a16z raises $15 billion to bet on new media, but what they truly value is not the content itself, but the reconfiguration of power. When content is no longer scarce, what truly matters is not “what you said,” but whether you can turn “trust” into “action.” This article is based on an essay by Julie Chen, organized, translated, and written by BlockBeats.
(Background: Why AI is not a bubble: a16z founders’ deep reflections on demand, investment, and judgment)
(Additional context: a16z raises $15 billion to “ensure America’s victory”: continuing to lead in technology over the next century)

Table of Contents

• Why have “new media” been elevated so much in these two years?
• Agency
• What does new media solve? What is still missing?
• Conclusion:

a16z raised $15 billion, but what exactly is the new media they are betting on? On X (Twitter), everyone is a KOL, with millions of monthly views; traffic is no longer valuable. What is valuable is attention, the power of “trust,” and the scarce right.

This article clarifies how a16z New Media, agency, and X (Twitter) are truly creating meaningful traffic, leading to ICM.

a16z’s new year financing of $15 billion has flooded major platforms. They raised so much money to tell a story of “All in America, trusting AI + Crypto and technology.”

Two months ago, they even established a New Media team to help a16z itself and their portfolio companies develop “new media.”

In Silicon Valley’s AI/Web3 companies, many are recruiting, offering big rewards for a “Storyteller” who can write Threads, Shitposts, and tell stories.

A partner from a16z New Media directly said: marketing professionals have already replaced computers, becoming the “delicacy.”

What a16z has truly valued in recent years is not the content itself, but the way power is reconstructed.

New media is just an appearance.

The real change is: who has the qualification to make people act (agency).

( Why have “new media” been elevated so much in these two years?

Because the attention economy has basically run out of tricks.

· Content is extremely abundant
· Distribution costs are nearly zero
· Being seen no longer confers an advantage

What is truly scarce now is not exposure.

It’s two things:

· Whether your judgment is worth trusting
· Whether you can turn “trust” into “action”

This is also why you can clearly feel a change:

In the past, media mostly told stories and set narratives; now, media directly influence decisions and trigger actions.

When content is no longer scarce, what is truly valuable is no longer “what you said,”

but — what will happen next.

This is the core meaning behind a16z repeatedly emphasizing New Media.

It’s not about Thread, podcasts, short videos, or these formats,

but that the distribution structure has changed, and the power structure has shifted accordingly.

A simple comparison:

Old Media
· Distribution is scarce (TV, newspapers, platforms)
· Value is concentrated in institutions
· Creators are essentially employees

New Media
· Distribution is decentralized (X / YouTube / Substack / Podcasts)
· Individuals themselves become nodes
· Creators directly accumulate influence and bargaining power

The real change is summarized in one sentence: media, from institutional assets, has become personal capital.

And once media becomes personal capital, it is no longer just a “exposure tool,” but begins to become a tool of power.

When media belongs to institutions, it is your exposure tool; when it belongs to individuals, it becomes your ability to influence others’ decisions.

And influencing decisions is power.

) Agency (action rights)

The end goal of new media is not page views,

but agency.

Agency means others are willing to act with you, trust your judgment, and pay for your concepts.

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Packy mentioned in “The Power Brokers”:

“The goal of a fund is to use as few people as possible to earn carry in the shortest possible time.
The goal of a firm is to continuously build long-term advantages through scaling.”

This distinction explains why, in traditional VC, media ability has always been “icing on the cake”; but in a16z, it has been built directly into the infrastructure.

For a long time, we assumed the sequence:

Money → Company → Market

Money comes first and decides everything.

But in a world of extreme media saturation, this order has flipped:

Agency → Community → Market → Capital

Why is it now that “money is plentiful, but things are hard to do”?

Because capital no longer automatically translates into action.

· Distribution is not scarce
· Attention is extremely noisy
· Trust cannot be bought with budgets

We have seen this many times in crypto (avoiding examples to not offend):

Money is abundant, but projects still fail to launch successfully. Valuations are high, but no one really wants to participate. Narratives are complete, but no follow-up execution.

Not because there isn’t enough money. But because there is no agency.

The truly scarce resource now is not capital.

It’s:

· Whether a group of people can believe in the same thing simultaneously
· Whether they can act at the same time

Whoever can do this holds real leverage.

So I am not praising, but using a16z to explain a structural change that is happening.

( What does new media solve? What is still missing?

If media can form consensus, and consensus can drive action, then the market is the settlement layer of consensus.

Why does ICM (Internet Capital Markets) inevitably appear after New Media:

Because new media has a natural structural flaw:

· Influence ≠ Ownership
· Traffic can be monetized but cannot be combined or held long-term
· Creators still rely on platform revenue sharing, brand collaborations, and ad cycles

The concept of ICM was first proposed by Solana, filling this gap: transforming narrative / consensus / culture into tradable, holdable, and collaborative capital structures.

ICM addresses the next step for New Media:

How is influence priced, traded, and sustained?

To put it simply:

New Media: → Who can get attention
ICM: → How attention becomes a capital structure

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( Conclusion:

New Media solves “distribution rights,” ICM solves “pricing rights.”

The essence of ICM:

· Turning attention → agency → pricing → capital formation
· Not a speculative tool, but a coordination infrastructure

Finally, I want to quote a favorite Navar quote to echo this perspective and conclude the article:

“Naval said: Code and media are the levers behind the new wealthy class.”

Indeed, over the past 10 years, Silicon Valley’s new elites and giants (internet / software / AI) have fundamentally relied on “code leverage” to create wealth.

And with the popularity of Cursor, Claude, everyone can vibe code; the ability to write code is gradually becoming less scarce; some even predict that within the next 10 years, all entry-level programmers will be replaced by AI.

The next cycle’s truly scarce leverage is new media:

That is, narrative × judgment × taste in scalable dissemination. Good leverage can generate compound interest while you sleep, continuously influence others when you are absent, and help you build “trust + reputation + opportunity access.”

Code is law.

New media is the law.

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