Chris Dixon (born ) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the

venture capital firm Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number ...

Andreessen Horowitz AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of M ...

. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hunch. Dixon is known as a

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

and

Web3 Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. This is distinct from Tim Berners-Lee's concept of th ...

evangelist.

Early life and education

Dixon grew up in Ohio. He earned a BA and an MA from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, majoring in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, and has an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

. His early college days were at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

before he transferred.

Career

Business

Dixon joined the

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firm

Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) is an American venture capital and private equity firm headquartered in San Francisco. Outside the United States, it has offices in India, Israel, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom. In 2024, Venture Capital Journa ...

. In 2005, Dixon co-founded SiteAdvisor, a web-security startup that was bought by security company

McAfee McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American proprietary software company focused on online ...

in 2006. In 2009, he founded Hunch with

Caterina Fake Caterina Fake (born June 13, 1969) is an American entrepreneur and businesswoman. She co-founded the websites Flickr in 2004 and Hunch in 2007. Fake has been a trustee for nonprofit organizations and was the chairwoman of Etsy. For her role in ...

and Tom Pinckney, which was acquired by eBay in 2011.

Andreessen Horowitz

As of 2022, Dixon is a general partner at

, a

firm in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park ( ) is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, California, Eas ...

. After joining the firm in 2012, Dixon led a variety of investments for the firm including

FiftyThree FiftyThree, Inc. was an American privately held technology company that specialized in tools for mobile creation and creativity. They were the makers of Paper, Apple's 2012 iPad App of the Year, Pencil, a digital stylus, and Paste, a collaborati ...

, Soylent, and Nootrobox. He sits on the board of

3D printing 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

startup Shapeways. Dixon became an early advocate for investments in

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

, which he championed in various blog posts that became "something of a gospel among young crypto entrepreneurs." By 2014, Andreessen Horowitz had invested almost $50 million into Bitcoin-related endeavors such as the cryptocurrency exchange

Coinbase Coinbase Global, Inc. is an American cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase has over 100 million users, and is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world's bigge ...

. In 2022, ''Fortune'' called Dixon "the world's top crypto investor." In an October 2022 article titled "Andreessen Horowitz Went All In on Crypto at the Worst Possible Time", the Wall Street Journal reported that during the first half of 2022, the cryptocurrency fund founded by Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz had lost around 40% of its value, a decline "much larger than the 10% to 20% drops recorded by other venture funds, which have largely avoided the risky practice of purchasing volatile cryptocurrencies." With Dixon as a General Partner overseeing his firm's crypto investments, in October 2022 he announced a new accelerator program to support crypto startups in Los Angeles. Dixon also led the firm's investment and sits on the board of

Oculus VR Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Qu ...

Read Write Own

Dixon's book ''Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet'' was published in January 2024. It was at No. 9 on the New York Times Best Sellers List for Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction for the period ending February 18, 2024, though with a dagger to indicate bulk purchases. The book did not appear on any NYT lists in subsequent weeks. Andreesen Horowitz staff admitted to Vice that several of their portfolio companies had bulk-purchased the book. The book received mixed reviews.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Chris 1970s births American computer businesspeople American investors American technology chief executives American technology company founders Businesspeople in software Columbia University School of General Studies alumni EBay employees Living people Private equity and venture capital investors Harvard Business School alumni Andreessen Horowitz People associated with cryptocurrency Midas List Year of birth missing (living people)