 Happy Sunday, I'm William D. Cohan.
Welcome back to Dry Powder, and thanks as always for following our work here at Puck. Today, my thoughts on Katie Haun's new crypto venture fund, the next Bill Ackman, and the mystery of whatever transpired this week between Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs.
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Bill
 The biggest risk-takers on Wall Street these days are looking west, to crypto funds on Sand Hill Road, or east, to the mother of all fire sales in Moscow. Plus: What I’m hearing about Buffett’s $27 million Goldman Sachs snub. Katie Haun, the formidable former federal prosecutor turned Andreessen Horowitz crypto zealot, just raised a $1.5 billion fund to invest in early stage crypto and Web3 startups—a massive bet on a still-unproven sector (at least by most people’s standards). Web3 may be beloved by venture capitalists but it remains largely untested by consumers and regulators. But Haun’s investing and fundraising success is enough to make some crypto skeptics reconsider their opposition to the phenomenon or at least to test their theses once more. Many people are wondering whether the new games, NFTs, marketplaces and other platforms built on blockchain technology and digital tokens will become the eventual successors to the likes of Facebook and Google. Others wonder whether the narrative surrounding Web3 has shifted from optimistic to overhyped.
For what it’s worth, I’ve gotten to know Katie decently well over the past six months or so. She is whip smart, has an unbelievable resume—Stanford Law School, Supreme Court clerk, imposing federal prosecutor—and has made the unlikely leap from the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Northern District of California to Sand Hill Road, focused on crypto, first at a16z and now at her own, $1.5 billion venture-capital fund, Haun Ventures. I would not bet against Katie Haun. Her track record at a16z, including investing in Open Sea and Coinbase, could well make her one of the most successful early seed-capital investors in recent memory, which helps explain why the “smart money” has flocked to Haun Ventures.
I think she raised that $1.5 billion fund in two months or so. Very impressive. On the other hand, whether Web3 becomes the successor to the likes of Google and Facebook remains to be seen. Some days I agree with Bill Gates, who told me recently for my upcoming documentary, Finding Satoshi, that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are just a way for investors to speculate...
FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT  If Apple wins the top prize for CODA, it will have achieved in two years what Amazon and Netflix couldn’t accomplish in a decade. MATTHEW BELLONI  The governor’s relative silence on Russia and Ukraine may appeal in Florida, but it could also be the first folly of his ’24 candidacy. TINA NGUYEN  With the Warner-Discovery merger closing on April 11, the executive ranks are rife with speculation over Zaslav's rumored org chart. DYLAN BYERS  Outgoing C.E.O.s have a habit of hanging around. But Chapek needs to forget about Iger, execute his plan, and let Disney succeed. WILLIAM D. COHAN
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