Gabriel Vasquez
21 Aug 2026Router Wars | Callosum $100M | AI Cancer Cures | OpenAI CFO IPO Plans
Gabriel Vasquez (a16z): The Rise of the Borderless Founder
Gabriel Vasquez presents a16z's new piece 'The Rise of the Borderless Founder': seed companies started in Germany, Sweden, Poland and the UK landing big enterprise AI contracts, talent arbitrage abroad, and governments like Poland's (11 Labs) celebrating local champions. He explains his 'luminary nodes' playbook — mapping ecosystem super-angels like the Voi founder who backed Lovable and bridging founders to Silicon Valley — plus the relentless weekly-call approach that won him the Rappi founder's next company. He argues immigrant founders' hunger and chip on the shoulder is an asset, revenge can fuel persistence through pivots (Slack), enterprise AI winners must distribute globally from day one (Cognition's early Brazil revenue), and European sovereignty demand helps rather than hurts founders who still need to win the US market.
21 May 2026Live in Monaco with a16z and Nico Rosberg
Gabriel Vasquez: Backing Immigrant Founders & the a16z Scout Network
a16z investment partner Gabriel Vasquez traces his path from El Salvador to investment banking, co-founding Oscar Health, and five and a half years at the firm focused on international and immigrant founders, noting half of US unicorns have immigrant founders. He details his systematic scouting: hosting Thanksgiving dinners at Harvard for international students stuck on campus, and mapping Europe's hacker houses (Alexandria in Germany, Exponential in Spain, Founders House in Sweden). He names resilience and speed as the traits he backs in young builders and tells the story of a Brazilian scout from a favela whom local VCs mocked before the choice clearly paid off. He closes by explaining how the scout network works — including a scout whose company a16z later invested in, and the scout he calls the MVP who introduced him to Lovable.