VC giant Andreessen Horowitz's power move has spurred some niche drama at New York Tech Week

Business Insider

18 hours ago

Venture capital juggernaut Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) pulled a power move at this year's Tech Week — and it's become the conference's most compelling niche drama.
Tech Week, whose current iteration was started by A16z in 2022, returned to New York City this month with a full calendar of events just as the city started heating up for summer. The conference's "decentralized" nature means anyone can throw an event and apply to have it added to the official calendar, provided they follow a set of rules.
However, one of this year's new rules has drawn criticism from some organizers and attendees: Official tech week events must use Partiful.
"The only official events platform this year is Partiful," the 2025 Tech Week guide says.
That's left Luma, a competing events platform popular at previous iterations of Tech Week, out in the cold. Versions of Tech Week's events FAQ document from 2023 and 2024 said events could use either Luma or Partiful.
And here's what's gotten tongues wagging: A16z is invested in Partiful, but not in Luma.
"I get the Partiful push this year. It's a portfolio company. Of course they're gonna try to make it the default," Olivia O'Sullivan, a partner and COO at Forum VC, wrote in a LinkedIn post critiquing the platform that led to a barrage of comments.
"Hot take: next year, the people should take back NY Tech Week and bring back Luma as the default platform," she wrote.
The change has been a headache for some organizers.
Daniel Oberhaus, the founder of PR firm Haus, told Business Insider he couldn't get his defense tech rooftop party listed on the formal Tech Week schedule because he had used Luma to invite guests.
"Most conferences we attend tend to be run through Luma," he said.
When Oberhaus asked Tech Week organizers to add his event to the official calendar, they requested that he delete the Luma invite and remake it only on Partiful, he said. Oberhaus decided to keep the initial Luma invite since "hundreds of people" had already signed up.
"Perhaps it's egg on our face in the sense that we should have just made a Partiful to begin with, but we were just using the platform we were familiar with," he said. "We had plenty of people in attendance, and we're just not on the official page now, which is, I think, a bit of a bummer for a distributed conference."
Other event organizers and attendees also groused about the changes to what they said was once a free-wheeling gathering for the technorati with few rules on how events should or shouldn't be run.
Luma cofounder Victor Pontis was measured in his response when asked for comment on the shift, but nodded to the power dynamics at play.
"With successful initiatives like this, people naturally try to claim ownership since it's valuable and well-known," Pontis said. "Having control over what qualifies as a Tech Week event gives some power."
Partiful vs. Luma
Founded in 2020 by ex-Palantir staffers, Partiful has become a go-to app for young people hosting shindigs and offers a one-stop shop for hosts to customize their event pages and send text blasts and updates.
Partiful has become especially popular in tech circles and among the under-30 crowd, and has been used by some Tech Week organizers in New York and LA in previous years.
For some Tech Week attendees at this year's New York events, however, Partiful was a new — and not necessarily preferred — platform for RSVPs.
Luma, also founded in 2020, has been a favorite event management platform for many in the tech world.
Jacob Wallach, the creator behind the TikTok account Excel Daddy, told BI that when he attended Tech Week events last year, "it felt like everything was on Luma." Wallach also hosts events regularly in New York and typically uses Luma for managing RSVPs.
On the other hand, Wallach said, Partiful is the app he and his peers often use for "birthdays, house parties, barbecues."
Despite the drama, being the sole official platform could be a boon for Partiful.
Natalie Neptune, founder of GenZtea, hosted multiple events this Tech Week. She used Partiful for these, which made it onto the official calendar, but said she typically uses Luma.
"I started using Luma last year just because New York Tech Week used Luma," Neptune said.
That same flywheel, if all goes well, could come to Partiful. The platform has also rolled out tools specifically for professional events, like collecting emails for RSVPs and syncing with calendars.
Neptune said she thinks New York Tech Week and A16z's focus on Partiful this year "definitely will have more people" using the platform.