🦔Andreessen Horowitz laid off most of its 34 person team that helps its startups recruit talent, Axios reports. The few who are left will move into individual investing groups like growth and crypto, and the firm declined to comment. My Take I think a16z is bracing for a tougher stretch. In the past week CoreWeave’s bonds hit distress levels, Firmus pulled its IPO, and Character AI filed for bankruptcy three years after a16z led its $150 million round at a $1 billion valuation. The biggest venture firm in tech no longer paying a central team to help its companies hire means it expects those companies to need fewer people, or to have less money to pay them. Venture firms collect management fees for years no matter what, so a cut like this usually reflects what they expect next. Some of it is AI taking over recruiting and the work itself, but I think most of it is money getting harder to raise for anyone outside the biggest AI labs. I expect more firms to quietly shrink their support staff over the next few months, and the startups that make it through will be the ones that can pay for their own hiring out of revenue. Hedgie🤗 axios.com/2026/10/14/andrees…