Open source software has permeated practically every nook of the software world. The biggest companies and largest-scale systems all lean heavily on open source code. Yet, with the exception of Red Hat, no one has built a great business on top of open source software. That’s because what companies should be selling isn’t necessarily the software, or even support, says a16z’s Peter Levine, but a service that leverages open source. One example of such a service is DigitalOcean, which has built a cloud environment tailored to the needs of developers. DigitalOcean CEO and cofcounder Ben Uretsky joins Levine from his New York City HQ for a discussion about open source-as-a-service, how companies of all sizes should think about leveraging open source, and whether we’ll start to see a slew of specialized clouds geared toward different verticals.

There are great examples of communities helping to grow and solidify online marketplaces. eBay in its early days certainly leveraged the power of community to bring buyers and sellers onto its platform. Today, companies like Etsy, Uber and Airbnb are turning toward community for new ideas and new customers. But how do you build community, and how do you balance the needs of the community and the needs of the business? Or to put it another way, how do you simultaneously give up control and maintain control? Andreessen Horowitz board partner Boris Wertz – who built his own community while running Abe Books – is joined by Tindie’s CEO Emile Petrone and head of engineering Julia Grace to pick apart the notion of community. Can it be engineered? How much leverage do you give your “super-users,” and for some businesses is community even necessary?