Typically when A16Z funds a company, the
applied research and software development
have already been done. And the evaluation
of the company by a large venture firm is
usually based on 'traction', not core, technical
internals that might be new, innovative,
with silver bullets, etc.

The question relevant to the OP is
what happens after the company is going
and suddenly encounters a product from a competitor
five times faster and for free. The present
A16Z portfolio does not answer that question.

Moreover, what you are pointing to as 'innovative'
companies in their portfolio is not much like
the 'innovation' of a "silver bullet". That is,
the 'innovation' in your list from their
portfolio is, on the face of it, just
innovation in the business 'idea' or business
model and not core, internal, technical
innovation such as needed to make some software
five times faster as in the OP. E.g., you
mentioned AirBnb. Where is the core,
technical silver bullet in that business?
Maybe they have some such bullets in their
server farm now, but when they got venture
capital likely they had recently still
been thinking air mattresses. Similarly
for Facebook: Now they have one heck of
a server farm with, maybe some silver bullets,
but early on they were something from
Zuck's dorm room typing with no bullets
visible, silver or lead.

I've seen some silver bullets and created
several in my career and simply don't see
anything in Ben's background or his many
blog posts that suggests he knows how
to invent or direct the invention of silver
bullets; indeed, what I've seen is that,
from his thinking,
in any company where he was on the Board, likely
he would ruin any efforts he saw to
create silver bullets. Ben's technical
background is just routine; otherwise,
he was a 'business manager' who pushed
others to work with "lead bullets".

Learn a lesson: (A) No way, not a chance,
will any usual, US, red-blooded, no-nonsense,
bottom line oriented business manager want
anything to do with any subordinate doing
anything the manger would have to think about
longer than 10 seconds to understand. They
still want it like the Ford factory 100 years
ago where the supervisor had all the knowledge
and the subordinate was there just to add
routine muscle to the knowledge of the supervisor.
Such a manager does not want to bet even
1% of his career on any work he does not
personally understand. Period.
(B) In information technology, venture
capital Board members are much like such
managers -- they want nothing to do
with pursuing silver bullets.
(C) Actually, the fraction of the population
at all good at creating technical silver bullets
is quite small, necessarily so since
in this context 'silver' means both valuable
and rare. A problem is that if the company,
once it's up and going, needs a silver bullet,
a Board that doesn't understand how silver
bullets are made won't back a silver bullet
effort, even if the CEO sees his way clear
to success, and will insist on lead bullet
approaches.

Again, I just don't
see Ben as a silver bullet kind of guy.

Net, the silver bullet business is
fairly well understood, but nearly all the venture
partners are among the worst at working
with that business. Again, good work
on silver bullets includes the SR-71,
22 nm line width, and most of the funded
projects of NSF, NIH, and DARPA.

In particular, the crucial, core technology
of my startup is some silver bullets I created
in some original applied math based on some
advanced prerequisites in pure and applied math.
I've converted that math to software, but to
evaluate the real promise of the company just
must trace the math. A16H has already written
me that there is no way they can consider the
original applied math. Okay. But once
my company is up and running and needed a
silver bullet, and I already know one place
it will, if an A16H partner were on my Board
then I can see it right in front of me like
a freight train 50 feet away at 80 MPH
coming right toward me, as soon as I tell
the Board about the little project for
the next silver bullet, they will
in unison upchuck on the Board table
and fire me. No way. Not a chance
do I want any such person on my Board.
I'll let those guys stay busy with another
local, mobile, social, photo-sharing app,
like Instagram except for video clips or
some such.

I'm not used to working with people who
are afraid to work with silver bullets.
Instead I've been working with silver
bullets right along in all my career
in applied math and computing for problems
in US national security and business,
in my Ph.D. work, in likely the world's
best computer science lab, etc. Again,
from my experience, Ben doesn't look
like a silver bullet kind of guy.
Neither does A16Z.