Democrats as soon as appeared to have a monopoly on Silicon Valley. You could bear in mind when Elon Musk purchased Twitter and posted photographs of outdated workplace cubicles full of “#StayWoke” t-shirts.
However simply because the nation is being reorganized alongside new ideological and political strains, so too is the technological capital of the world. In 2024, lots of the Valley’s largest tech titans got here out with their unwavering assist for Donald Trump. It was, in fact, Elon Musk. . . but in addition WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum; Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who run the cryptocurrency change Gemini; VCs like Shaun Maguire, David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya; Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale; Oculus founder Anduril Palmer Luckey; hedge fund supervisor Invoice Ackman; and at the moment sincerely visitor, one of many world’s most influential buyers and the person accountable for bringing the Web to the plenty – Marc Andreessen.
Marc’s historical past with politics is lengthy – nevertheless it was at all times with the Democrats. He supported Democrats together with Invoice Clinton in 1996, Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. He supported Barack Obama in 2008 after which Hillary Clinton in 2016.
However over the summer time, he introduced he would endorse and donate to Trump. Public data present Marc donated at the very least $4.5 million to pro-Trump tremendous PACs. Why? As a result of he believed that the Biden administration had, as he tells us on this dialog, “disdain” for know-how, and that this election was existential for AI, crypto, and startups in America.
Marc began out because the co-creator of Mosaic, the primary broadly used internet browser, which is alleged to have began the web increase. He then co-founded Netscape, which grew to become the most well-liked internet browser within the 90s, and bought it to AOL in 1999 for $4.2 billion.
He later grew to become an angel investor and board member at Fb. And in 2006, when everybody informed Mark Zuckerberg to promote Fb to Yahoo for $1 billion, Marc was the one voice saying: do not do it. (In the present day, Fb has a market cap of $1.4 trillion.)
He now runs a enterprise capital agency with Ben Horowitz, the place they put money into small startups that they suppose have the potential to turn out to be billion-dollar unicorns. And their historical past is fairly clear: They invested in Airbnb, Coinbase, Instagram, Instacart, Pinterest, Slack, Reddit, Lyft and Oculus – to call a couple of of the unicorns. (And for full disclosure: Marc and his spouse Laura had been small buyers Free Press.)
Marc has constructed a status as somebody who can spot the “subsequent large factor” in know-how and, extra broadly, in our lives. He has been referred to as “the chief ideologue of Silicon Valley’s elite”, a “cultural tastemaker” and even “Silicon Valley’s resident Thinker King”.
In the present day, Bari and Marc focus on his causes for supporting Trump—and the altering environment in Silicon Valley; why he thinks we have been residing below mushy authoritarianism for the previous decade and why it is lastly cracking; why he’s so assured in Elon Musk and his coterie of counter-elites; how President Biden tried to kill know-how and management AI; why he thinks AI censorship is “1,000,000 occasions extra harmful” than social media censorship; why technologists are bringing again American greatness; what Trump serves for dinner; why Marc has spent about half his time at Mar-a-Lago since Nov. 5; and why do you suppose it is morning in America.
Click on under to hearken to the podcast or scroll down for an edited transcript of our dialog.
Weiss grass: I’ve by no means seen you with extra pep in your step and extra of a everlasting smile in your face than I’ve these previous 4 weeks. And did Trump’s victory really feel so essentially vital to you for America?
Marc Andreessen: It is morning in America, so I am very pleased. I feel the analogy for what’s taking place now could be 1980—the transition from the 70s to the 80s and the Carter-Reagan race.
On this election, there was a dramatic shift to the proper throughout massive swathes of the inhabitants, together with California. Even in locations like San Francisco. After which the youth vote – the children are altering. New youngsters are usually not the identical as youngsters 10 years in the past.
However even past its partisan politics, it looks as if the final decade has been a really emotionally darkish and repressive time. And Silicon Valley was on the vanguard of what you may name a mushy authoritarian social revolution that began about 10 or 12 years in the past. And that mushy repressive authoritarianism had an actual unfavorable affect on my complete world—the tech trade, the nation, and I feel a complete technology of younger folks. It certain feels prefer it’s cracked.
Individuals are lastly poking their heads out of the frozen tundra of tradition and realizing that it is really okay to construct issues, rent respectable folks, have fun success, and principally be nation proud and patriotic.
On his private political transformation:
BW: When did you begin updating your psychological mannequin of politics and what was taking place within the nation?
me: I used to be fully shocked that Trump was nominated in 2015 and I did not perceive it in any respect. I used to be fully shocked 10 occasions when he received the final election in 2016. And I felt very disoriented.
I grew up in rural Wisconsin, which is Trump’s residence nation, however I had misplaced contact with the tradition and did not perceive what was happening in that a part of the world. I used to be a completely assimilated Californian and I now not understood what was happening.
I spent 2015-2020 principally confused. I intentionally tried to revive my psychology. I used to be like, I’ve to go take into consideration this rather a lot, and I’ve to learn rather a lot, and I’ve to return via historical past. I needed to fully rebuild my worldview. And that lasted six years.
James Burnham was very useful on these matters. He was one of many twentieth century’s most good political scientists and philosophers in American politics. He was a full-fledged communist revolutionary activist and a private good friend of Leon Trotsky within the Nineteen Twenties and Nineteen Thirties, after which he broke away from communism within the 40s and he went onerous to the proper. And he helped discover it Nationwide Evaluation with William F. Buckley.
He wrote these two books within the Forties, when the center of the good three-way battle between communism, fascism and liberalism was raging on this planet. One known as The managerial revolution. And principally he says, these actions have actual variations, however they’ve one thing in frequent, which he referred to as “managerialism,” which is the creation of a category of specialists. Professional technocrats who’re supposed to have the ability to steer society in wholesome and helpful methods, after which typically lead you in very unhealthy instructions.
He wrote this different guide referred to as Machiavellianand he seems at politics structurally versus ideologically, and one of many concepts is what he calls “the iron legislation of oligarchy.” Which says: Democracy isn’t actually a factor. There is no such thing as a actual system of democracy. As a result of it at all times finally ends up with a small minority on the head of a giant majority in principally each society in human historical past. And the reason being as a result of small elites can set up and the overwhelming majority can’t.
It does not matter what you suppose democracy needs to be. Any type of democracy may have an elite class that may run issues. And this elite class is both going to be good and useful and have the very best pursuits of the inhabitants in thoughts, or it is not. However to faux that they’re voted out and in and that the persons are in cost is only a fable.
BW: So, are we residing in a democracy in America or an oligarchy?
me: An oligarchy. Each society in historical past has been an oligarchy.
BW: You supported Clinton in 1996, Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, Obama in 2008, Hillary in 2016, after which, in fact, on this election, Donald Trump. Are you a gatekeeper or are you somebody who has seen the corruption of the outdated elite – the outdated oligarchy – and determined to modify to a brand new counter-elite, a brand new oligarchy?
me: each.
BW: Clarify what makes somebody come again. As a result of just a few of your class have.
MA: So there’s something that was by no means written down, however everybody understood, which I name “The Settlement.”
