Is Sand Hill Road Over? No. But Zoom Deals Are Here to Stay

When Andreessen Horowitz finishes construction on its new office in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, its partners shouldn’t expect to find an assigned desk waiting for them.

Instead, they’ll need to reserve space to work or meet with prospective portfolio companies under the firm’s new office hoteling model, which has no assigned seating. The policy is partly meant to reflect the new reality that deal-makers such as Chris Lyons, who recently moved to Florida, can live wherever they want, so long as they can reach San Francisco or Menlo Park, Calif., within a day.

Andreessen Horowitz’s approach to office management is indicative of the VC industry’s embrace of a hybrid investment process that relies on Zoom for casual, introductory conversations and reserves in-person meetups for more serious discussions, such as final deal negotiations. Investors’ new comfort with remote deal-making, catalyzed by the pandemic, means a trip to a venture firm in San Francisco or to Menlo Park’s Sand Hill Road is no longer a required pit stop on the way to a big check—and probably won’t be for the near future.