In my opinion, the fact that a16z’s co-founder Ben Horowitz traveled to Mexico to meet with President Claudia Sheinbaum and participated in Mexico Tech Week hasn’t received nearly enough attention in the startup ecosystem. Let’s start with his presence at Mexico Tech Week. It’s worth noting that this is only the third edition of the event, yet it’s already attracting some of the world’s most influential VCs. This tells us something important about the velocity at which the Mexican startup ecosystem is developing and sends a strong signal for the years to come. Obviously, Ben Horowitz didn’t come only for Tech Week. He primarily came to meet with Claudia Sheinbaum at Palacio Nacional to discuss artificial intelligence development. There are two signals here. First, it shows that the new government is more business and startup friendly than the previous one, opening the doors to the kind of on-the-ground support the ecosystem needs. Second, it confirms that Mexico is actively trying to position itself as a strategic player in the global AI race. Let’s connect the dots. Mexico is preparing to launch a national AI lab, build a large language model backed by Nvidia, and channel over US$270 billion in investment into infrastructure through Plan México. Ben Horowitz showing up is no coincidence. It places a16z, and by extension Silicon Valley, squarely in the room as Mexico defines its digital strategy for the next decade. To me, we’re witnessing Mexico’s evolution from an emerging market to a global tech player. So congratulations to the Mexico Tech Week team for helping catalyze this moment and Long LATAM 🫡