Former North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry announced Wednesday that he had set up a job at VC company Andreessen Horowitz. He will become a senior advisor.
His posts on X say little about what the work entails, except defending a startup with policymakers (which A16Z likes to call “Little Tech”). Andreessen Horowitz did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mchenry spent 20 years in Congress before resigning in January. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, he was probably best known for dressing down with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
Gensler has become a boogeyman, especially in the crypto world, filing lawsuits against crypto exchanges like Coinbase and threatening to sue others like Robin Hood. The current SEC is busy dropping these suits and investigations.
“Under Chairman Gensler, the SEC has become a fraudulent body,” said Mchenry at the September hearing, denounced the SEC chairman as “enforced restrictions.”
Meanwhile, as of 2022, A16Z, which has raised $7.6 billion in Crypto/Web3 Tech-focused funding, has recently been embedded in all its policy and government. Earlier this month, Brian Quintenz, who leads the policy for the A16Z Crypto team, said he has been appointed head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Additionally, Sriram Krishnan, former general partner of A16Z, is still a senior policy advisor for the White House. Scott Kpoe, one of the company’s managing partners, was tapped to lead the Human Resources Administration. And Jamie Sullivan, another investor in the company, is said to be advising Doge.
Andreessen Horowitz’s burgeoning American dynamism practice supports defense and government technology startups, but has hired many, and has recently added former Marine Corps Daniel Penny as an investor.
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