a16z offers social media tips after its founder’s ‘attack’ tweet goes viral

On Friday, the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz tweeted out a link to its guide on how to “build your social media presence,” which features advice for founders on things like “how to find your people” and “how often to post.”

The timing of the tweet was ironic given the social media frenzy on Friday after founder Ben Horowitz posted on X. He was upset over an article in The San Francisco Standard about his family’s political donations and accused his rival, VC Michael Moritz — who owns The Standard — of orchestrating the story. (The Standard’s executive editor, Jon Steinberg, said he assigned the article and that Moritz had nothing to do with it.) 

Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andreessen has also had a storied, and sometimes combative, relationship with social media. A Meta board member, he quit Twitter in 2016 because it had grown too toxic for him but returned and quickly rebuilt a huge following. Earlier this year, he and VC Vinod Khosla fought about AI on the X platform (formerly Twitter), in which a16z is an investor.