Marc Andreessen: evaluation

Transcript context

…I think that’s right. Just one company. Apple was a venture-backed startup. Two kids in a garage in 1976, not that long ago. It’s bigger than the entire German industrial public market. Attacking from the edges, sometimes you can get really, really big results. Sometimes you just prod the system. Sometimes you just spark people into reacting, and that pushes everything forward. Then the other question always is just like, from our standpoint, what are the tools that startups have to try to really change things? There’s a bunch of such tools, but there’s always two that really dominate. One is just, what’s the magnitude of the technological change in the air that can be harnessed? We’re always looking for the next super cycle, the next breakthrough technology, which you can imagine 1,000 companies doing many different things, all punching into incumbent markets. AI certainly seems like one of those. Then, yes, the other is just the sheer animalistic ambition, energy, animal spirits of the entrepreneurs and of the teams that get built. Like I said, I think the best of the startups today are more aggressive, more ambitious, more capable. The people are better. They execute better than at least I’ve ever seen. I think that’s also quite positive. Who’s a social thinker who helps you make sense of these trends?…

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