Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are. He also created the a16z Cultural Leadership Fund to connect the greatest cultural leaders to the best new technology companies, and enable more young African Americans to enter the technology industry.

Prior to a16z, Ben was cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007, and was appointed vice president and general manager of Business Technology Optimization for Software at HP. Earlier, he was vice president and general manager of America Online’s E-commerce Platform division, where he oversaw development of the company’s flagship Shop@AOL service. Previously, Ben ran several product divisions at Netscape Communications. He also served as vice president of Netscape’s widely acclaimed Directory and Security product line. Before joining Netscape in July 1995, he held various senior product marketing positions at Lotus Development Corporation.

Ben has an MS and a BA in computer science from UCLA and Columbia University, respectively.

Kathy Matsui is a founding General Partner of MPower Partners, Japan’s first ESG-integrated global venture capital fund. She is the former Vice Chair of Goldman Sachs Japan and Chief Japan Equity Strategist. Her groundbreaking ʻWomenomicsʼ research spurred the Japanese government to promote gender diversity, and she has advised corporations on governance and diversity best practices. She has an MA from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and an AB from Harvard.