Marc Andreessen: evaluation

Transcript context

…If the nations that will do well in the future are strong in AI and strong in energy, thinking about this in terms of geopolitics, which countries rise in importance, for better or worse? Well, okay, different things. Add a couple more things to that, which is, which [countries] are in a position to best invent these new technologies? Then there’s a somewhat separate question of who’s in the best position to deploy because it doesn’t help you that much to invent if you can’t deploy it. I would put that in there. Look, I would give the US very, very high marks on the invention side. I think we’re the best. I think we have the best R&D innovation capability in the world in most fields — not all, but most. I think that’s certainly true of AI. I think that’s, at least, potentially true in energy. I don’t know whether it actually is, but it could be. We should be able to forge ahead on that. China is clearly the other country with critical mass in all of this. You could quibble about the level of invention versus fast follow and talk about IP acquisition, things like that. Nevertheless, whatever your view is, they’re moving very quickly and aggressively and have critical mass, big internal domestic market, and a huge number of researchers and a lot of state support. I think, by and large, for sure on AI, and then I think probably also in energy, we’re probably looking at primarily a bipolar world for quite a while and then spheres of influence going out. I would say Europe is a dark horse in a strange way, in that the EU seems absolutely determined to ban everything, to put a blanket ban on capitalism and, within that, ban AI and ban energy. On the other hand, we have this incredible AI company called Mistral in France, which is the leading open-source AI company right now and one of the best AI companies in the world. The French government has actually really been stepping up to help the ecosystem in Europe. I would actually like to see a tripolar world. I’d like to see the EU fully punch in, but I’m not sure how realistic that is. Let’s say you’re in charge of speeding up deployment in the United States. What is it you do? State level, local level, feds, what should we all be doing?…

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