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

venture capital firm Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z, legal name AH Capital Management, LLC) is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Andreessen H ...

, and previously worked at

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hunch. He was #1 on the

Midas List The ''Forbes'' Midas list is the annual ranking by ''Forbes'' magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors. Described by Kara Swisher as the "Oscars for venture capitalists in tech," the Midas List uses parameter ...

in 2022. Dixon is known as a cryptocurrency and Web3 evangelist.

Early life and education

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

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

, majoring in philosophy, and has an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

. His early college days were at

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the c ...

before he transferred.

Career

Business

Dixon joined the

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

firm

Bessemer Venture Partners Bessemer Venture Partners (Bessemer) is an American venture capital firm. The firm has over $19 billion under management and invests globally, with offices in San Francisco, Redwood City, New York City, Boston, Israel, India, and London. Besseme ...

. 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 global computer security software company head ...

in 2006. In 2009, he founded Hunch with

Caterina Fake Caterina Fake 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 creating Flickr, Fak ...

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 within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the so ...

. 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 specializes 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 HVMN, previously known as Nootrobox, is an American company that manufactures and sells a ketone ester drink, products supporting a ketogenic diet, and nootropic supplements. The company is headquartered in San Francisco. HVMN stands for "Health ...

. He sits on the boards of drone startup Airware, and

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 Shapeways, Inc. is a global, 3D printing marketplace and service, publicly traded company. Users design and upload 3D printable files, and Shapeways prints the objects for them or others. Users can have objects printed in over 55 materials and f ...

. Dixon became an early advocate for investments in

Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public di ...

, 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., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work and the company lacks a physical headquar ...

. 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 Davis at Andreesen 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." Dixon also led the firm's investment and sits on the board of

Oculus VR Reality Labs is a business of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon W ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Chris 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)