What Marc Andreessen said to Quartz that made us sit up and listen

http://qz.com/36368/eight-things-marc-andreessen-said-to-quartz-that-made-us-sit-up-and-listen/

by mshafrir • 14 years ago

63 73 14 years ago

kirinan2• 14 years ago

He's wrong about the middle class and the fact that we should pay cheaper wages. In theory, this sounds like it would be correct, however the middle class is born out of a balance between supply and demand. When Supply is too high or demand is too high, the middle class states to disappear, whether from lack of funds to buy things or from lack of a job. However, in a healthy service based economy, where people are needed to create more supply, then businesses are more likely to hire and train someone with less experience and take the risk because the risk may pay off. When there is a demand problem, companies will not take the risk (thus what we have now, people need experience to start working). Lowering the wage will cause a demand problem, and will simply put us in the same position we are in now because people will not be able to afford goods. It sounds good, businesses creating things cheaper, but that really only helps people who have money already, and they aren't the ones that need the help.

rhizome8• 14 years ago

The whole list is comprised of the bleatings of privilege. He's got his and now, entirely coincidentally I'm sure, his advice for the future is oriented around things that will keep him at the top of the food chain.

ActVen• 14 years ago

I'm in full agreement with his comment about timing and many of the ideas of the dotcom bubble. I wouldn't go as far as saying that all of them were good. But, many of them were excellent and were just very poorly timed. Even when you just think about the infrastructure cost of building something during the bubble vs now, it is astounding how much more affordable it is.

eor• 14 years ago

Either the author or Andreesen completely misunderstands or misrepresents the concept of network neutrality. Network neutrality doesn't mean users don't pay for the bandwidth they consume. It means they pay the same price for that bandwidth regardless of what it's used for.

barretts2• 14 years ago

i was at the talk and yes i think he misused "network neutrality." he seemed to be talking more about regulation, and government pressure on telcos to keep prices lower than what the market could bear.

eli3• 14 years ago

I'm not really sure I follow that argument. I get that consumers often prefer unlimited mobile data plans to paying per byte, but what does that have to do with regulation? I'm not aware of any current or proposed rule that would mandate or even encourage unmetered bandwidth and the mobile market is clearly moving away from unlimited data all on its own.

simonh2• 14 years ago

Exactly. The telcos want to charge Youtube (and others) more money for a faster connection to me, but I already paid for my connection to be fast.

Those aren't Youtube's bits coming to me over the wire though, they are mine. I paid for them, both in money to the telco for my connection through them, and to Youtube with my attention to their ads.

sharedliberty2• 14 years ago

Well, but other subscribers paid as much as you but may not be using Youtube as heavily. When they do use Youtube, they want that fast connection, but in aggregate they use less capacity because they are less frequent users. Charging Youtube is one way to account for this difference in usage. Charging consumers based on aggregate usage (like mobile carriers now do) would be another way.

rhizome8• 14 years ago

It's not even that complicated, they just want to use the existing pay-TV business models that businesspeople have studied for decades. It's highly inconvenient for established businesspeople to have to invent new business and revenue models, so a power grab and an encircling legal framework comes as no surprise. These are the people who hire lobbyists, and current internet freedoms are anathema to (the current form of) capitalism.

jasonwatkinspdx• 14 years ago

He is dead wrong on his comment about how there are no incentives on the supply side to reduce bandwidth consumption.

Everyone pays for transit and it is a major cost for any website operator other than something nearly pure text like hacker-news. Even the Tier 1 networks pay each-other transit fees based on ongoing negotiation.

It seems it's very difficult to maintain awareness of where your knowledge is accurate and where it isn't the more success you accumulate as a more passive desiccation maker than in the trenches problem solver.

PatentTroll• 14 years ago

His comments on the middle class, environmental regulation, and net neutrality paint a picture of an out of touch elitist. His comments on AirBnB "eating [all] real estate" just make him sound delusional.

I'm disappointed, I always liked that guy.

pstuart2• 14 years ago

He was in the right place at the right time and now he's rich. And that's the only reason why anybody is listening to him now, certainly not for anything else he's done.

Cheaper labor? How about a more effective labor force? Ugh.

e40• 14 years ago

He was in the right place at the right time and now he's rich. And that's the only reason why anybody is listening to him now, certainly not for anything else he's done.

This. A small percentage of people that make it big can duplicate that success. I've only met one such person in my life and he was the most dangerous business person I ever knew. Dangerous because he walked that line between legal/illegal and ethical/unethical, much to his profit. I realized after meeting him that I could never be him. I just couldn't make some of those decisions, because I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

I'm not saying all serially successful people are like this. It's one data point. I just think many successful people are in the right place at the right time, and many of the other successful people work the system in a way that most of us would find distasteful. Yes, I'm sure there are a small percentage of serially successful people that do it because they have the right stuff and demand our respect and admiration. I just haven't met any of them yet.

SkyMarshal3• 14 years ago

>A small percentage of people that make it big can duplicate that success.

And Andreesen is one of them. He's one of the few entrepreneurs who has created two billion dollar companies, and now is running one of the most highly regarded venture capital operations.

He's a mile a minute, super smart, and his accomplishments aren't so surprising after watching him speak:

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/author/marc_andreessen

larrys4• 14 years ago

" I just couldn't make some of those decisions"

You are 100% correct (from my years of business interactions) about this.

There are people that I have observed in business who have no problem making promises and booking more business then they know they can deliver in order to make quota or get deposits etc. Much of this play directly into someone's success. Whether they can "sleep at night" given the decisions that they make. Nobody is 100% honest or 100% a thief. Some people are better at rationalizing their actions then others. Different upbringing different hard knocks. Or just a thief perhaps. Where someone falls on that line definitely (once again from my many years of observation) can determine the success that follows.

Importantly, much of these stories are never told. People only focus on the end results and success of those people.

smokeyj• 14 years ago

> And that's the only reason why anybody is listening to him now, certainly not for anything else he's done.

Attacking his character doesn't make your false dichotomy any more palatable. Why not have cheaper labor and a more effective labor force?

rhizome8• 14 years ago

"Cheap, good, fast: pick three?"

SkyMarshal3• 14 years ago

Lots of people were in that right place at the right time, but Andreesen made it happen. Then he made it happen again with Loudcloud/Opsware. Two billion dollar companies.

There was a lot of hard work and intelligence behind his being in the right place at the right time.

larrys4• 14 years ago

"Loudcloud"

Loudcloud was a failure. It morphed into opsware. So he was wrong about loudcloud (timing and otherwise).

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/marc-andreessens-lo...

"After many adventures–in which the young company suffered many defeats, "

larrys4• 14 years ago

"And that's the only reason why anybody is listening to him now"

While I almost always tend to lean in the direction you are taking I will add this one point.

Once somebody is successful as Marc has been they end up moving in different circles then the rest of us do. As a result they have access to information that people living on Main street doing It work don't have. So they have a different perspective that is sometimes worth listening to.

That said my problem is when people who have achieved something (say a singer or a musician) starts to spout off and be taken seriously about something they know nothing about.

pg• 14 years ago

You are so mistaken that I wince for your sake reading this comment.

The reason I listen to Marc is that he's among the smartest people in the startup community.

larrys4• 14 years ago

"You are so mistaken that I wince"

"The reason I listen to Marc is that he's among the smartest people"

That's the reason you listen to Marc.

Certainly you aren't claiming that there are many others (for example the writers or people in the media) that pay attention to him (and broadcast what he says) for the reasons the parent is mentioning.

bambax• 14 years ago

Enron people labeled themselves "the smartest guys in the room"... and they were! But they were wrong on everything else. Very smart people are wrong all the time, because of conflicts of interest, because of ideology, because they don't have all the facts, because they're not trying to think rationally, etc.

(On how "smart" people are often wrong, see for example "The Psychology of Rational Thought" by Keith E. Stanovich.)

Regarding Mr. Andreessen, he's just advocating very conservative policies -- esp. less regulations. Less regulation may be desirable for ventures such as AirBnB, but that doesn't mean it's an absolute good. It at least deserves a public discussion and not just affirmations by one of AirBnB's investors...

(Also, "your mistakes make me wince" is not an argument ;-)

diminish2• 14 years ago

Reading a lot of comments here against Marc, I would like to remind him, your recent words on "why being good" is important and "don't be evil" motto is good for everyone and even for smart people.

pstuart2• 14 years ago

It's an honor to have a personal smackdown from PG.

I'm sure he's very smart, and I don't disagree with his observations, however the cheaper labor part was offensive. That was basic "fuck you" to everybody of the non-founder class.

And being rich/powerful certainly helps have people care what you have to say.

You are very smart too -- if Viaweb had not succeeded as it had would people pay as much attention to you?

Edit:

In reflection my comment was not in the proper spirit of HN -- it was bitter and that's not needed here. It did get upvoted plenty though...

Note to self: abandon any notion of ever applying to YC.

sami36• 14 years ago

He wrote Netscape. literally inventing the modern browser. What did you do with your life ?

gojomo2• 14 years ago

Oh, really, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was, in 1992-93, the blessed 'right place' showering unearned success on anyone nearby?

Or perhaps it was that Andreesen (HN username: pmarca) and his Mosaic collaborators helped make it into the right place with their perceptive, opportunistic actions?

Also, has everyone else at those same places and times since, achieved the same investment results and current vantage point into the whole industry?

Or perhaps instead Andreesen continued to assemble a portfolio of more hits than misses, and an ever-larger network of quality collaborators?

This piss-on-success/noone-earned-or-knows-anything attitude is toxic and it saddens me that at two hours old it was the top comment on this submission.

I'll value the opinions coming from Andreesen's 20-year track record, and deep involvement in some of the signature businesses of our times, over those of bitter comment-thread potshot-takers. If he says labor costs in the US are a business problem, it's got a lot more credibility than a disapproving 'ugh' grunt from someone who offers negative judgement without any argument/support.

pvdm2• 14 years ago

Out-of-touch elitist, like most of SV brats. If darpa did not exist, there would be no internet. The middle-class existed because once-upon-a-time people believed a rising tide lifted all boats.

barretts2• 14 years ago

i wish i could believe that. in the 1950s, the U.S. produced 60 percent of global output and had no real international competition, thanks to the destruction in europe, russia, asia, etc. today it produces 18 percent and americans compete against chinese for jobs. i guess that seems like a better explanation for the plight of the middle class than saying we no longer believe in that "a rising tide lift[s] all boats."

andrewcooke• 14 years ago

has anyone else who can never see this site worked what plugin/blocker causes it to spin forever?

pilom• 14 years ago

My temporary solution is to right click and select Inspect Element in Chrome. Then find the "overlay" div and set the z-index to 0. This pushes that to the bottom of the pile and you can browse normally again.

For me personally I think it sits b/c my work proxy has an ad blocker.

luser001• 14 years ago

Thanks! Even simpler fix for lazy: Inspect Element, right click on the element in the developer pane, and choose "delete node".

ryanknapp• 14 years ago

Doesn't work on Safari on iPad either, hopefully they notice the comments here and fix it.

inthewoods2• 14 years ago

Seems to be suffering from "Success Bias" wherein because he was successful in one thing, he naturally thinks he is right about all things.

wilfra• 14 years ago

I would imagine lots of VC's end up feeling this way, because the people they interact with most are amazingly talented and smart startup founders - who are constantly kissing their ass and telling them everything they say is genius.

Don't get me wrong, I do think he is a genius and there is some gold in this article - but also some ridiculous statements.

inthewoods2• 14 years ago

I've seen it in a lot of successful people - it is pretty common. I've actually had a successful person who have no background in my field tell me why I was wrong about something they clearly knew nothing about. It was nothing short of amazing.

simonw• 14 years ago

Scrolling up and down on that page causes the URL to change to reflect the article you are now viewing. I'm pretty certain this is a bad idea.

eli3• 14 years ago

Yup. I was very confused for a minute there.

mnicole• 14 years ago

I have never enjoyed using or understood the concept of their design; someone was trying to be way too clever. The layout is simple and makes sense, but the scrolling experience is absolutely awful. Clicking my back button to get back to this post shouldn't scroll me up through other articles I didn't read and there isn't enough distinction between them if I'm scrolling quickly to skim.

tptacek• 14 years ago

Commenting to say the same thing. Wow, this design is terrible.

fudged71• 14 years ago

I think it's okay to change the hash in the URL when you scroll past divs, but changing the article/page you're on--like they do here--is bizarre and difficult to understand.

thaumaturgy• 14 years ago

I didn't get even that far, the page never loaded for me. I just got that universal "loading" spinner with some very light text in the background.

I suspect that either Ghostery or AdBlock Plus is nuking it. After reading the comments here I guess I won't bother disabling them to read the article.

eli3• 14 years ago

Reads sort of like one of those intentionally contrarian Slate articles.

cookiecaper2• 14 years ago

Say what you will about his actual opinions, I think it's refreshing to hear someone who is willing to say what he believes despite popular concurrence with his opinions. Very tired of the echo chamber in the tech community.

As for the article, many of these seem like realistic perspectives, even if they discomfort the typical listener.

jjoonathan• 14 years ago

> it's refreshing to hear someone who is willing to say what he believes

> echo chamber in the tech community

Do you really believe that the "echo chamber" happens because people lie about their beliefs to fit in? I couldn't disagree more. I'm fairly certain the "echo chamber" happens because we share backgrounds, information sources, and inferential technique, leading us to share conclusions as well. It would be fair to call our community "too homogenous/narrow" but it's equally incorrect and insulting to imply that the majority viewpoint persists through popularity alone.

As for the article, you're correct that his perspectives are "realistic" in that I believe they are shared by many people in the investor class. However, they're completely self-serving and unaligned with the common good. In that sense I see his opinions as roughly morally equivalent to the cries of "redistribute all the wealth to eliminate poverty" that occur in different contexts.

For instance, he predicts that we will "run out of capacity" for our data hungry apps. SO BUILD MORE CAPACITY, DAMMIT. If that means redistributing spectrum, so be it. Match supply with demand. That's what markets are supposed to do. I'm sure investors would love to ride the bubble formed by artificially restricted supply but they do so at the cost of everyone else. It's sickening to see him pretend that he's forwarding a common interest by opposing net neutrality.

Ditto for his comments on the workforce.

None of his other opinions (1,5,6,7,8) seem terribly controversial so I've ignored them.

cookiecaper2• 14 years ago

>Do you really believe that the "echo chamber" happens because people lie about their beliefs to fit in?

I don't believe most people actively lie about their opinions, though I'm sure it happens and probably more often than one would want to admit. I think it's more just a classic case of groupthink; people just adopt the opinion of the group for the social benefit, more or less subconsciously.

More important than simply having an unpopular opinion is the willingness to express it when asked, even if it's not going to result in praise or accolades from the group's (explicitly or implicity) chosen "thought leaders". Such a thing encourages independent analysis and challenges the authority of said "thought leaders", which is healthy in most contexts.

It's especially important to do this in tech; since many of us seem to lack basic social skills, the cost of expressing a thing at odds with the group's position are disproportionately severe, and combined with the technical perspective of most in the field, groupthink pervades our sector particularly deeply, and the consequences of opposing one's technical religious positions are particularly harsh.

While it's pretty obvious that Andreesen's opinions are informed by his personal perspective as a wealthy dude, I don't think we should allow that to unfairly bias our reception. We're obviously not going to volunteer to have the phone company charge us $500/mo, but it doesn't mean that he's wrong about the basic principle of metered data or the availability of supply.

While you see an "artificially restricted supply", Andreesen sees "artificially curtailed demand" (as far as supply<->demand applies to pricing) by heavy dependence on cheap offshored labor and the political impossibility of bringing that labor front and center (i.e., on-shoring it). I think this is a viewpoint worthy of consideration even if we don't like its implications, which are basically that things should cost much more than they do now.

onetwothreefour2• 14 years ago

Oh yeah, the millionaire (possibly billionaire) is just being SO BRAVE espousing these generic conservative talking points.

idm• 14 years ago

qz.com will not render with Ghostery enabled.

Also, what's with that qz.com headline? Why, exactly, do we care about the gonzo-reaction of a tech blogger (the "sit up and listen" bit.) It's just a fluffy throw-away expression and comes across as the reddit equivalent of "shit just got real." I understand: they're summarizing 8 insights from Andressen, but strictly speaking, the headline is about the reporter instead of Andressen. How about: "Andressen predicts massive changes to housing, mobile, and the middle class." I don't write headlines, but at least this refers to the material in the article.

As for the content: on the one hand, I appreciate a bulleted list for its quick readability, but the headline sounds to me like an excuse to make a list instead of a narrative...

rhizome8• 14 years ago

Your suggested headline doesn't focus on Quartz.

bwanab• 14 years ago

"...but it is harder to do business in most states in the US than it is to do business in a lot of places around the world.”

And yet, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation's ranking on ease of doing business the U.S. as a whole came in a respectable 10th, and I'm going to make a wild guess that the places he is talking about in that quote aren't many if any of the countries ahead of the U.S.

[http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking?src=home]

patmcguire• 14 years ago

Yeah, it's a pretty ludicrous statement. When was the last time Marc Adreessen had to pay a bribe?

diminish2• 14 years ago

your intended point is right. but bribes usually make everything easier for startups in over-bureaucratic states, bribes themselves are not making anything hard, but unethical.

groby_b• 14 years ago

Yay. Another "I got mine" article from an Internet celebrity.

He's got no idea what middle class means.

He's throwing out the usual conservative talking points about deregulation. (How'd that work for the banking system? In, say, 1929, 1989, 2007? Electricity in CA? The environment before 1970?)

He's of course in favor of manipulating IPO prices, because that's where he makes money, after all.

He's completely delusional about AirBnB.

And he's just a plain lunatic when he says he'd take eye cancer to have Glass.

It certainly makes you sit up and listen. And then shake your head sadly that you wasted time on the article.

yarrel• 14 years ago

The ideology of the wannabe ruling class in all its terrifying glory.

notlisted2• 14 years ago

AirBnB will eat nothing. AirBnB is thriving because of non-enforcement of existing laws, which were put in place by cities to protect the consumer, and because the IRS is not collecting taxes.

Relevant:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/your-money/a-warning-for-a...

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-27/airbnb-to-ta...

As soon as the hotel industry perceives AirBnB as a legitimate threat --we're getting there in NYC-- it will take action/lobbying to the next level, and it won't be pretty. For starters, they could ask the IRS to demand a full DB dump of all hosts to tax their (mostly illegitimate) income, which I suspect is not reported as such. The pool of available inventory will dry up in no time.

That said, I am wondering if he means that they can pivot and buy their own buildings to become full-fledged hoteliers.

27182818284• 14 years ago

AirBnB will push back and fans of AirBnB will push back too. In addition to that, there is always business outside the US. Half the people I know who have used AirBnB used it to stay outside the continent. They'll hard times, no doubt, but I wouldn't immediately dig their grave and put flowers on it.

notlisted2• 14 years ago

No doubt they will push back, and their fans too, but... there are existing laws being flaunted. Enforcement is imminent. As the initial link indicated, current hosts already have a legal liability, which is really ignored (hidden) by AirBNB.

Not putting flowers on their grave, but sincerely doubting their prospects in the (US) hospitality-space, especially in metro areas. Like I mentioned above, he may be referring to possible pivots based on fan-base, data collected etc., e.g. actually running their own unique hotels, a matching solution for people who are looking for buyers (stay before you buy), roommate finders (rentals over 30 days, which are mostly legal), lead generation (rentals and sales) etc. etc. etc.

For the record: I think he's a smart guy, and I agree with most of his other points (1,4,5,6,8), question others (2,3 & 7).

Also agree with another poster that he was a lucky guy (I've actually used Spyglass and Netscape 1.0, get off my lawn, haha)

pnathan• 14 years ago

My understanding of the middle class is that they were the mid-small businessmen - merchants - of Europe since the 1600s. Checking wikipedia, it agrees with me.

There's also the idea that the middle class is the high-school degreed people who make "decent" money, perhaps by being in the trades (i.e., plumber) or working in a factory. Edit: this idea is not unique, I've heard it in a variety of places.

These two ideas don't really connect too well (although business-minded tradespeople can grow their business to be fairly lucrative).

I have no particular comment regarding Marc's statements, but I wanted to point out the varying definitions.

onetwothreefour2• 14 years ago

Rich guys says we should destroy the environment, people should be enslaved in sweatshops to make widgets to make him richer and talks some complete idiocy about AirBNB.

News at 11.

wahsd• 14 years ago

Andreessen is gone. The transformation is complete. He has lost all legitimacy beyond being a fat cat that manipulates markets by sheer power of money and influence in the inefficient way that monopolists do.

pvdm2• 14 years ago

His bald head reminds me of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse now. He's gone rogue.

What Marc Andreessen said to Quartz that made us sit up and listen

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