[beambot]

Andreessen-Horowitz, who most people (and they themselves) refer to as a16z and have the eponymous domain name (a16z.com). They're one of the top VC firms on the planet -- exceedingly relevant to HN audiences and commonly discussed here.

[krisoft]

> you'd rather say Andreessen-Horowitz, which is just as arbitrary as a16z

Yes. I know Andreessen-Horowitz and I don’t know a16z. Reading the title i thought it will be about the cryptography serialisation specification. Turns out i was mixing it up with ASN.1.

> Their website is literally a16z.com

I hear now. Before this if pressed i would have guessed that they probably have a website indeed. If you would have twisted my arm my guess would have been andersenhorovitz.com (yup, with the typos. I learned the correct spelling today from your comment.)

> exceedingly relevant for the HN audience

We contain multitudes.

[PenguinCoder]

> Yes. I know Andreessen-Horowitz and I don’t know a16z.

So the world needs to adapt to your knowledge instead of you learning to adapt to a often used, and well-known moniker?

[operatingthetan]

They just want to sound technical.

[DougN7]

I'll be honest - I was thinking authorization (a11n?) - so I didn't read it closely enough. But despite that, and being on HN from almost the beginning (with a different account I lost the password to), I still didn't know what a16z was, though I do recognize Andreessen-Horowitz.

[Semaphor]

Opposite for me, I've seen a16z tons of time on HN, and also the domain where sometimes, but the full name would have meant nothing to me.

[rectang]

I didn't either. This is an ancient debate that can never be resolved completely, though — because the articles that HN submissions point to don't follow a style guide and there are always assumptions about audience priors. Best to just resolve it and move on.

[ok123456]

Sorry, I come here for hacker content.