They are doing whatever they can for attention because all of their investments and “blockchain” nonsense have been poor showing the company just got lucky and is run by idiots.
Yeah, I lost respect for A16Z after they launched their some-300M crypto fund a few years ago. This hire just cements that loss of respect, not that the guy is any bad but the fact that they wanted to hire this guy speaks volumes in terms of how biased their hiring process is for non-partner positions in the firm.