a16zThe New Media Advantage with Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
How founders win attention by mastering new-media storytelling today
- Legacy media has become structurally adversarial and unreliable for conveying a founder-approved narrative, making it difficult to build a repeatable communications strategy through traditional outlets.
- New media rewards authenticity, long-form conversation, and interestingness, pushing founders to speak like they would with a smart friend rather than relying on classic media-training polish.
- The effective “go direct” playbook treats the founder (or a long-term figure) as the brand, using unlimited channels and formats to build a durable audience and explain the company’s context.
- Founders should choose battles strategically—responding can amplify brand and galvanize supporters, but reacting to every attack wastes time and builds others’ platforms.
- Winning messaging is outside-in: start with what’s most interesting and urgent in the world, then connect the company to that bigger story (citing Alex Karp, Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen as examples).
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasAssume legacy press can’t reliably carry your strategy anymore.
They argue the press’s “speak truth to power” orientation has overwhelmed objective presentation, making favorable or even neutral outcomes the exception; treat traditional hits as one-offs, not a core plan.
Authenticity beats polish: talk publicly like you do privately.
Their preferred “training” is to speak only on topics you know deeply and communicate them naturally; the goal is for audiences to feel they’re meeting the real person, especially in long-form formats.
In new media, the brand is a person, not a logo.
Unlimited channels and formats shift attention to individuals (e.g., Elon vs. SpaceX); if the CEO won’t be the face, it must be a permanent, credible figure—not a rotating marketing exec.
Interestingness is a requirement, not a nice-to-have.
They claim old media incentivized saying nothing controversial; new media punishes blandness via indifference and algorithmic drowning-out, so founders must develop compelling viewpoints and delivery.
Pick fights that build your brand—don’t amplify nobodies.
Responding can be a growth lever when an attack “hits” and creates a moment to clarify your stance, but engaging small accounts or endless bait is a time sink and increases the attacker’s reach.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesOld media, you had very restricted channels with very restricted formats. New media is unlimited formats, unlimited channels, and the brand is now the person.
— Ben Horowitz
There is no way to get to anything resembling a story that you're gonna like through the traditional media anymore. Like it's just, it, it, it's basically not possible.
— Marc Andreessen
If you are on stage or in an interview and you are talking about something and you don't know that topic inside out already, like what the hell are you doing there?
— Marc Andreessen
You really want people to hate you and you want people to love you, but you don't wanna be neutral. You don't wanna be lukewarm, um, because then you're uninteresting.
— Ben Horowitz
Everybody just naturally thinks inside out, me and my company and my product out into the world. Don't think that way. Think in terms of like what are the most interesting things happening in the world, and then what, and then h- and then, and then how do those things relate to us?
— Marc Andreessen
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
