At Cisco, Mike Volpi's team did 70+ acquisitions which became half of the company's revenue during the internet build-out. Now he's watching AI drive another infrastructure boom, and he thinks this cycle is even more compelling. His view: the infrastructure being built will remain useful even if some of its owners change. Hanabi Capital GP Mike Volpi joins a16z's Raghu Raghuram and Guido Appenzeller to discuss lessons from Cisco's acquisition machine, Nvidia's dominance, the opening for custom AI chips, how AI is changing data center networking, why older GPUs are holding their value, and more. 00:00 Intro 00:53 The internet buildout vs. the AI buildout 09:29 Financing the buildout, and why GPUs are holding their value 14:31 Cisco's M&A playbook, and advice for Nvidia 22:27 Making acquisitions actually integrate 25:32 When founders should sell, and how deals really happen 31:58 Mapping today's AI infrastructure 38:02 Will we see more competitive AI silicon? 43:45 Why Cisco's boom ended 46:08 Rethinking data center networking for AI 53:46 Why this is the best time to be investing YouTube: @mavolpi @RaghuRaghuram @appenz