> you'd rather say Andreessen-Horowitz, which is just as arbitrary as a16z

Yes. I know Andreessen-Horowitz and I don’t know a16z. Reading the title i thought it will be about the cryptography serialisation specification. Turns out i was mixing it up with ASN.1.

> Their website is literally a16z.com

I hear now. Before this if pressed i would have guessed that they probably have a website indeed. If you would have twisted my arm my guess would have been andersenhorovitz.com (yup, with the typos. I learned the correct spelling today from your comment.)

> exceedingly relevant for the HN audience

We contain multitudes.

> Yes. I know Andreessen-Horowitz and I don’t know a16z.

So the world needs to adapt to your knowledge instead of you learning to adapt to a often used, and well-known moniker?

They just want to sound technical.