media work as a side hustle or 'content marketing' for VC — Turpentine was a company he ran as CEO and sold; framing it as promotional will signal you haven't done the work.

Make it yours