How Risk Taking, Innovation & Artificial Intelligence Transform Human Experience | Marc Andreessen

1. 0:00 – 3:02

   Marc Andreessen

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      (music plays) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today my guest is Marc Andreessen. Marc Andreessen is a software engineer and an investor in technology companies. He co-founded and developed Mosaic, which was one of the first widely used web browsers. He also co-founded and developed Netscape, which was one of the earliest widespread used web browsers. And he co-founded and is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most successful Silicon Valley venture capital firms. All of that is to say that Marc Andreessen is one of the most successful innovators and investors ever. I was extremely excited to record this episode with Marc for several reasons. First of all, he himself is an incredible innovator. Second of all, he has an uncanny ability to spot the innovators of the future. And third, Marc has shown over and over again the ability to understand how technologies not yet even developed are going to impact the way that humans interact at large. Our conversation starts off by discussing what makes for an exceptional innovator as well as what sorts of environmental conditions make for exceptional innovation and creativity more generally. In that context, we talk about risk-taking, not just in terms of risk-taking in one's profession, but about how some people, not all, but how some people who are risk-takers and innovators in the context of their work also seem to take a lot of risks in their personal life and some of the consequences that can bring. Then we discuss some of the most transformative technologies that are now emerging such as novel approaches to developing clean energy as well as AI or artificial intelligence. With respect to AI, Marc shares his views as to why AI is likely to greatly improve human experience, and we discuss the multiple roles that AI is very likely to have in all of our lives in the near future. Marc explains how, not too long from now, all of us are very likely to have AI assistants, for instance, assistants that give us highly informed health advice, highly informed psychological advice. Indeed, it is very likely that all of us will soon have AI assistants that govern most if not all of our daily decisions. And Marc explains how, if done correctly, this can be a tremendously positive addition to our life. In doing so, Marc provides a stark counter-argument for those that argue that AI is going to diminish human experience. So if you're hearing about and/or concerned about the ways that AI is likely to destroy us, today you are going to hear about the many different ways that AI technologies now in development are likely to enhance our human experience at every level. What you'll soon find is that while today's discussion does center around technology and technology development, it is really a discussion about human beings and human psychology. So whether you have an interest in technology development and/or AI, I'm certain that you'll find today's discussion to be an important and highly lucid view

2. 3:02 – 6:05

   Sponsors: LMNT & Eight Sleep

   1. AHAndrew Huberman3:02

      into what will soon be the future that we all live in. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means plenty of the electrolytes sodium, magnesium, and potassium in the correct ratios, but no sugar. The electrolytes and hydration are absolutely key for mental health, physical health, and performance. Even a slight degree of dehydration can impair our ability to think, our energy levels, and our physical performance. LMNT makes it very easy to achieve proper hydration, and it does so by including the three electrolytes in the exact ratios they need to be present. I drink LMNT first thing in the morning when I wake up. I usually mix it with about 16 to 32 ounces of water. If I'm exercising, I'll drink one while I'm exercising, and I tend to drink one after exercising as well. Now many people are scared off by the idea of ingesting sodium because obviously we don't want to consume sodium in excess. However, for people that have normal blood pressure, and especially for people that are consuming very clean diets, that is, consuming not so many processed foods or highly processed foods, oftentimes we are not getting enough sodium, magnesium, and potassium, and we can suffer as a consequence. And with LMNT, simply by mixing in water, it tastes delicious, it's very easy to get that proper hydration. If you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to DrinkLMNT, that's L-M-N-T, .com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with your purchase. Again, that's Drink LMNT, L-M-N-T,.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. I've spoken many times before on this podcast about the fact that sleep, that is getting a great night's sleep, is the foundation of all mental health, physical health, and performance. When we're sleeping well, everything goes far better. When we are not sleeping well or enough, everything gets far worse at the level of mental health, physical health, and performance. And one of the key things to getting a great night's sleep and waking up feeling refreshed is that you have to control the temperature of your sleeping environment, and that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, you need your core body temperature to drop by about one to three degrees, and in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, you want your core body temperature to increase by about one to three degrees. With Eight Sleep, it's very easy to induce that drop in core body temperature by cooling your mattress early and throughout the night and warming your mattress toward morning. I started sleeping on an Eight Sleep mattress cover a few years ago, and it has completely transformed the quality of the sleep that I get, so much so that I actually loathe traveling because I don't have my Eight Sleep mattress cover when I travel. If you'd like to try Eight Sleep, you can go to eightsleep.com/huberman, and you'll save up to $150 off their Pod 3 cover. Eight Sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman. And now for my discussion with Marc Andreessen.Mark,

3. 6:05 – 12:49

   Personality Traits of an Innovator

   1. AHAndrew Huberman6:05

      welcome.

   2. MAMarc Andreessen6:06

      Hey, thank you.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman6:07

      Delighted to have you here and have so many questions for you about innovation, AI, your view of the landscape of tech and humanity in general.

   4. MAMarc Andreessen6:18

      Yep.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman6:18

      I want to start off by talking about innovation from three different perspectives. There's the inner game, so to speak, or the psychology of the innovator or innovators. Things like their propensity for engaging in conflict or not, their propensity for having a dream or a vision, and in particular, their innovation as it relates to some psychological trait or expression. So we'll get to that in a moment. Uh, the second component that I'm curious about is the outer landscape around innovators. Who they place themselves with, uh, the sorts of choices that they make, and also the sorts of personal relationships that they might have or not have. And then the last component is this notion of the larger landscape that they happen to find themselves in. What time in history, uh, what's the geography? Bay Area, New York, Dubai, et cetera.

   6. MAMarc Andreessen7:12

      Sure.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman7:12

      So, to start off, is there a common trait of innovators that you think is absolutely essential as a seed, uh, to creating things that are really impactful?

   8. MAMarc Andreessen7:26

      Yeah. So, I'm not a psychologist, but I've picked up some of the (laughs) concepts, uh, and some of the, uh, some of the terms. And so I've, I've, it was just a gr- it was a great moment of delight in my life when I learned about the big five personality traits, 'cause I was like, "Aha, here's a way to actually describe, right, the answer to this question in at least reasonably scientific terms." Um, and so I, I think what you're looking for when you're, when you're talking about real innovators, like people who actually do really creative breakthrough work, I think you're talking about a couple things. So one is very high in what's called trait openness, right, which is one of the big, one of the big five, um, which is basically just like flat out open to new ideas. Um, and, and of course the, the nature of trait openness is, trait openness means you're not just open to new ideas in one category, you're open to many different kinds of new ideas. And so we, we might talk about the fact that a lot of innovators also are very creative people in other aspects of their lives, right, even outside of, uh, their, their, their specific creative domain. So that's important, but of course, just being open is not sufficient, 'cause if you're just open, you could just be curious and explore, right, and spend your entire life reading and, and doing, you know, talking to people and never actually create something. So you also need, um, a couple other things. You need a high level of conscientiousness, which is another one of the big five. You need somebody who's really willing to apply themselves, in our world, typically over a period of many years, right, to be able to, to, to accomplish something great. You know, they, they, they typically work very hard. Um, that often gets obscured 'cause the stories that end up getting told about these people are, you know, it's just like there's this kid and he just had this idea and it was like a stroke of genius and it was like a moment in time and, you know, it was just like, "Oh, he was so lucky." And it's like, no, like for most of these people it's years and years and years of, of applied effort. And so you need s- you need somebody with like an extreme, you know, basically willingness to defer gratification, uh, and really apply themselves to a, a specific thing for a long time. Um, and of course, this is why there aren't very many of these people is there aren't many people who are high in openness and high in conscientiousness, 'cause to a certain extent they're, they're opposed, right traits, and so you need somebody who has both of those. Third is you need somebody high in disagreeableness, which is the third of the big five. Um, so you need somebody who's just like basically ornery, uh, right, because if they're not ornery, then they'll be talked out of their ideas by people who will be like, "Oh, well," you know, 'cause m- the reaction most people have to new ideas is, "Oh, that's dumb." Um, and so somebody who's too agreeable will, will be easily dissuaded to, to not pursue, you know, the, the, not pulling the thread anymore. So you need somebody highly disagreeable. Again, the nature of disagreeableness is they tend to be disagreable- disagreeable about everything, right? So they tend to be these very sort of iconoclastic, you know, kind of renegade characters. Um, and then there's just a table stakes component, which is they just also need to be high IQ, right? They just, they just need to be really smart 'cause it's just, it's hard to innovate in any category if you can't synthesize large amounts of information quickly. Um, and so those are four like basically like high spikes, you know, very rare traits that basically have to, uh, have to come together. Um, you could probably also say they, they probably at some point need to be relatively low in neuroticism, which is another of the big five, 'cause if they're true neurotic, they probably can't handle the stress, right? So, so it's kind of this, this, this dial in there, and then of course if you're, if you're in, if you're into like this, the, the sort of science of the big five basically, you know, these are all people who are on like the far outlying kind of point on the, on the normal distribution across all these traits. And, and, and then that just gets you to, I think, the, the sort of hardest topic of all around this, this, this whole concept, which is just there are very few of these people.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman10:29

      Do you think they're born with these traits?

   10. MAMarc Andreessen10:31

       Yeah, well, so the- they're- they're born with the traits and then, and then of course the traits are not, you know, genetics are not destiny, and so the- the- the traits are not deterministic in the sense of that, you know, just 'cause they have those personality traits doesn't mean they're, they're gonna, you know, deliver great creativity, but like, they need to have those properties because otherwise they're just not either gonna be able to do the work or they're not gonna enjoy it, right? Or, I mean, look, a lot of these people are highly capable, competent people. It, you know, it- it's very easy for them to get like high paying jobs in traditional institutions and, you know, get lots of, you know, traditional awards and, you know, end up with big paychecks and, you know, there- there's a lot of people that, you know, big institutions that we, we, you know, you and I know well, and I, I deal with many of these where people get paid a lot of money and they get a lot of respect and they go for 20 years and it's great and they never create anything, (laughs) anything new, right? And so there's- there's a lot of-

   11. AHAndrew Huberman11:14

       Administrators.

   12. MAMarc Andreessen11:15

       Yeah, well, and a lot of them, yeah, a lot of, a lot of them end up in, in administrative jobs. Um, and that's fine. That's good. The world needs, you know, the world needs that also, right? The- the- the innovators can't run everything 'cause everyth- you know, the- the- the rate of change would be too high. Society, I think, probably wouldn't be able to handle it. So you need some people who are on the other side who are gonna kind of keep the lights on and keep things running. Um, but, but there is this decision that people have to make which is, "Okay, if I have the sort of latent capability to do this, is this actually what I want to spend my life doing? And do I want to go through the stress and the pain and the trauma, right, and the anxiety, right, and the risk of failure, right, and so do, do I really want to?" Once in a while you run into somebody who just like can't do it any other way, like-

   13. AHAndrew Huberman11:52

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MAMarc Andreessen11:52

       ... they- they just have to.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman11:53

       Who's an example of that?

   16. MAMarc Andreessen11:54

       I mean, El- El- Elon's the, you know, the paramount example of our time. And he, and I, I bring him up in part because he's such an obvious example, but in part 'cause he's talked about this, um, in, in, in interviews where he, he basically says like, he's like, "I can't turn it off." Like, (laughs) "The ideas come, I have to pursue them." Right, that's why he's like running five companies at the same time and like working on a sixth, right? Um, uh, it's just like he, he can't, he can't turn it off. You know, look, there's a lot of other people who are pro- probably had the capability to do it who ended up talking themselves into or, you know, whatever events conspired to put them in a position where they did something else. Um, you know, obviously there are people who try to be creative who just don't have the, the, the capability. And so there, there's some Venn diagram there of determinism through traits but also choices in life. And then also of course the situation in which they're born, the context within which they grow up, culture, right, what their parents expect of them and, and so forth. And so you have to, you know, you, you kind of get all the way through this, you have to thread all these, all these needles kind of at the same time.

4. 12:49 – 14:14

   Disagreeableness, Social Resistance; Loneliness & Group Think

   1. AHAndrew Huberman12:49

      Do you think there are folks out there that meet these criteria, who are disagreeable but that can feign agreeableness? You know, that can... (laughs) For those just listening, Marc just raised his right hand.

   2. MAMarc Andreessen13:01

      Hello, Andrew.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman13:02

      Um, (laughs) um, in other words-

   4. MAMarc Andreessen13:04

      Yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman13:04

      ... they, they can sort of, um... The phrase that comes to mind, maybe because I can relate too a little bit, they, um, sneak up through the system.

   6. MAMarc Andreessen13:11

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman13:11

      Meaning, they behave ethically as it relates to the requirements of the system. They're not breaking laws or breaking rules. In fact, quite the opposite. They're paying attention to the rules and following the rules until they get to a place where being disagreeable feels less threatening to their overall sense of security.

   8. MAMarc Andreessen13:29

      Yeah, I mean, look, the really highly competent people don't have to break laws, right? Like, it's, it's the... (laughs) There was this... (laughs) There was this, there was this myth, you know, that started happening around the movie The Godfather, and then there was this character, Meyer Lansky, you know, who's like ran basically the Mafia, you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago, and there was this, there was this great line of like, "Well, if Meyer Lansky had only, like, applied himself to running General Motors, he would have been the best CEO of all time." And it's like, no, not really, right? Like, the, the, the people who are, like, great at running the big companies, they don't have to... (laughs) They don't have to be-

   9. AHAndrew Huberman13:53

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MAMarc Andreessen13:53

       ... mob bosses. They don't have to, like, break laws. They can, you know, they can do, they can work in... They're, they're smart and sophisticated enough to be able to work inside the system. You know, they don't need to take the easy out. So I, I don't think there's any implication that they have to, you know, that they have to, th- they have to break laws. That said, they have to break norms, right? And, and, and specifically, the, the, the thing... This is probably the thing that gets missed the most 'cause the process of, the process of innovating,

5. 14:14 – 18:48

   Traditional Systems, Lysenkoism, Gen X

   1. MAMarc Andreessen14:14

      the process of creating something new, like, once it works, like, the stories get retconned, um, as they say, um, in comic books. So the, the stories get adapted to where it's like, "It was inevitable all along. You know, everybody always knew that this was a good idea. You know, the, the person has won all these awards. Society embraced them." And it's just... In-invariably, if you, if you were with them when that was, when they were actually doing the work, or if you actually get a couple of drinks into them and talk about it, they'd be like, "No, that's not how it happened at all." They face a wall of skepticism. Uh, just like a wall of basically social, you know, essentially denial. "No, this is not gonna work. No, I'm not gonna join your lab. No, I'm not gonna come work for your company. No, I'm not gonna buy your product," right? "No, I'm not gonna meet with you." And so, they, they, they, they, they get just, like, tremendous social resistance, right? They're, they're, they're not getting positive feedback from their, from, from their social network the way that more agreeable people need to have, right? And this is why, this is why agreeableness is a problem for innovation. If, if you're agreeable, you're gonna listen to people around you. They're gonna tell you that new ideas are stupid. (laughs) Right? End of story. You're, you're not gonna proceed. Um, and so I, I would put it more on, like, they need to be able to deal with... They need to be able to deal with social discomfort to the level of ostracism, um, or at some point, they're gonna get shaken out and they're just gonna quit.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman15:20

      Do you think that people that meet these criteria do best by banding with others that meet these criteria early? Or is it important that they form this deep sense of self, like the ability to cry oneself to sleep at night or, you know, lie in the fetal position worrying that things aren't going to work out and then still get up the next morning and get right back out there?

   3. MAMarc Andreessen15:41

      Right. So Sean Parker has the best line, by the way, on, on, on, uh, on this. He says, uh, "You know, being a, being an entrepreneur or being a creator is like, uh, you know, getting punched in the face, like, over and over again." He said, "Eventually, you start to like the taste of your own blood." (laughs) And I love that line 'cause it makes everybody, like, massively uncomfortable (laughs) , right? But it gives you a sense of like how basically painful the process is. If, if you talk to any entrepreneur, you know, who's, uh, who's been through it about that, they're like, "Oh, yeah. That's exactly, that's exactly what it's like." So, so, so there is this... There is a big individual component to it, but l- but look, it can be very lonely, right? Um, and be especially, you know, very hard, I think, to do this if, if nobody around you is trying to do anything even remotely similar, right? And if you're getting just universally negative responses. Like I... You know, very few people, I think have... Very few people have the ego strength to be able to survive that for years. So, I do think there's a huge advantage. And, and this is why you, you do see clusters. There's a huge advantage to clustering, right? And so you ha- And, and, you know, throughout history, you've had this clustering effect, right? You had, you know, clustering of the great artists and sculptors in Renaissance Florence. You know, you had the clustering of the philosophers of Greece. You had the clustering in, of tech people in Silicon Valley. You have the clustering of creative, you know, arts, movie, TV people in Los Angeles, right? And so forth and so on, you know, for... You know, it... There's always a scene, right? There's, there's alw- There's always, like, a nexus and a place where, where people come together, um, you know, for, for these kinds of things. Uh, so generally speaking, like, if somebody wants to work in tech, innovate in tech, they're gonna be much better off being around a lot of people who are trying to do that kind of thing than they are in a place where nobody else is doing it. Having said that, the clustering has... It can have downsides, it can have side effects, and, and you put any group of people together and you do start to get group think, even among people who are individually very disagreeable. Um, and so these same clusters where you get these very idiosyncratic people, they do have fads and trends just like every place else, right?

   4. AHAndrew Huberman17:19

      Mm-hmm.

   5. MAMarc Andreessen17:19

      And so they get, they get, they get wrapped up in their own social dynamics. The good news is the social dynamic in those places is usually very forward-looking, right? Um, and so it's usually, it's usually like, you know... It's, I don't know, it's like a herd of iconoclasts looking for the next big thing, right? (laughs) So iconoclasts looking for the next big thing, that's good. The herd part, right? That's what you gotta be careful of. So even when you're in one of these environments, you have to be careful that you're not getting sucked into the group think too much.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman17:43

      When you say group think, do you mean excessive friction? Do you do pressure testing each other's ideas to the point where things just don't move forward? Or are you talking about group think where people start to form a consensus or the, um, self-belief that, "Gosh, we are so strong because we are so different." Um, what- what do you... Can we better define group think?

   7. MAMarc Andreessen18:01

      It's actually less either one of... Tho- those things both happen. (laughs) Those are good. So, those are good. Uh, the part of group think I'm talking about is just like we all, we all basically zero in... We, we just end up zeroing in on the same ideas, right? There, there in Hollywood, there's this classic thing. It's like any... You know, there, there are years where then all of a sudden there's, like, a lot of volcano movies. (laughs) And it's like, why are there all these volcano movies? And it's just like I don't... There was just something in the gestalt, right? There was just something in the air. You know, look, tech, Silicon Valley has this. You know, there, there are moments in time where you'll, you'll have these... But (laughs) it's like the old thing, like what's the difference between a fad and a trend, right? You know, the fad, fad is the trend that doesn't last, right? Um, and so, you know, Silicon Valley is subject to fads and t- both fads and trends just like any place else. Right, in other words, you take smart disagreeable people, you cluster them together, they will act like a herd, right? They, they will end up thinking the same things unless they try very hard not to.

6. 18:48 – 23:18

   Testing for Innovators, Silicon Valley

   1. MAMarc Andreessen18:48

   2. AHAndrew Huberman18:48

      You've talked about these personality traits of great innovators before.Um, and we're talking about them now. Uh, you invest in innovators. You try and identify them, and you are one, so you can recognize these traits. Uh, here I'm making the presumption that you have these traits. Indeed, you do. Um, we'll just, uh, get that out of the way. Um, have you observed people trying to feign these traits? Um, and are there any specific questions or, um, behaviors that are a giveaway, um, that they're pretending to be the young Steve Jobs or that they're pretending to be the, the young Henry Ford? Um, pick your list of other, other names that qualify as, uh, authentic, legitimate innovators. Um, we won't name names of people who have tried to disguise themselves as true innovators, but what are some of the, um, uh, the, the litmus tests? And, uh, I realize here that, um, we don't want you to give these away to the point where they're, uh, lose their potency, but if you could share a few of those, that would be helpful.

   3. MAMarc Andreessen19:47

      Yeah, no, that's, that's good. We're, we're actually pretty open book on this. So, um, so yeah, so, so first of all, yes. So there are people who definitely try to, like, come in and basically present as being something that they're not, and they, you know, like, they've read all the books. They will have listened to this interview, right? They, they will, they, you know, they study everything, and they, they construct a facade, um, and they come in and present as something they're not. Um, I would say the amount of that varies exactly correlated to the NASDAQ. (laughs) Right?

   4. AHAndrew Huberman20:09

      (laughs)

   5. MAMarc Andreessen20:09

      And so when stock prices are super low, like, you actually get the opposite. When stock prices are super low, people get too demoralized, and people who should be doing it basically give up 'cause they just think that whatever, whatever, the industry is over, the trend is over, whatever, it's all hopeless. Um, and so you get this flushing thing. So n- nobody ever shows up at a stock market low, right, and says, like, "I'm the new, I'm the new, I'm the new next big thing," um, uh, and, and, and does, and, and doesn't really want to do it, because, because they're a higher status... Th- the kinds of people who do the thing that you're talking about, they're, they're fundamentally oriented for social status. They're, they're trying, they're, they're, they're trying to get to social status withou- without actually, without actually the substance, and there are always other places to go get social status. So, (laughs) so after 2000, the joke was, um, so, you know, w- when I got to Silicon Valley in '93, '94, the Valley was dead. We, we can talk about that. By '98, it was roaring, and you had a lot of these people showing up who were, you know, bas- you basically had a lot of, a lot of people showing up with, with certain kind of stories. 2000, market crash. By 2001, the joke was that, um, there were these terms B2C and B2B, and in 1998, they meant, B2C meant, um, uh, business to consumer and B2B meant business to business, which is t- two different kinds of business models for internet companies. By 2001, uh, B2B, B2B meant back to banking, uh, and B2C meant back to consulting. (laughs) Right? Which is the high status people who s- the people oriented to status who showed up to be in tech were like, "Yeah, screw it. Like, this is over. Stick a fork in it. I'm gonna go back to wor- you know, Goldman Sachs or go back to McKinsey, you know, where I can, where I can, where I can be high status." And so you, you, you get this flushing kind of effect that happens in a, in a downturn. Um, that said, on a, on a, on a, in a big upswing, yeah, you, you get, you get a lot of, you get a lot of people showing up with, with a lot of, um, you know, with a lot of, uh, you know, kind of let's say public persona without the substance to back it up. Um, so the, the way we stress the... Uh, uh, I can actually say exactly how we test for this, which, because, it, it's, it, th- the test exactly addresses the issue in a way that is impossible to fake. Um, and, and it's actually this, it's actually the same way homicide detectives try to find out if you've, if you, if you're a- if you've actually, uh, if you're innocent or whether you killed somebody. It's the same, it's the same tactic, um, which is you, you ask increasingly detailed questions.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman22:07

      Mm-hmm.

   7. MAMarc Andreessen22:08

      Um, right? And so, you know, the, the way a homicide cop does this is, you know, "What were you doing last night?" You know, "Oh, I was at a movie." "Well, which movie?" You know, da-da-da. "Oh, which theater?" You know? "Okay, which seat did you sit in?" You know? "Okay, w- what was the end of the movie?" (laughs) Right? Like, right? And you, you ask increasingly detailed questions, and people have trouble ma- at, at some point, people have trouble making up, and things just fuzz into just kind of obvious bullshit. And basically, fake founders basically have the same problem. They have a con- they have, they're able to relay a conceptual theory of what they're doing that they've kind of engineered, um, but as they get into the details, it just, it just fuzzes out. Whereas the, the, the true people that you want to back that can do it, basically what you find is they've spent five or 10 or 20 years obsessing on the details of whatever it is they're about to do, and they're so deep in the details that they know so much more about it than you ever will. And in fact, the, the best possible reaction is when they get mad, right? Um, which is also what the homicide cops say.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman22:58

      (laughs)

   9. MAMarc Andreessen22:58

      Right? What you actually want is you actually want the em- you actually want the emotional response of like, "I can't believe that you're asking me questions this detailed and specific and picky," and they kind of figure out what you're doing, um, and then they get upset. Like, that's good. That's perfect, right? But, but, but they, they have, you know, but then they have to prove in themselves in, in the sense of, like, they have to be able to answer the questions in, in, in great detail.

7. 23:18 – 28:53

   Unpredictability, Pre-Planning, Pivot

   1. AHAndrew Huberman23:18

      Do you think that people that are able to answer those questions in great detail have actually taken the time to systematically think through the if/ands of all the possible implications of what they're going to do and they have a specific vision in mind of how things need to turn out or will turn out?

   2. MAMarc Andreessen23:34

      No.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman23:34

      Or do you think that, um, they have a, a vision and it's a, no matter what, it will work out because the world will s- sort of bend around it? I mean, in other words, do you think that they place their vision in context or they simply have a vision and they have that tunnel vision of that thing and that's gonna be it? Let's use you for an example. Um, with Netscape. I mean, that's how I first came to know your name. Um, when you were conceiving Netscape, did you think, okay, there's this search engine and this browser and, and it's going to be this thing that looks this way and works this way and feels this way. Um, did you think that and also think about, you know, that there was going to be a gallery of other search engines and it would fit into that landscape of other search engines? Or were you just projecting your vision of this thing as this unique, um, and special, um, brainchild?

   4. MAMarc Andreessen24:27

      Well, I'm gonna, let me give the general answer, and then we can talk about the specific examples. So the general answer is with, with entre- entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation is what economists call decision making under uncertainty.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman24:36

      Mm-hmm.

   6. MAMarc Andreessen24:36

      Right? And so, i- both parts of those are important. Decision making, like, you're gonna make a ton of decisions 'cause you have to decide what to do, what not to do, and then uncertainty, which is like the world's a complicated place, right? I- and, and in mathematical terms, the world is a complex adaptive system with feedback loops, and, like, it's really... I mean, it's, it's extre- you know. Uh, Isaac Asimov wrote the, you know, the, in his novels, he, he wrote about this field called psychohistory, right? Which is the idea that there's, like, a super computer that can predict the future of, like, human affairs, right? And it's like, we don't have that.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman25:03

      (laughs) Not yet.

   8. MAMarc Andreessen25:04

      Not yet, not yet. Well, we're working on it.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman25:05

      We'll get to that later. (laughs)

   10. MAMarc Andreessen25:06

       We certainly don't have that yet. Um, and so you're just dealing, you know, military, uh, uh, commanders call this the fog of war. Right? You're, you're, you're just dealing with a situation where the number of variables are just off the charts. It's all these other people, right, who are inherently unpredictable, making all these decisions in different directions. And, and then the whole system is combinatorial, which is these people are colliding with each other, influencing their decisions. And so, I mean, look, uh, the, the, the most straightforward kind of way to think about this is, it's just, it's amazing. Like anybody who believes in economic central planning, it always blows my mind 'cause it's like, it's just like try opening a restaurant. (sniffs) Like, try just opening a restaurant on the corner down here, and, like, 50/50 odds the restaurant's going to work? And, like, all you have to do to run a restaurant is, like, have a thing and serve food and, like, ugh. And it's like most restaurants fail, right? And so, and restaurant, people who run restaurants are, like, pretty smart. Like, they're, you know, they're, they usually think about these things very hard, and they all want to succeed. Um, and it, it's hard to do that. And so to start a tech company or to start an artistic movement or to, or to fight a war, like, you're just going into this, like, basically ba- conceptual battleground or, you know, military terms, real battleground, where there's just like incredible levels of complexity, branching future paths. And so there, there's nothing, it's, it's, you know, there's nothing predictable. And so what we look for is basically the, the, the sort of drive, the, the, the really good innovators. They've got to drive to basically be able to cope with that and deal with that, and they, they basically do that in two steps. So one is they try to pre-plan as much as they possibly can, and, and, and we call that the process of navigating the, we call the idea maze, right? And so the idea maze basically is, I've got this general idea, and it might be the internet's going to work or search or whatever, and then it's like, okay, in their head, they have thought through of like, "Okay, if I do it this way, that way, this third way, here's what will happen. Then I have to do that, then I have to do this, then I have to bring in somebody to do that. Here's the technical challenge I'm going to hit." And they've got in their, they got in their heads as best anybody could, they, they've got as complete a sort of a map of possible futures as they could possibly have. And th- and this is where I say when you ask them increasingly detailed questions, that's what you're trying to kind of get them to kind of chart out, is, okay, how far ahead have you thought, and how much are you anticipating all of the different twists and turns that this is going to take? Okay, so then they start on day one, and then, of course, what happens is, you know, now they're in, now they're in it. They're in, now they're in the fog of war, right? They're in future uncertainty. And now that idea maze is maybe not helpful practically, but now they're going to be basically constructing on, on the fly day by day as they learn and discover new things and as the world changes around them. And of course, it's a feedback loop 'cause they're going to change, you know, if their thing starts to work, it's going to change the world, and then the fact the world is changing is going to cause, you know, their plan to, you know, to change as well. Um, and so, yeah, the great, the great ones basically, they, they course correct. You know, they course, the great ones course correct every single day. You know, they take stock of what they've learned, um, uh, you know, they, they modify the plan. Um, the great ones tend to think in terms of hypotheses, right? It, it's a little bit like a scientific sort of mentality, which is they tend to think, "Okay, I'm going to try this." Like, (laughs) I'm sorry. "I'm going to go into the world. I'm going to announce that I'm doing this for sure." (laughs) Right? Like, I'm going to say, like, "This is my plan, and I'm going to tell all my employees that, and I'm going to tell all my investors that, and I'm going to put a stake in there. That's my plan. I'm going to try it." Right? Um, and even though I sound like I have complete certainty, I know that I need to test to find out whether it's going to work. And if it's not, then I have to go back to all those same people, and I have to say, "Well, actually, we're not going left. We're going right." And they have to run that loop thousands of times, right? And they had, you know, to get through the other side. And thi- this, this led to the creation of this great term pivot, uh, which has been very helpful in our industry 'cause the, the word when I was, when I was young, the word we used was fuck up. Um, and pivot, like, sounds like so much better. (laughs) Sounds like so much more professional. But yeah, you, like, make mistakes. You, you, you, it's just, it's just too complicated to understand. You course correct. You adjust. You evolve. Often these things, at least in business, the businesses that end up working really well tend to be different than the original plan. But that's, that's part of the process of a really smart founder basically working their way through reality, right, as, as, as they're executing their plan.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman28:42

       The way you're describing this has parallels to a lot of models in biology and the practice of science, um, you know, random walks but that aren't truly random, pseudo-random walks in biology, et cetera. But

8. 28:53 – 32:52

   Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation, Social Comparison

   1. AHAndrew Huberman28:53

      one thing that, uh, is becoming clear from the way you're describing this is that I could imagine a great risk to early success.

   2. MAMarc Andreessen29:01

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman29:01

      So for instance, somebody develops a product. People are excited by it. Um, they start to implement that product, but then the landscape changes, and they don't learn how to pivot, to use the, um, less profane version of it. (laughs) Right? They don't learn how to do that. The, in other words, the, uh... And I think of everything these days, um, or most everything in terms of, uh, reward schedules and dopamine reward schedules 'cause that is the universal currency of reward. Um, and so when you talk about the Sean Parker quote of, um, learning to enjoy the taste of one's own blood, that is very different than learning to enjoy the taste of success.

   4. MAMarc Andreessen29:35

      That's right.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman29:35

      Right? It's about internalizing success as a process of being self-determined and less agreeable, e- et cetera. In other words, building up of those five traits-

   6. MAMarc Andreessen29:45

      Right.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman29:46

      ... becomes the source of dopamine perhaps in a way that's highly adaptive. So on the outside, we just see the product, the end product-

   8. MAMarc Andreessen29:52

      Right.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman29:52

      ... the iPhone, the MacBook, the Netscape, et cetera, but I have to presume, and I'm not a psychologist, um, but I have done neurophysiology, and I've, uh, studied the dopamine system enough to know that what's being rewarded in the context of what you're describing sounds to be a reinforcement of those five traits rather than, oh, it's going to be this particular product or the company is going to look this way or the logo is going to be this or that. That all seems like the peripheral to, um, what's really going on, that great innovators are really in the process of, of establishing neural circuitry that is all about reinforcing the me-

   10. MAMarc Andreessen30:29

       Yeah.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman30:30

       ... and the process of being me.

   12. MAMarc Andreessen30:32

       Yeah. Yeah, so this, this goes to, yeah, so this is like extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman30:36

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MAMarc Andreessen30:36

       So the, the Steve Jobs kind of zen version of this, right, or the sort of hippie version of this was the journey is the reward.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman30:41

       Mm-hmm.

   16. MAMarc Andreessen30:42

       Right? You know, he always, he always told h- he always told his employees that. It's like, look, like, you know, everybody thinks in terms of these big public markers like the stock price or the IPO or the product launch or whatever. He's like, "No. It's, it's actually the pro- the process itself is the point." Right? Uh, and, and, and if you had, to your point, if you have that mentality, then that's a, that's an intrinsic motivation not an extr- extrinsic motivation, and so that's the kind of intrinsic motivation that can, that can keep you going for a long time. Another way to think about it is competing against yourself, right? It's like, "Can I get better at doing this?" Right? "And can I prove to myself that I can get better?" Um, there's also a big social component to this, and this is one of the reasons why Silicon Valley punches so, so far above its weight as a place. Um, there's a psychological component, which is also goes to the comparison set. Um, so a phenomenon that we've observed over time is the leading, uh, tech company in any city, uh, will aspire to be as large as the previous leading tech company in that city.... but often not larger, right? 'Cause it's, they, they sort of ha- they have a model of success and as long as they beat that level of success, they've kind of, you know, checked the box, like they've made it, you know? And, and then they... yeah, but then in contrast, you're in Silicon Valley and you look around and it's just like Facebook and Cisco and Oracle and, you know, Hewlett-Packard and-

   17. AHAndrew Huberman31:47

       Gladiators.

   18. MAMarc Andreessen31:48

       Yeah. And you're just, like, looking at these, you know, giants. And, and, and, you know, many of them are still, you know, Mark Zuckerberg's still, you know, going to work every day and, like, trying to, trying to, you know... Like, and, and so, like, these people are like... you know, the role models are, like, alive, right? (laughs) Right? And they're like right there, right? And it's so clear, like, how much better they are and how much bigger their accomplishments are. And so what, what we find is young founders in that environment have much greater aspirations, right? 'Cause they just... again, maybe it's... maybe at that point, maybe it's the social status, maybe there's, there's an extrinsic component to that. Or may- or maybe it helps calibrate that internal system to basically say, "Actually, you know, no, the opportunity here is not to build a local... you know, what you might call a local maximum form of success, but let's build to a global maximum form of success, which is, which is something as big as we possibly can." Um, ultimately, the great ones are probably driven more internally than externally (laughs) when, when it comes down to it, and that is where you get this phenomenon where you get people who are, you know, extremely successful and extremely wealthy who very easily could punch out and move to Fiji and just call it and they're still (laughs) working 16 hour days, right? And so obv- ob- obviously something explains that that has nothing to do with external rewards. And, and I think it's, it's, it's an internal thing.

9. 32:52 – 33:49

   Sponsor: AG1

   1. AHAndrew Huberman32:52

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10. 33:49 – 39:24

    Innovators & Personal Relationships

    1. AHAndrew Huberman33:49

       I've heard you talk a lot about the inner landscape, the inner psychology of these folks, and I appreciate that we're going even deeper into that today. And we will talk about the, the landscape route, whether or not Silicon Valley or New York, whether or not there are specific cities that are ideal for certain types of pursuits. I think there was an article written by Paul Graham some years ago about, um, the conversations that you overhear in a city will tell you everything you need to know about whether or not you belong there, uh, in terms of your, uh, professional pursuits. Um, some of that's changed over time, and now we should probably add Austin to the mix as, um, 'cause it was written some time ago. Um, in any event, I wanna return to that, but I want to focus on an aspect of this intrinsic versus extrinsic motivators in terms of something that's a bit more cryptic, which is, uh, one's personal relationships.

    2. MAMarc Andreessen34:38

       Mm-hmm.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman34:38

       You know, if I think about the, um, catalog of innovators in Silicon Valley, some of them, like Steve Jobs, had complicated personal lives, romantic personal lives early on, then it sounds like he worked it out. I don't know. I didn't... uh, I wasn't their, uh, couples therapist. But, you know, he, um... when he died, he was in a marriage that, for all the world, seemed like a happy marriage. Um, you also have, uh, examples of innovators who have had many partners, many children with other partners. Elon comes to mind. Um, you know, I don't think I'm disclosing anything that isn't already obvious. Um, those could have been happy relationships and just had many of them. But the reason I'm asking this is you can imagine that for the innovator, the person with these traits who's trying to build up this, this thing, whatever it is, that having someone or several people in some cases, um, who just truly believe in you when the rest of the world may not believe in you yet or at all-

    4. MAMarc Andreessen35:35

       Right.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman35:35

       ... could be immensely powerful, and we have examples from cults-

    6. MAMarc Andreessen35:39

       Right.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman35:39

       ... that, um, uh, embody this. We have examples from politics. We have examples from tech innovation and science. Uh, and I've always been fascinated by this because I feel like it's the more cryptic and yet very potent form of allowing someone to build themselves up. It's a combination of inner psychology and extrinsic motivation, because obviously if that person were to die or leave them or, um, cheat on them or, you know, pair up with some other innovator, which we've seen several times recently and in the past, it can be devastating to that person. But what are your thoughts on the role of personal and, in particular, romantic relationship as it relates to people having an idea and their feeling that they can really bring that idea to fruition in the world?

    8. MAMarc Andreessen36:23

       So I... it's a real mixed bag. You have lots of examples in all directions. I... and I think it's something like... it's something like... something like the following. So first is, we talked about the personality traits of these people. They tend to be highly disagreeable. (laughs)

    9. AHAndrew Huberman36:34

       Doesn't foster a good romantic relationship. (laughs)

    10. MAMarc Andreessen36:35

        Highly disagreeable. Difficult to be in a relationship with. (laughs)

    11. AHAndrew Huberman36:38

        I may have heard of that once or twice before. A friend may have given me that example.

    12. MAMarc Andreessen36:41

        Yeah. Right. And, you know, maybe you just need to find the right person who, like, complements that and is willing to... You know, there's, there's a lot of relationships where, like, you... it's always this question about relationships, right? Which is, do you want to have s- the same personality, you know, profile, the same behavioral traits basically as your partner? Or do you actually want to have... you know, is it, is, is it an opposites, opposites thing? And, you know, look, I'm sure you've seen this. There are relationships where you'll have somebody who's highly disagreeable who's paired with somebody who's highly agreeable, and it actually works out great 'cause one person just gets to be on their soapbox all the time, and the other person's just like, "Okay." Right? (laughs) You know, "It's fine," right? "It's fine. It's good." Um, you know, you put two disagreeable people together, you know, maybe sparks fly and they have great conversations all the time and maybe they come to hate each other, right? And so, um, so anyway, so these people, if you're going to be with one of these people, you're fishing out of the disagreeable end of the pond. And, and again, when I say disagreeable, I don't mean... you know, these are, these are normal distributions. I don't mean like 60% disagreeable or 80% disagreeable. The people we're talking about are 99.99% (laughs) disagreeable, right? So these are ornery, ornery people. So, so, so part of it's that. Uh, and then of course they have the other personality traits, right? They're, they're, you know, super conscientious. They're super driven. As a consequence, they tend to work really hard. They tend to not have a lot of time for, you know, family vacations or other things. You know, they're not... and they don't enjoy them if they're forced to go on them. And so again, that kind of thing can fray in a relationship. So, so there's a... so there's a fair amount in there that's loaded. Like s- somebody's going to partner with one of these people needs to be signed up for the ride, um, and that's, that's a hard thing. You know, that's a hard thing to do. Or you need a true partnership with two of these, which is also hard to do. So I think that's part of it. Um-And then, look, I think a big part of it is, you know, people achieve a certain level of success, um, and, you know, either in their own minds (laughs) or, you know, publicly, um, and then they start to be able to get away with things, right? Um, and they start to be able to just like, "Well, okay, now we're rich and successful and famous, and now I deserve..." You know. And this is where you get into... I view this now in the realm of personal choice, right? You get in this thing where people start to think that they deserve things, um, and so they start to behave in, you know, very bad ways. Um, and then they blow up their personal worlds as a consequence, and maybe they regret it later and maybe they don't, right? It's always a, always a question. Um, so yeah, so I think there's that. Um, and then I don't know, like, yeah, some people just need... Maybe the other part of it is some people just need more emotional support than others, and I don't know that that's a big... I don't know that that tilts either way. Like, I know, I know some of these people who have, like, great loving relationships and seem to draw very much on having this kind of firm foundation to rely upon. And then I know other people who are just like their personal lives are just a continuous train wreck and it doesn't seem to (laughs) doesn't seem to matter. Like professionally, they just keep doing what they're doing. And, and maybe there's a, maybe we could talk here about like, you know, whatever is the personality trait for risk-taking, right?

    13. AHAndrew Huberman39:10

        Mm-hmm.

    14. MAMarc Andreessen39:10

        Like, some people are so incredibly risk-prone that they need to take risk in all aspects of their lives at all times. And if, if part of their life gets stable, they find a way to blow it up. Um, and that's some of the, some of these people you could describe in those terms also.

11. 39:24 – 46:16

    Risk Taking, Innovators, “Martyrs to Civilizational Progress”

    1. MAMarc Andreessen39:24

    2. AHAndrew Huberman39:24

       Yeah, let's talk about that.

    3. MAMarc Andreessen39:25

       Yeah.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman39:25

       Um, because I think, um, risk-taking and sensation-seeking is something that fascinates me, um, for my own reasons and in my observations of others.

    5. MAMarc Andreessen39:34

       Yep.

    6. AHAndrew Huberman39:35

       Um, does it dovetail with these five traits in a way that can really serve innovation in ways that can benefit everybody? The reason I say to benefit everybody is because there is a view of how we're painting this picture of the innovator as this, like, really cruel person.

    7. MAMarc Andreessen39:52

       Yeah.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman39:52

       Um, but oftentimes what we're talking about are innovations that make the world far better-

    9. MAMarc Andreessen39:56

       Correct.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman39:56

        ... for billions of people.

    11. MAMarc Andreessen39:58

        Yeah, that's right.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman39:59

        Yeah, yeah.

    13. MAMarc Andreessen39:59

        And by the way, everything we're talking about also is not just in tech or science or, or in business. It's also everything we're also talking about is true for the arts.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman40:05

        Mm-hmm.

    15. MAMarc Andreessen40:05

        Right? So, you know, the history of like artistic expression is, you know, you have people with all these same kinds of traits.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman40:09

        Right. Well, I was thinking about Picasso and his, and his regular turnover of lovers and partners.

    17. MAMarc Andreessen40:13

        Yeah.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman40:13

        And he was very open about the fact that it was one of the sources of his productivity/creativity. Uh, he wasn't shy about that. Um, I suppose if he were alive today, uh, it might be a little bit different. He might be judged a little differently.

    19. MAMarc Andreessen40:26

        Right, or that was his story for, you know, behaving in a pattern that, you know, was very awful for the people around him and he didn't care, right?

    20. AHAndrew Huberman40:32

        Right, maybe they left him.

    21. MAMarc Andreessen40:33

        (laughs) Yeah, like, you know, who knows, right? So, so, so, you know, puts and takes to all this. Um, but, um, but no. Okay, so I have a theory. So here's a theory. This, this is one of these. I keep a list of things that will get me kicked out of a dinner party. Um, uh, topics at any given point in time.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman40:45

        Do you read it before you go in?

    23. MAMarc Andreessen40:47

        Yeah, I just... (laughs)

    24. AHAndrew Huberman40:47

        (laughs)

    25. MAMarc Andreessen40:49

        I have it on auto-recall so that I can get out of these things. But, um, so here, here's the thing that can get me kicked out of a dinner party, um, uh, especially these days. Um, so, uh, think of the kind of person where it's like very clear that they're like super high, to your point, there's somebody who's super high output in whatever domain they're in. They've done things that have like fundamentally like changed the world. They've brought new, whether it's businesses or technologies or art, you know, works of art, um, uh, you know, entire schools of creative expression in some cases, uh, to the world. And then at a certain point, they blow themselves to smithereens, right? And they do that either through like a massive like financial scandal. They do that through a massive personal, you know, breakdown. They do that through some sort of public expression that causes them a huge amount of problems. You know, they say, they say the wrong thing, maybe not once, but (laughs) several hundred times, and blow themselves to smithereens. Um, and, and, and there's this, you know, there's this kind of arc, there's this moral arc that people kind of want to apply, which is like the Icarus, you know, the, the, you know, flying too close to the sun, and, you know, he had it coming and he needed to keep his ego under control, and you get kind of this, you know, kind of this, this, this judgment that applies. Um, so I have a different theory on this. So the term I use to describe these people, and a lot of... And by the way, a lot of other people who don't actually blow themselves up but get close to it, um, which is a whole other set of people. Um, uh, I call them martyrs to civilizational progress (laughs) , right? So, so we're backwards. Civilizational progress. So look, the only way civilization gets moved forward is when people like this do something new, right? Because civilization as a whole does not do new things, right? Groups of people do not do new things, right? These things don't happen automatically. Like by, by default, nothing changes. The only way civilizational change on any of these axes ever happens is because one of these people stands up and says, "No, I'm going to do something different than what everybody else has ever done before." So this is the, this is progress. Like this is actually how it happens. Sometimes they get lionized and rewarded. Sometimes they get crucified (laughs) .

    26. AHAndrew Huberman42:39

        (laughs)

    27. MAMarc Andreessen42:39

        Sometimes the crucifixion is literal, sometimes it's just, you know, symbolic, but like, you know, the, the, they are those kinds of people. Uh, and then, and then, and then murders. Like, when, when they go down in flames, like, they have... And again, this is where it really screws with people's moral judgments, because everybody wants to have this sort of super clear story of like, "Okay, he did a bad thing and he was punished." And I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. He was the kind of person who was going to do great things and also was going to take on a level of risk and take on a level of sort of extreme behavior such that he was going to expose himself to flying too close to the sun, wings melt and crash to ground," but, but it's a package deal, right? The, the reason you have the Picassos and the Beethovens and all these people is because they're willing to take these extreme level of risks. They, they are that creative and original, not just in their art or their business, but in everything else that they do, that they will set themselves up to be able to fail. Psychologic... You know, a psychologist or probably a psychiatrist would probably say, you know, maybe, you know, to what extent do they actually like have a death wish? Do they, do they actually, you know... At some point, do they want to punish themselves? Do they want to fail? That I don't know. But you see this, they, they, they deliberately move themselves too close to the sun and, and, and you can, you can see it when it's happening because like if they get too far from the sun, they deliberately move back towards it, right? (laughs) You know, they come right back and they, they want the risk. Uh, and so anyway, like I, I... Yeah, so martyrs to civilizational progress, like this is how progress happens. When these people crash and burn, the natural, you know, inclination is to judge them morally. I, I tend to think we should basically say, look, and I, and I don't even know if this means like giving them a moral pass or whatever, but it's like, "Look, like, this is how civilization, civilization progresses, and we need to at least understand that there's a self-sacrificial aspect to this." That may be tragic and often is tragic, but it is, it is quite literally self-sacrificial.

    28. AHAndrew Huberman44:20

        Are there any examples of great innovators who, um-... were able to compartmentalize their risk-taking, uh, to such a degree that they had what seemed to be a morally impeccable life-

    29. MAMarc Andreessen44:33

        Yeah.

    30. AHAndrew Huberman44:33

        ... in every domain except in their business pursuits.
12. 46:16 – 53:08

    Cancel Culture, Public vs. Elite

    1. AHAndrew Huberman46:16

       in thinking about these two different categories of innovators, those that take on tremendous risk in all domains of their life and those that take on tremendous risk in a very compartmentalized way, um, I don't know what the percentages are, uh, but I have to wonder if in this modern age of the public being far less forgivable, what I'm referring to is cancel culture, um, do you think that we are limiting the number of innovations in total, like, by just simply frightening or eliminating an enormous category of innovators because they don't have the confidence or the means or the, um, strategies in place to regulate? So they're just either bowing out or they're getting crossed off. They're getting canceled one by one.

    2. MAMarc Andreessen46:58

       So do you think the public is less tolerant than they used to be or more tolerant?

    3. AHAndrew Huberman47:03

       Well, the systems that, uh, I've... I'm not going to be careful here. I think the, um, the large institution systems-

    4. MAMarc Andreessen47:12

       Yes.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman47:12

       ... are not tolerant of what the public tells them they shouldn't be tolerant of. Um, and so if there's enough noise, if there's enough noise in the mob, I think institutions bow out. And here I'm referring not just to univers- Th- they essentially say, "Okay, the, let the cancellation proceed."

    6. MAMarc Andreessen47:30

       Right.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman47:30

       Or they... And maybe they're the, maybe they're the gavel that comes down, but, but they're not the, the lever that got the thing going. And so I'm not just thinking about universities. I'm also thinking about advertisers. I'm thinking about, um, the big movie houses that, um, cancel a film that a given actor might be in because they had something in their personal life that's still getting worked out. I'm thinking about people who, um, are in a legal process that's not yet resolved, but the public has decided they're a bad person, et cetera.

    8. MAMarc Andreessen47:56

       My, my question is, are we really talking about the public? Uh, I, I a- I agree with your question, and I'm gonna come back to it, but I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, so I'm, I'm gonna examine one part of your question, which is this, is this really the public we're talking about? And, and I would just say exhibit A is who is the current front-runner, uh, for the Republican nomination, um, today? (laughs) And the public (laughs) at, at least on one side of the political aisle seems very on board, right? Um, number two, like, look, uh, you know, there's a certain musician who, like, you know, flew too close to the sun, blew himself to smithereens. He's still hitting all-time highs on, uh, str- uh, music streams every month. The public seems fine. (laughs) Like, I, I think the public might... I, I would argue the public is actually more open to these things than it actually maybe ever has been. Um, and we could talk about why that's the case. I, I think it's a, it's a differentiation, and this is what, what your question was aiming at, but it's a differentiation between the public and the elites. Um, and so, so, so I, my view is everything that you just described is an elite phenomenon, um, and actually the public is very much not on board with it.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman48:52

       Hmm, interesting. Uh-

    10. MAMarc Andreessen48:53

        And, and, and so what's actually happening is the division, the, what, what's happened is the public and the elites have gapped out. The, the, the public is more forgiving of, of, of what previously might have been considered kind of ever extreme behavior, um... Right? Is, it's... F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in American lives. It turns out completely wrong. Turns out there's second acts, third acts, fourth acts. Apparently, you can have an unlimited number of acts. The public is actually up for it.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman49:14

        Yeah, I mean, I think of somebody like Mike Tyson, right? I feel like he's every, you know, his life exemplifies, um, everything that's amazing and great and also terrible about America.

    12. MAMarc Andreessen49:24

        If we took Mike Tyson to dinner tonight at any restaurant anywhere in the United States, what would happen? (laughs)

    13. AHAndrew Huberman49:29

        He would be loved.

    14. MAMarc Andreessen49:30

        Oh, he would be, like-

    15. AHAndrew Huberman49:31

        Adored.

    16. MAMarc Andreessen49:31

        He would be... The outpouring of enthusiasm and passion and love would be incredible. Like, it would be unbelievable. This is, this is a great example. Like, it just like the ne- And, and again, I'm not even gonna draw, I'm not even gonna say I agree with that or disagree with that. I'm just like, we- I think we all intuitively know that the public is just like 100% like, "Absolutely, like, he's a legend. Like, he's a legend. He's a living legend."

    17. AHAndrew Huberman49:50

        People love Mike.

    18. MAMarc Andreessen49:51

        He's like a cultural touchstone. Absolutely. And then you see it when he shows up at movies, right? He shows... I remember the... I mean, the big breakthrough I figured this out with respect to him 'cause I don't really follow sports, but when he showed up in that, it was that first Hangover movie, and he shows up. And then, then, you know, I was, I was in a theater and, like, the, the audience just goes bananas crazy. They're so excited to see him.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman50:08

        Yeah. He evokes delight.

    20. MAMarc Andreessen50:10

        Yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman50:10

        I always say that Mike Tyson is the only person I'm aware of that can wear a shirt with his own name on it.

    22. MAMarc Andreessen50:14

        (laughs)

    23. AHAndrew Huberman50:15

        And it somehow doesn't seem, uh, wrong. In fact-

    24. MAMarc Andreessen50:18

        Yeah.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman50:18

        ... it just kind of makes you like him more.

    26. MAMarc Andreessen50:20

        Yeah.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman50:20

        Um, it's, it... His ego feels very contoured in a way that, uh, he knows who he is and who he was, and, and yet there's a, there's a humbleness woven in, maybe-... as a consequence of all that he's been through. I don't know. Um, but yeah, people love Mike.

    28. MAMarc Andreessen50:36

        The public loves him. Now ... Exactly. Now, you know, if he shows up to, like, a lecture at Harvard, right, like, I think you're probably going to get a different reaction.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman50:42

        I don't know.

    30. MAMarc Andreessen50:42

        (laughs) Well-
13. 53:08 – 57:38

    Elites & Institutions, Trust

    1. MAMarc Andreessen53:08

    2. AHAndrew Huberman53:08

       Do you think this, um, power of the l- of the elites over, um, stemmed from social media sort of going against its original purpose? I mean, when you think social media, you think you're giving each and every person their own little reality TV show, their own voice. And yet, um, we've seen a dramatic uptick in the number of cancellations and firings related to immoral behavior based on things that were either done or amplified on social media.

    3. MAMarc Andreessen53:37

       Right.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman53:37

       It's almost as if, um, the public is holding the wrong, uh, end of the knife.

    5. MAMarc Andreessen53:41

       Yeah. So the way I describe it, so- so- so I ... So I use these two terms and they're somewhat interchangeable, but e- elites and institutions. And- and they're- they're somewhat interchangeable 'cause who runs the institutions? The elites, right? And so it's- it's a- it's a sort of a self-rein- self-reinforcing thing. Um, you know, institutions of all kinds, institutions, everything from, you know, the government, bureaucracies, companies, nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, you know, tech companies, you know, on and on and on. Like, you know, people who are in, people who are in charge of big complexes and that- that carry a lot of basically power and influence and capability and money as a consequence of their positional authority. Right? So, you know, the head of a giant foundation may never have done anything in their life that would cause somebody to have a high opinion of them as a person, but they're in charge of this, you know, gigantic multi-billion dollar complex and have all this power and the results. And so that's just to define terms, elites and institutions. Um, so it's actually interesting. Uh, Gallup, uh, uh, has, uh, been doing polls on the following que- on the question of- of trust in institutions, which is sort of a therefore proxy for trust in elites, uh, basically since the early 1970s. Um, and what you find ... And they- and they do this across all the categories of big institutions, you know, basically every- every- everyone I just talked about, a bunch of others, big business, small business, banks, newspapers, broadcast television, um, the military police. You know, so they've got like 30 categories or something. And basically what you see is almost all the categories basically started in the early '70s at like 60 or 70% trust. And now they've, uh, b- and bas- almost across the board, they've just done it, had a complete basically linear slide down for 50 years, basically my- my whole life. Um, and, you know, they're- they're- they're now bottoming out. You know, Congress and journalists bottom out at like 10%. (laughs) Right? Like the two- the two groups everybody hates are like Congress and journalists. Um, and then it's like a lot of other big institutions are like 20, in their 20s, 30s, 40s. Um, actually, big business actually scores fairly high. Tech actually scores quite high. The military scores quite high. But basically everything else has really caved in. And so, so th- this is sort of my fundamental challenge to everybody who basically says, and you- you didn't do this, but you- you'll hear this, the simple form of this, which is social media caused the current trouble. And let's call this an examp- collapse in faith in institutions and- and elites, let's call that part of the current trouble. Um, everybody's like, "Well, social media caused that." I was like, "Well, no, social media, social media is new," (laughs) right? In the last, you know ... Social media is effectively new, practically speaking, since 2010. 2012 is when it really took off. Um, and so if the trend started in the early 1970s, right, and it's been continuous, then we're dealing with something broader. Uh, and- and- and- and, uh, Martin Gurri, uh, wrote, I think, the best book on this called The Revolt of the Public, where he goes through this in detail.

    6. AHAndrew Huberman56:09

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MAMarc Andreessen56:10

       And- and he- he- he does, he does say that, um, social media had a lot to do with what's happened in the last decade. But he says is, yeah, if you go back, you look further, it was basically two things coinciding. Uh, one was just a general change in the media environment, and in particular, the 1970s is when you started to ... And especially in the 1980s is when you started to get, um, specifically talk radio-

    8. AHAndrew Huberman56:27

       Mm-hmm.

    9. MAMarc Andreessen56:28

       ... which was a new outlet. Um, and then you also start, you also got cable television.... um, and then you also, by the way, it's actually interesting. In the '50s, '60s, you had paperback books, which was another one of these, which was an outlet. So, you, you had like a fracturing in the media landscape that started in the '50s through the '80s. And then, of course, the internet, like, blew it wide open. Having said that, if the elites and the institutions were fantastic, you would know it more than ever. (laughs) Andrew Huberman: Mm-hmm. This information is more accessible. And so the other thing that he says, and I agree with, is the public is not being tricked into thinking the elites and institutions are bad. They're, they're learning that they're bad, right? And, and the mystery, and therefore the mystery of the Gallup Poll is why those numbers aren't all just zero, right? Which is, you know, arguably in a lot of cases where they should be.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman57:08

        I think one reason that-

    11. MAMarc Andreessen57:09

        Oh, and by the way, he, he thinks this is bad. So he and I have a different view. So here's where he and I disagree.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman57:13

        Mm-hmm.

    13. MAMarc Andreessen57:13

        He thinks this is bad. So he, he basically says you, you can't replace elites with nothing. You can't replace institutions with nothing, if, if, because what you're just left with is just going to be wreckage. You're going left with a completely basically, you know, atomized out of control society that has no ability to marshal, you know, any sort of activity in any direction. It's just going to be a dog eat dog awful world. Um, I have a very different view on that, which we can, which we can talk about.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman57:35

        Yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to hear your views on that.

    15. MAMarc Andreessen57:37

        Yeah.

14. 57:38 – 58:44

    Sponsor: InsideTracker

    1. MAMarc Andreessen57:38

    2. AHAndrew Huberman57:38

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15. 58:44 – 1:05:45

    Social Media, Shifts in Public vs. Elite

    1. AHAndrew Huberman58:44

       The, the quick question I was going to ask before we go there is, I think that one reason that I and many other people sort of reflexively assume that social media caused the demise of our faith in institutions, um, is, well, first of all, I wasn't aware of this, um, uh, lack of correlation between the decline in faith in institutions and, and the rise of social media. But secondarily that we've seen some movements that have, um, essentially rooted themselves in tweets, in comments, in posts that get amplified, and those tweets and comments and posts come from everyday people. In fact, I can't name one person who initiated, uh, a given, uh, cancellation or movement because it was the sort of dog piling or mob adding on to some person that was essentially anonymous. So I think that for many of us, we have, we have the bottom- to use neuroscience language, this sort of a bottom up kind of perspective. Oh, you know, someone sees something, um, in their daily life or experiences something in their daily life and they tweet about it.

    2. MAMarc Andreessen59:47

       Mm-hmm.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman59:47

       Or they comment about it or they post about it, and then enough people dog pile on the accused that, um, it picks up force, and then the elites feel compelled, um, obligated to cancel somebody. Um, that tends to be the narrative. And so I think the logical conclusion is, oh, you know, social media allows for this to happen, whereas normally someone would just be standing on the corner shouting or calling lawyers that don't have faith in them and, you know, you get the, like the Erin Brockovich model of, uh, you know, um, you know, that turns into a movie, but that's a rare case of this lone woman who's got this idea in mind about how, um, big institution is doing wrong, or somebody is doing wrong in the world and then can leverage big institutions. Excuse me. But the way that you describe it is that the elites are, um, are leading this-

    4. MAMarc Andreessen1:00:35

       Oh, yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:35

       ... this shift.

    6. MAMarc Andreessen1:00:36

       Yeah, 100%.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:37

       So what is the role of the public in it? I mean, I mean, just to give it a concrete example, um, if, for instance, no one, um, tweeted or commented on MeToo, or no one tweeted or commented about, um, some ill behavior of some, I don't know, university faculty member or businessperson, would the elite have come down on them anyway?

    8. MAMarc Andreessen1:01:01

       Oh, yeah. So what's happening, so what, what, what ... Based on what I've seen over the years, um, is, is it's, there is so much astroturfing right now. (laughs) There, there are entire categories of people who are paid to do this. Um, some of them we call journalists, some of them we call activists, some of them we call, you know, NGO, you know, nonprofit, some of them we call university professors, some of them we call grad students. Like, whatever, they're paid to do this. You know, re- I don't know if you've ever looked into the misinformation, uh, industrial complex. There's this whole universe of basically these funded groups that basically do, quote unquote misinformat- you know, quote unquote misinformation, and, and they're constantly mounting these kinds of attacks. They're constantly trying to gin up this kind of basically panic to cause somebody to get fired, like-

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:40

       So it's not a grassroots?

    10. MAMarc Andreessen1:01:41

        No, it's the opposite of grassroots. No, and almost always when you trace these things back, it was a, it was a journalist, it was an activist, it was a, it was a p- it was a public figure of some kind.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:50

        Hmm.

    12. MAMarc Andreessen1:01:51

        Um, th- these are entrepreneur, there, there's, these are entrepreneurs in a, in a sort of a weird way. Like they're, they're basically, they're, they're paid, their job, mission, calling in li-, it's all wrapped up together. Like they're true believers, but they're also getting paid to do it. Um, and there's a giant funding co- I mean, there's a very large funding complex for this coming from, you know, certain high profile people who put huge amounts of money into this.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:02:10

        Is this well-known?

    14. MAMarc Andreessen1:02:11

        Yes. Well, so I mean, it is in my world. So this is what the social media companies have been on the receiving end of for the last decade, um, is it's this, it's bas- it's basically a political media activism complex with very deep pockets behind it. And you've got people who basically, literally people who sit all day and watch the TV network on the other side or watch the Twitter feeds of the other side and they wait, they basically wait. It's like every politician, this has been the case for a long time now. Every, every politician who goes out and gives stump speeches, you'll see there's always somebody in the crowd with a camcorder or now with a phone recording them, and that's somebody from the other campaign who's paid somebody to just be there and like record every single thing the politician says so that, so that when Mitt Romney says whatever the 47% thing, they've got it on tape, and then they clip it and they try to make it viral. So th- this stuff is ... And again, like, look, like-... these people believe what they're doing. I'm not saying it's even dishonest. Like, these people believe what they're doing. They think they're fighting a holy war. They think they're protecting democracy. They think they're protecting civilization. They think they're protecting whatever it is they're protecting. Um, but, but they, and then they know how to use the tools, and so they, they know how to, they, they know how to try to gin up the outrage. And then, by the way, s- sometimes it works, and s- you know, the social cascade, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes they cascade, sometimes they don't. But if you follow these people on Twitter, like, this is what they do every day. They're constantly trying to, like, light this fire, right? Uh-

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:22

        Wow.

    16. MAMarc Andreessen1:03:23

        And so, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:24

        I assumed that it was really bottom up, but it sounds like it's sort of a-

Episode duration: 2:57:01