American tech entrepreneur, investor
Chris Dixon (born 1971/1972)[1] is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and previously worked at eBay. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hunch.[2] He was #1 on the Midas List in 2022.[3] Dixon is known as a cryptocurrency and Web3 evangelist.[4]
Early life and education
Dixon grew up in Ohio.[5] He earned a BA and an MA from Columbia University, majoring in philosophy,[6] and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. His early college days were at Wesleyan University before he transferred.[7]
Career
Business
Dixon joined the venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners.[8]
In 2005, Dixon co-founded SiteAdvisor, a web-security startup that was bought by security company McAfee in 2006.[9] In 2009, he founded Hunch with Caterina Fake and Tom Pinckney, which was acquired by eBay in 2011.[10]
Andreessen Horowitz
As of 2022, Dixon is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California. After joining the firm in 2012,[4] Dixon led a variety of investments for the firm including FiftyThree,[11] Soylent,[12] and Nootrobox.[13] He sits[when?] on the board of 3D printing startup Shapeways.[14]
He was #1 on the Midas List in early 2022.[3]
Dixon became an early advocate for investments in Bitcoin, which he championed in various blog posts that became "something of a gospel among young crypto entrepreneurs."[4] By 2014, Andreessen Horowitz had invested almost $50 million into Bitcoin-related endeavors such as the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.[15][4] In 2022, Fortune called Dixon "the world's top crypto investor."[16] 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."[4]
With Dixon as a General Partner overseeing his firm's crypto investments,[17] in October 2022 he announced a new accelerator program to support crypto startups in Los Angeles.[18]
Dixon also led the firm's investment and sits on the board of Oculus VR.[19]
Read Write Own
Dixon's book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet was published in January 2024. It reached No. 9 on the New York Times Best Sellers List for Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction for the period ending February 18, 2024, though with a dagger to indicate bulk purchases.[20] Andreesen Horowitz staff admitted to Vice that several of their portfolio companies had bulk-purchased the book.[21] The book received mixed reviews.[22][23]
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