Copiers can drown

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week's startup news and trends from Equity's Senior Reporter and Co-Host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this delivered to your inbox, subscribe here.

To wrap up the year, let's keep going back to the columns I've written that have aged in, well, interesting ways. In July I wrote about how Y Combinator builds a Product Hunt, Product Hunt builds an Andreessen Horowitz, and Andreessen Horowitz builds a Y Combinator. It was a not-so-subtle nod to how large institutions try to be part accelerators, part discovery engines, part content marketers, and part check writers.

Enter the last. Future, Andreessen Horowitz's official foray into tech media, is shutting down less than two years after it first launched, according to Business Insider. For me, the shutdown is less about a venture capital firm failing to get into the editorial space — the company is still creating a lot of content and even building a new tech and culture podcast as we let's talk – and more about how the medium really is the message.

The whole appeal of going straight as a founder and venture capitalist is based on assumptions. First, that you have something important to say. Second, you must believe that you can present this content convincingly and consistently. And third, perhaps most important of all, your important, well-presented content needs to find an audience that trusts it.

It's one of the many reasons why media is a tough business, and one of the reasons why I'm not surprised to see Future shutting down (despite the fact that the venture capital firm might , presumably, continue to fund a version of it). Some think there was a clear benefit to the company having a home to house smart content about its portfolio companies, but just because something makes sense doesn't mean it has the impact that an institution hopes for.

A16z has built a reputation as a service-oriented company. To me, the story is less than a venture capital firm with billions in assets under management failed in a brave experiment. Rather, it's that, in their pursuit of accelerator, discovery engine, content marketer, and check writer, organizations are teaching us in real time what translates and what doesn't.

We often think of venture capital networks as part of a conflict of interest type opening, and there's more to come from that angle in the coming weeks. But this week, I've been thinking about how the intertwining of different trends, themes, and products evolves along with priorities.

You can find me on Twitter, Substack, and Instagram, where I post more of my words and work. In the rest of this newsletter, we'll talk about executive turnover, red flags and good news.

The tech job market has certainly raised many questions about the stability of certain sectors and roles, and whether growth can protect a company from layoffs. The big news this week is that Bret Taylor has stepped down as Co-Chairman and CEO of Salesforce, a month after he lost his position as Chairman of the Board of Twitter after Elon Musk bought the platform from social media.

But that's not the only fight in town this week.

This week, DoorDash and Kraken reduced some of their workforces. BloomTech, formerly known as Lambda School, has halved its workforce in its third layoff since the pandemic began. And on Friday, Opendoor CEO Eric Wu stepped down, to be replaced by CFO Carrie Wheeler. Turnover is everywhere, voluntary and involuntary, which makes me think a lot about the second-order consequences.

Here's why it matters, via Karla Monterroso, CEO of Brava Leaders:

We are at the beginning of creating what multicultural institutions look like and how they will work. I think a lot of the turnover we see, whether it's layoffs or new mana...