Andreessen affirms that greed drives Silicon Valley as he endorses Trump
Mid-westerner Marc Andreessen, 53, made his riches after a public education at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and a stint at the University’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). In 1993, at NCSA, Andreessen and co-worker Eric Bina developed the first graphical browser in the U.S., Mosaic. They were public employees in the right place at the right time.
After Andreessen moved to California, Mosaic would become Netscape with an initial public offering in 1995. Three years later, AOL bought Netscape for $4,300,000,000.* That’s $8,200,000,000 in today’s dollars.
Andreessen was 27.
With that windfall, he co-founded “one of the most prominent venture capital (VC) firms in Silicon Valley (SV).”
Today he joined Elon Musk in endorsing Donald Trump for president.
Why? Taxation. Guardrails. Biden’s proposed end to the single-minded get-rich-now toxic brohood that is Silicon Valley.
Notice that Andreessen conveniently skipped the bit about additional taxes on the super rich, taxes that are supported by most Americans (3-in-4). As well as some super rich people.
* Did you know that startups DON’T have to pay taxes on increased value?
Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains is what Andreessen called “the final straw” that forced him to switch from supporting the current president to voting for Trump. If the unrealized capital gains tax goes into effect, startups may have to pay taxes on valuation increases. (Private companies’ appreciation is not liquid. However, the U.S. government collects tax in dollars.)
Talk about encouraging bubbles. No wonder a beneficiary would criticize these taxes.
Guardrails are essential as SV develops opaque autonomous algorithms (AKA “AI”).
As the federal government pours billions of dollars into artificial intelligence (AI), it is also stepping up efforts to place meaningful restrictions on the development and use of the technology. In 2023, the government had ten regulations in place restricting how it uses AI – up from four in the previous year. One of the most closely watched regulations comes from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which released guidance in March prescribing minimum risk management practices for federal agencies’ use of rights- and safety- impacting AI. The long-awaited guidance is the most comprehensive attempt yet to distill calls for safe and responsible AI into an actionable framework for federal agencies (emphasis added).
Notice the Biden guardrails are limited to government use. We are very much lagging Europe.
‘Give me the money’ but without any caveats seems to be Andreessen’s position. We already know that letting S.V. self-regulate is doomed to failure.
Let’s leave the evils of private equity (VC is a subset) for another day.
Public education
Andreessen is where he is today because of public investment in education and research, back when public universities were predominantly publicly funded. Tuition in 1995: 18% of income. Today? It was 42.1% in 2021.
And what is Trump’s plan for public investments like NCSA? For public universities? K-12 education?
Public investment in research
Project 2025 eliminates funding for some STEM-related research programs.
It calls for “dismantl[ing]” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service.
Data centers are a major power drain which which is expected to double by 2030 to 9% of US power consumption. Therefor the tech industry should support efforts to determine the extent of climate change. Supporting Trump is a de facto admission that you are are a climate change denier.
Public universities
Project 2025 elevates all things “private.” It calls for privatizing student loans, which cannot be discharged during bankruptcy. They have no “income-driven repayment plans and loan forgiveness options.”
K-12 education
- Title I is an $18 billion federal fund that supports low-income students. It is the “oldest and largest federal program” for childhood education. Gone. Why? “Schools that enroll large numbers of children of color and that have historically been among the nation’s least well-funded, are among the chief Title I beneficiaries.”
- Federal special education funds could be used for “private school[s] or other education expenses.”
- Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.
I’m pretty sure the son of a seed company employee in Cedar Falls, Iowa, attended public schools for K-12 in the 1970s and 1980s.
Then there are Trump-specific ideas
Trump is calling for a certification program for teachers who “embrace patriotic values” and “funding preferences and favorable treatment” for states and school districts that follow his calls for abolishing teacher tenure. He also calls for cutting administrative roles, and adopting a “parental bill of rights.” Trump said he would also remove “the radical zealots and Marxists” he claims have “infiltrated” the Department of Education.
If money alone can secure an election, we all need to worry about SV bros funneling millions into dark money political action groups.
Money is NOT speech, no matter that the GOP-nominated and co-opted Supreme Court says it is.
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The stakes in November have never been more urgent, nor the choices more extreme.
Remember: you are not voting for one person. You are voting for a team.
I’m voting for Team America not Team Russia-Hungary-North Korea.
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