“Marc Andreessen: The Maniacal Genius”
At first glance, Marc Andreessen may seem to hold all sorts of contradictory beliefs. From afar, the venture capitalist expresses his , but he’s also somehow a . He’s a but doesn’t seem to be very popular with most Americans. His venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has claimed that the U.S. government is being strangled by special interests and lobbying, but just last year pressuring that same government.
While Andreessen may be all over the place ideologically, when you delve into his core beliefs, they seem pretty straightforward. power fanatic. That’s power for certain people, namely people like him. In other words, the wealthy. I used to consider Andreessen a kind of buffoon, a guy who’s been so rich for so long that it’s effectively fried his brain. His love of investment had convinced me of this. Now, however, I think a more fitting descriptor might be “maniac.” He seems like a zealous believer. In anything that helps sustain or enhance the power accumulation of the American elite, all other considerations be damned.
about Andreessen Horowitz’s relatively new fund, American Dynamics, which is populated by defense startups, sheds some new light on this. Think of someone who has frequently criticized , feeding the American war machine might be a bit taboo. But no, he seems perfectly fine with that. The story focuses on the “Gundo Bros,” a group of patriotic software developers attached to defense startups backed by a16z. These “bros” sound like mostly, following the lead of 1980s action movies:
They pump iron while coding, organize weekly bonfires on the beach, and drink energy drinks. They call for a return to America. Hardware building has roots in El Segundo, where pioneers like Jack Northrop and Allan Lockheed built the pillars of America’s arsenal. And they embrace. , a philosophy that demands technology advance no matter the cost (and counts Andreessen as its billboard sponsor).
A16z’s American Dynamics fund is undeniably fun at first glance. , a historical timeline claims a series of impressive historical events: the Wright brothers’ first flight, the invention of the transistor, the Manhattan Project and moon landing, and frames them all as part of the American Dynamism “movement,” as if A16z had anything to do with any of those things. American Dynamism embodies the spirit of innovation, progress, and resilience that propels America forward. A powerful force exemplified in innovative achievements in technology and innovation, shaping both our nation and the global landscape,” the site says. A visitor to the site reading this garbage might be distracted enough to forget that the fund is that will hoard breakthroughs for themselves.
Seen in their entirety, Andreessen’s interests have a certain chaotic uniformity. The attitude seems to be: throw anything at the wall, as long as it accelerates his money and power (deregulation, technological disruption, berserk artificial intelligence, missiles and bombs), it’s all good! Some principles of Andreessen’s belief system were laid bare last year in his”published on his venture capital firm’s blog. This “manifesto” is basically a spastic apology for corporate greed and wealth accumulation by a technocratic elite. It reads like a strange mix of Gordon Gekko and Steve Jobs’ main speeches with a touch of Patrick Bateman. rhetoric thrown around.
Given his caricatured and rich-idiot view of life, it makes sense that Andreessen doesn’t think fondly of the segments of society that don’t to his ubermensch-style aspirations. That is, The American Prospect published written by author Rick Perlstein last week that seems to provide more evidence of Andreessen’s irredeemably elitist perspective.
According to Perlstein, he was invited to what sounds like a truly insufferable party at one of Andreessen’s multimillion-dollar mansions in 2017. . During this event, amidst annoying pseudo-intellectual ramblings by the dinner guests present, Andreessen allegedly said There’s something truly stupid about rural Americans. Here’s that exchange as Perlstein recounts it:
I brought up the ordinary comforts of kinship, friendship, craft, memory, legend, tradition, skills transmitted from generation to generation, and other benefits small towns provide: things that make humans human. I pointed out that there must be something in the kind of places you grew up in worth preserving. I dared to venture that It’s always worth lamenting when a venerable human community is wiped off the earth; that perhaps people are more than simple figures who find their own price in the life balance . . .
And that’s when the man of the seven-chimneyed castle said it.
“I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.”
Or something like that. Perlstein is a bit off on the exact wording Andreessen used, stating:
I take the liberty of putting it in quotes, although I can’t be sure those are his exact words. Marc, if you’re reading, feel free to reach out and refresh my memory. Maybe he said “quiescent,” or “docile,” or maybe “impotent.” Something, surely, along those lines.
Still, it sounds like something he would say.
Andreessen: Controversial Quotes
From what I can gather from his previous comments, Andreessen doesn’t seem to have much love for anyone without a huge bank account. Among the charming things he has supposedly said over the years is that the American middle class is a “myth” and/or an “artifact” and an “experiment [that] was run and was a catastrophic failure.” Another fun thing: “I’m not saying we should have sweatshops in the U.S. and I’m not saying we shouldn’t have environmental regulations, but it’s harder to do business in most U.S. states than in many places around the world.”
Andreessen’s Views on American Society
If the American middle class was an accident and regulations are bad for business, and the best rural Americans can do is take painkillers and play video games, but the American war machine is totally awesome… it seems like you could draw a pretty clear picture of what Andreessen thinks about most Americans and where he thinks our country should go. I’m as excited as he is.
