Everything Marc Andreessen has said about software eats the world
Andreessen holds that software cycles reward builders who read the deployment phase correctly: founders' ideas are usually right and timing decides everything, breakthrough companies run on courage, genius, and lead-bullet persistence rather than silver bullets, and every platform shift makes 'now' the prime time to build against incumbents.
6 points · 3 appearances · 2014–2025
How the view evolved
Post-2000 tech: deployment phase, not bubble → Bubble test: working tech, paying customers
In 2014 (Stanford GSB) he answers the bubble question with macro-history — Carlota Perez's installation/deployment cycle, arguing tech was post-crash and 'still in a bust'; in 2025 (State of AI) he answers the same question with micro ground truth — does the technology work and are customers paying — a shift from cycle theory to unit-level evidence.
Back founders with courage and genius → Founders are right; early equals wrong
In 2014 he framed picking winners as the VC judging founder character — people as '90% of the decision', courage and genius; by 2025 (a16z speedrun) he says he no longer tries to forecast timing at all and just assumes 'the founder is more likely to be right than we are' — the locus of judgment migrated from the investor to the founder.
Up next
6 points · 3 appearances · 2023–2025 · changed view
“It turns out that there were another set of people who very badly wanted to outlaw alcohol in those days, and those were the Bootleggers, which was organized crime; this stood to make a huge amount of money if legal alcohol sales were banned.”
8 points · 7 appearances · 2019–2025 · changed view
“Wealth is the thing that you really want. Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep. Wealth is the factory that with the robots as cranking out things. Wealth is the computer program that's running at night that's serving other customers. Wealth is even money in the bank that is being reinvested into other assets and into other businesses. Even a house can be a form of wealth, because you can rent it out — although that's probably a lower use of productivity — but land and actually doing some commercial enterprise. So my definition of wealth is much more businesses and assets that can earn while you sleep.”
5 points · 5 appearances · 2024–2026 · changed view
“The observation is that don't die is the most played game by everyone all over the world every day. You and I breathe every few seconds, we look both ways before we cross the street, we all play don't die. So it's played more than capitalism, it's played more than any religion. It's the most played game in the world.”
6 points · 4 appearances · 2007–2020 · changed view
“Well, you can say everybody knows that. Well, I think I've been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.”