Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz's a16z.com loads with the subtle grace of a Series B pitch deck—professionally mediocre with flashes of genuine competence buried under layers of marketing bloat. Built on what appears to be a custom Next.js implementation (evident from the `__NEXT_DATA__` script tags and React hydration patterns), their tech stack shows they at least understand modern web development, unlike certain Sand Hill Road contemporaries still pushing WordPress circa 2019. The homepage clocks in at a respectable 1.2MB initial bundle size, though their aggressive use of intersection observers for scroll animations suggests someone on their eng team actually read the React docs. Their CDN strategy via Cloudflare shows proper infrastructure thinking, even if the 127ms TTFB from their Vercel deployment occasionally stutters under the weight of Marc's latest tweetstorm driving traffic spikes.

The content architecture reveals the existential crisis of every top-tier VC: how do you showcase portfolio companies without looking like a glorified link farm? Their `/portfolio` endpoint returns a beautifully structured JSON response with proper GraphQL fragments, suggesting they've invested in actual backend engineering rather than cobbling together Airtable integrations like firms managing half their AUM. However, their blog's infinite scroll implementation breaks browser history in Safari 15.6+, creating the kind of UX debt that would trigger red flags in any Series A technical diligence. The meta tag optimization is surprisingly sophisticated—proper OG image dimensions, structured data for their podcast content, and semantic HTML that doesn't make accessibility auditors weep.

Performance-wise, a16z.com sits in that frustrating "good enough" territory that characterizes most institutional web presence. Lighthouse scores likely hover around 78-85 across metrics, held back primarily by their insistence on loading Segment, HubSpot, and what appears to be a custom analytics solution that phones home to `metrics.a16z.com` every 15 seconds. Their JavaScript bundle splitting shows engineering maturity, but the 400KB of vendor libraries for what amounts to a content site feels like the web equivalent of raising a $100M fund to write $2M checks. The mobile experience works without catastrophic failure, though their hero video autoplays with enough GPU intensity to thermal throttle an iPhone 12.

Most tellingly, their public GitHub activity (visible through source map references to private repos) suggests they actually dogfood modern development practices—proper CI/CD, semantic versioning, and what looks like comprehensive E2E testing based on their Playwright bundle signatures. The security posture is surprisingly robust with proper CSP headers and HSTS implementation, though their cookie banner loads a comical 47KB of legal compliance JavaScript. It's the kind of technically competent but philosophically confused web presence that perfectly embodies the modern VC paradox: smart enough to build it right, wealthy enough to over-engineer it, and busy enough to never quite finish the optimization backlog.