Joe Rogan Experience #2501 - Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreessen is a co-founder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, co-creator of the Mosaic internet browser and co-founder of Netscape, and author of “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” https://www.youtube.com/@a16z https://pmarca.substack.com https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ https://www.a16z.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Great Coffee, Great Mission – Black Rifle Coffee is America’s Coffee. Visit https://blackriflecoffee.com/joerogan today to get 30% off your next order.

Joe RoganhostMarc Andreessenguest

May 19, 20263h 20mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,000 words

0:00 – 0:02
Intro
1. JRJoe Rogan
  [upbeat music]
0:02 – 0:59
Austin teen crime spree and why real-time camera networks matter
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
2. SPSpeaker
  The Joe Rogan Experience.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music] We're rolling?
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  All right.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Mr. Andreessen, good to see you, sir.
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Great to be back. Thank you.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  So we were just talking about this wild crime spree that happened this weekend in Austin.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  So it seems like it was... Was it teenagers that were doing this?
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah?
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  15 and 17.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  You're not on a microphone there, fella.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  15 and 17 years old.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  15 and 17 years old.
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  It was terrible. It's terrible.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  What was the purpose? Just going crazy?
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  I think so, yeah. They stole cars, and stole guns, and switched cars, and-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  And they shot, and they shot at, like, f- 10 different locations, apparently.
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  One person's, at least one person's in critical condition.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  They shot multiple people.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. So you were saying that the reason why they had a hard time catching them is because of they had Flock cameras in Austin.
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  But then they shut those cameras off for political reasons.
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  Correct. Yes. Yeah, and so-
27. JRJoe Rogan
  So please explain that.
0:59 – 2:26
How Flock works: AI license-plate and vehicle-identification at city scale
1. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, so these guys are driving around in cars, and yeah, they're switching cars, whatever. It, yeah, and they're... And they, they went to, like, a dozen locations and, like, fight, you know, and tried sh- shooting, shooting at buildings, and people, and houses, and, and all kinds of stuff. And so, okay, so you got these guys running around. So they, there's this system called Flock, which is one of our companies. And, and what they do, it's kind of like in the movies. You, you take all the municipal cameras, and traffic cameras, and everything, and you feed them into an AI, AI, and the AI is able to f- first find a license plate in, in real time. So you can, you can find that. But, but second, you can actually find a car even if you don't have the license plate, 'cause you can find, like, distinct markings of the car. It'll... On the car. It'll track the car. And so th- this thing is deployed. It's, this, it's sold to city governments. It's used all over the country. Um, it solves crimes. Every, every day we get reports on, you know, carjackings with kids in the backseat, and their lives get saved 'cause, you know, they, they track them down. So a lot of, lot of, lot of towns and cities have this and, and they love it. In cities like Austin, with the intense politics, you know, they, they run into backlash on, on privacy and, and, um, and surveillance concerns. And so Austin had Flock and then turned it off. And as a consequence, they were not able to find these guys for, I don't know, whatever, several days. Um, and then what happened at the late-breaking news today is these guys drove into some adjacent town, um, uh, you know, uh, uh, up against Austin. And, and, and Flock is, was live in that town, and so Flock tagged them the minute they drove into that, that town, and then they, they caught the guys. Subsequent to that, the mayor, your, your mayor, uh, in Austin, of... Your mayor and your chief of police gave a press conference and said [chuckles] "We really need to rethink this, um, 'cause it's, it's, it's crazy to have the ability to solve crimes and stop crimes, uh, and not be able to use it."
2:26 – 3:48
Privacy, corruption risk, and safeguards: the surveillance-state objection
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, so the concern is mass surveillance, right? And the concern is that someone's gonna abuse this and use AI for nefarious purposes, right? Like, what nefarious purposes would that be?
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, so this is a system, this is a system that could be used in bad ways, right?
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  So bad, bad people could use it in bad ways. And so if you had a corrupt, you know, chief of police and, you know, he had some personal entanglement thing and he wanted to track a, you know, ex, whatever, or if the mayor wanted to, you know, do this to terrorize her political opponents or whatever. Like, if you had, you know, cor- cor- corrupt city officials, then they could use it for bad things. But-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Wouldn't that be traceable, though? Like, wouldn't that... Like, isn't there, like, a blockchain... Pull that sucker so it's not on your chin.
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Chin.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Push it forward a little bit. Yeah.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  [laughs]
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Is, is there a blockchain for Flock so you could know who's doing what and how it's happening so someone couldn't abuse it? Is it possible-
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
11. JRJoe Rogan
  ... to have, circumvent that?
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, it could. But, you know, this is, like, the standard... Y- yes, and this, you know, they, they log everything and I'm, you know, I'm sure there, there's records of everything. But, but you know, like, it's like anything else. It's, it's, you know, it's why, it's why cops have to get a warrant before they search somebody's house, right? You, you know.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  There, there's always the question of, like, what is the legal authority and what are the safeguards that protect this kind of thing? But, but to take... So, so I think there's a completely legitimate question, which is how, how should that all be designed? What should be the controls? What should be the penalties if somebody abuses it? Um, you know, th- there's all that. But then on the other side of it is, like, are you really gonna give up the entire thing-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
3:48 – 6:43
ShotSpotter explained—and why Chicago turned it off anyway
1. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... and, and disarm, disarm yourself in the face of in, in face of what's been a big national crime wave for a long time. So the other thing is, so the city of Chicago is the one that's pushed this even further. Um, so there's an older system that's deployed in many cities called ShotSpotter. Um, uh, Shot-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  What's it called?
3. MAMarc Andreessen
  It's called ShotSpotter.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Shots Botter?
5. MAMarc Andreessen
  ShotSpotter.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  ShotSpotter.
7. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, ShotSpotter.
9. MAMarc Andreessen
  ShotSpotter.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Like spot-
11. MAMarc Andreessen
  It spots-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  ... someone shooting
13. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... it spots somebody shooting.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Got it.
15. MAMarc Andreessen
  Um, and-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Sounds very r- German.
17. MAMarc Andreessen
  [laughs]
18. JRJoe Rogan
  ShotSpotter.
19. MAMarc Andreessen
  It's, it, so-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Sounds very [laughs] like-
21. MAMarc Andreessen
  Several umlauts
22. JRJoe Rogan
  ... very Nazi. [laughs]
23. MAMarc Andreessen
  Se- se- se- several, several umlauts-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
25. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... uh, on top. So ShotSpotter's an older system that works very well. It's deployed in many cities. And what it is, totally different system. What it, uh, is, is they put these, these precision microphones on top of rooftops all over the city, and then when a gunshot goes off, they're able to instantly triangulate that a gunshot has gone off and specifically where the gunshot went off.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Hmm.
27. MAMarc Andreessen
  This has two, two big benefits. Uh, benefit number one is, um, you have a better chance of catching the perpetrator 'cause you can instantly respond to the gunshot. You don't have to wait for somebody to call it in or if, if somebody calls it in. Number two, if somebody's been shot and they're bleeding in the street, you can immediately roll the ambulance to location and you can, you can, you can save lives. And so it's, historically it's considered a, a double win. Chicago got so wrapped up on these political issues that they also, not only do they not have Flock, they also turned off their ShotSpotter system voluntarily. Um, and so people now get shot in Chicago and they bleed out on the street and nobody knows and nobody cares.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  And what is the argument that they make?
29. MAMarc Andreessen
  Uh, that, that, that it is, um... The, so the f- the... So I would say there, there's maybe two argument. There's the civil libertarian argument, um, which is all around surveillance and abuse and control and, you know, all, all these things. And like I say, I think that's a very legitimate argument. And then I would say there's, like, the woke, the woke argument, right? Which is that the, the argument goes the American criminal justice system is clearly biased in favor of some demographic groups and against other demographic groups. And if you have automated systems like ShotSpotter or Flock or... By the way, the same thing comes up with, like, traffic cameras that automatically give out, uh, speeding tickets, um, that, that those will disproportionately affect disadvantaged people in society and disadvantaged groups-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh
6:43 – 10:55
Accuracy controversies, missing evidence, and the illusion of “crime is down”
1. JRJoe Rogan
  You know, this is automatically when, um, there's a situation like this, any kind of a mass shooting, people think it's a false flag. This is, uh, this is where we're at. How Chicago organizers managed to rid the city of ShotSpotter. Controversial police surveillance tech is often inaccurate according to research that allowed activists to launch a fact-based campaign and a political model for organizers in other cities. Aha. So they're saying it's inaccurate.
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Well, so what it is, and, and like, and be fair to it, what it is, what it is, it's directional microphones, right?
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  And so it, it, a shot goes off, it triangulates on a, on a location. It's gon- you know, and look, it's gonna ... I, I don't-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  It's also bouncing off buildings, right?
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Sure.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  So there's a lot of echo and-
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. I, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure you get, yeah, I'm sure you, I'm sure you get that effect. N- nevertheless-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  But at least you'd know when a shot went off.
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  A shot went off, it went off in this general area. I, I would assume, we're not involved in ShotSpotter, I don't know for sure.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  I would assume at this point it's probably down to, like, it's probably pretty accurate at this, at the, at the level of a block, at a street. Um, it's probably generally quite accurate beyond that. It, but again, it, right, so it's exactly right. I mean, I, I think exactly what you said, which was like, okay-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  At least you know a shot went off.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  A shot went off.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  And if you had both of those things, Flock and ShotSpotter, uh, o- 88.72% of incidents flagged by ShotSpotter ended with police finding no incidents of gun crime. Okay.
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  But think about-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  The pro- Right.
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  But that doesn't mean-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... the gunshots didn't go off.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Exactly.
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  [laughs]
23. JRJoe Rogan
  That doesn't mean anything. The, rarely produce evidence of a gun-related crime. That also doesn't mean anything 'cause it just shows that a gun went off. If you have... First of all, Chicago is one of the absolute worst places in the country in terms of gun violence.
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Correct.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Correct?
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  I mean, there's-
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... constant shootings going on in Chicago.
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes. And an enormous death, death every weekend, an enormous death toll.
10:55 – 12:49
DC National Guard, media framing, and the politics of public safety
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, also, Washington, didn't the mayor actually thank Trump for bringing in the National Guard? Which is crazy.
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  He did.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  You have a Democrat mayor-
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
5. JRJoe Rogan
  ... who said thank you-
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
7. JRJoe Rogan
  ... to Donald Trump for bringing in the National... Which everybody thought was an outrage.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh my God, you're bringing the National Guard into the cities, you're gonna militarize the police force and-
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  She said thank you because crime dropped off a cliff.
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  So I've also been spending a lot of time in DC, so what was happening in DC, some of my friends in DC basically say it turned the city from a place where you couldn't be outside at night to all of a sudden you can just walk around and it's fine. And then what happened is, like, the violence basically went to zero, like, in, in most of the neighborhoods, like, extremely quickly. And so what, what happened was you have all these people walking around at night for the first time in years and, you know, they were just like, "Oh, there's a couple guys in National Guard. This is great. Go over and take a picture with them. This is fantastic."
13. JRJoe Rogan
  [laughs]
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  Okay. So then it gets reported as [laughs] , it gets reported in the press as the National Guard's not doing anything. All they're doing is sitting around taking, you know, selfies-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Hilarious
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... selfies with tourists. You know, they-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, God, I hate the press
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... they, you know, they, they don't need to be here, they're not doing anything, right? Um-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Why would someone report that?
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  But if-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Can't we just come to an agreement-
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  [laughs]
23. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that crime is bad-
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes
25. JRJoe Rogan
  ... regardless of political party? Can't we agree-
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  One would think
27. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that we all wanna be safe?
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  One would think.Well, let me give you one more, I'll give you one more thing and we, we can m- m- move off this. So the, the other thing, you know, you mentioned is, yeah, drive-by shootings, the guy drives away, you know, there's no evidence of the crime. The other thing, if you talk to cops, if you talk to cops who work in high-crime areas or people who live in high-crime areas, which I have in both cases, um, a lot of people in high-crime areas do not want to ever talk to the cops about things that have happened, 'cause if it's gang violence, there's the very active threat of retribution.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  100%.
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  E- every-
12:49 – 14:37
Are cities driving out ‘responsible’ residents? Incentives, voter shifts, and bailouts
1. JRJoe Rogan
  I d- do you ever put your tinfoil hat on and going, "What, what are they trying to do here?"
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  So the, the, the, the-
3. JRJoe Rogan
  'Cause I know you wear a tinfoil hat every now and then.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  Every-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  We talked about nuclear bombs. [laughs]
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  [laughs] We did, we did, we did. Faking, faking, yes, exactly. The, the, the now well-known fact that all the, the nuclear test, uh, bla- uh, sites got, uh, got faked. Um, so I mean, look, the-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't think they got faked.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  And, I, I know. You're, well, you're, you're a believer in the official story, uh, you know.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  A little bit.
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You believe what Wikipedia says. So, um-
11. JRJoe Rogan
  [laughs]
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  [laughs] Which you're, which you're, you know, you're famous for. So, um, so, uh, I... Look, the, the, one wonders if there's a political motivation, right? Which is basically to get the responsible people out of the city, uh, to be able to change the voting patterns, right? Um, and so if the-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  God, that's so insidious.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. And so you, you wonder, you know, uh, y- yeah, you look at these programs over time and kind of the pop- as, as the popu- you know, and the populations of the major cities have shifted, like, radically over the last 50 years. Like, they, they, they're, they're very little in common with the population distributions they had 50 years ago. And so you wonder how much of it is massaging the voter base.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  God, that's so crazy to think-
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
17. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that people would be willing to sacrifice the safety of their residents that are bringing in the majority of the tax revenue, by the way, so that they could somehow or another make it so that they could stay in power forever.
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  I mean, I, I mean-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  And then get money out, presumably from the state, right? Like, which is how New York Ci- City got bailed out.
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Which is a hilarious story. They balanced the budget.
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, congratulations. Mom, Donny's a genius. He figured it out. Socialism works. He balanced the budget. And then you realize they got $4 billion from the state-
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
25. JRJoe Rogan
  ... so they could balance that budget. So all these folks that are living in small towns with no crime and living in rural, like, West New York, and, like, they had to pay.
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yep. H- 100%. And by the way, the states get bailed out, right, uh-
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... by, by the feds.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Federally.
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right. Exactly.
14:37 – 19:57
Ken Griffin and ‘eat the rich’ politics: targeting the tax base that funds the city
1. MAMarc Andreessen
  It, it, it is very fun. So it, so I just came from New York, and so New York has their own version of this now with their new mayor, and the big controversy there last week was their mayor, uh, did a video standing in front of somebody's home-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes
3. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... calling him out by name. [laughs]
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Ken Griffin.
5. MAMarc Andreessen
  Ken Griffin. Um-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Who's, uh, a very wealthy guy who brings a lot of jobs to New York City-
7. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
8. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and was in the middle of a huge project.
9. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  It's a $6 billion project.
11. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  And now he's considering tanking it.
13. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, he's gonna, he's, yeah, he's, he's basi- he's, I think he spoke last week at a conference, and, you know, all, all but said he's, he's, he's gonna... He didn't say he's gonna pull entirely out, but he said he's gonna move much more of the, of, of the business to Florida. But-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Ugh
15. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... the other significance, Ken, Ken, who I know, Ken is a major philanthropist. Ken, Ken has donated hundreds-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes
17. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... of millions of dollars, particularly to healthcare, uh, in New York City, on top of being a major taxpayer and source of tax revenue, on top of being a major employer. And so the new mayor has deliberately targeted him personally, um, to try to force him out. Um-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Why?
19. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. So-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Do you think that's the ca- that that's why he's doing it, or do you think he's doing it because that appeals to his base? Because there's these eat the rich people.
21. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. But it, it's kind of the same. It's the-
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
23. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... it's-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
25. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... you know, you sort of saying, like, I, I, so, so I would, I would give people the benefit of the doubt. I, I would assume they believe everything they say, and they feel very strongly about it. I would believe that they also have a political incentive, um, because it, right? If you get, if you get a, if you get somebody who's gonna oppose you out of the city, that's good. Um-
26. JRJoe Rogan
  The top 1% of New York, aren't they responsible for 50% of the tax base?
27. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, uh, uh, on that, on that order, yeah.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Something in the range of-
29. MAMarc Andreessen
  Also roughly, also roughly the case in, in Cali- in, in California in the year 2000, 1,000 individuals were 50% of the tax revenue. Um, it was, it was the all-time peak, but I think it's roughly 1% of the taxpayers are 50% of the tax receipts. And so one could imagine a position that says, "Wow, we want these businesses to work. We wanna generate all the tax revenue and we wanna pay for all the, all the programs."
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
19:57 – 29:14
Socialism vs. capitalism: two competing moral definitions of fairness
1. JRJoe Rogan
  drink. You can grab these Black Rifle products now at Walmart, your local Black Rifle Coffee shop, or get 30% off your next order with code ROGAN at blackriflecoffee.com/joerogan. Veteran-founded Black Rifle Coffee company, America's Coffee. Well, that's the weird thing about the whole socialism thing, is that it's never worked ever and they just go, "Well, it hasn't been done right."
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes. Maybe it will work for us. [laughs]
3. JRJoe Rogan
  But it's, it's crazy that-
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes, yes
5. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that works.
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  And I, I ge- is that a failing of our education system? Is that a failing of the media explaining things to people in a way that makes sense?
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  It was-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Or is it just that people-
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
11. JRJoe Rogan
  ... feel so helpless that they're making, you know, a, a, just enough barely to get by and they're living check to check, and they see these people in yachts and they see these people in private jets and they say, "They must have stolen this."
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  "This is impossible to achieve this kind of wealth."
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Somehow or another, the system is wrong, wealth inequality.
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. So I think there's two, there's two moral definitions of fairness. Um, there's a definition of fairness which is you get out of something what you put into it, [laughs] right? Proportional. If I work twice as hard as you do, I get twice as much. And, and by the way, that could be, you know, if we're in a race together and, you know, I run twice as far, I get to eat twice as much, you know, pie at the end of the race. Like a- anything like that. I put in more effort, I get more results. The other version of fairness is, uh, everybody gets an equal slice.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, the equality of outcome.
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  And those both feel [laughs] r- those both feel correct. Like, there's something, I think, in our wiring, right, in our brain wiring, where those both feel like they're morally correct, but they are in direct conflict with each other. Um, and it's like, y- and, and so when I r- when I really have this conversation, you know, just gotta kinda lay those two ideas out on the table and kinda say, "Okay, you know, pick one." Right? A- and again, it's not like, it's not like, you know, the, and the caricature is, well, s- somebody's arguing then for, like, unrestrained libertarianism, whatever, and it's like, no. Like, we, we're, these are all social democracies. Like, we're gonna live in social democracies forever. There's always gonna be a progressive tax system. There's always g- you have to ha- you have to have business success in order to fund all the social programs. That, and that makes sense, and really, very few people argue against that anymore.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Right, it does make sense.
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right, it does make sense. But, but there is this fundamental question underneath that, which is the, the level or degree to which you buy into that s- first definition of fairness, what you put in is what you get out, versus that second definition, which is everybody gets the same amount.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, the problem with the equality of outcome is it's not an equality of effort.
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right. That's right.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  And this is the beautiful thing about America-
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
25. JRJoe Rogan
  ... is that you really can just work 20 hours a, a day and achieve something spectacular.
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  And the idea that you working 20 hours a day like a fucking maniac, literally wasting your health away-
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that you should get the exact same amount of money as someone who barely works-
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right
29:14 – 37:53
California crisis case study: fires, rebuilding paralysis, and permit politics
1. MAMarc Andreessen
  He's prosecuting crimes. Um, and then Mr. Spencer Pratt.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Is that who you, you have your chips on?
3. MAMarc Andreessen
  I, I, I would just say, like, his sudden rise, um, is, has to be considered a miracle. Um-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  It's kind of fun
5. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... it's incredible to watch.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
7. MAMarc Andreessen
  He is doing such a great job in his campaign.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  And he's got really good ideas, and people are saying, "Well, who is this reality star? Why should he, like-What about the other people? What about them? What, what is so great about their ability to lead that makes you think that they're gonna be extraordinary choices above and beyond what Spencer Pratt's capable of doing?
9. MAMarc Andreessen
  I think-
10. JRJoe Rogan
  What are you talking about?
11. MAMarc Andreessen
  I, I, I live, you know, we have a home down there, and we, we, we fortunately didn't lose our home, but we, you know, we were, we were ... It was, it was nerve-wracking for a while. And I mean, you know, it, it ... I think everybody knows this now, but the city response was abysmal, did nonexistent. The state response was terrible. Um, and, and by the way, none of that has been fixed as far as I know. Like, it's ... We're, we're set up for the fire. You know, so the, the, the fire, what is it, a year ago, a little more than a year ago, took out, uh, twice the square mileage of the Nagasaki bomb, um, obliterated. Uh, if, if you've seen, like, photos, it d- it destroyed Pacific Palisades. It looks like a-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
13. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... bomb hit. It l- like-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
15. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... the cars were melted into the pavement.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. It's gone.
17. MAMarc Andreessen
  It, it was gone. Um, and then Altadena, which is, like, a working class neighborhood, and, and, yeah, and then it, you know, took out, like, half of Malibu. And so, uh, like, it, it was, like, prof- And it almost took out all of West LA. Like, it came very close to jumping the freeways and just taking out, like, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Santa Monica. Like, it was all in the line of fire. I don't think any of that's been fixed. I don't think there's any plan to fix any of it. Um, and so yeah, Spencer, you know, Spencer's been through this the hard way, along with a lot of people in the city, which is his ... You know, they burned his house down. Um, and-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  What is the response when Karen Bass is questioned about what are you gonna do if this happens in the future?
19. MAMarc Andreessen
  You know, everything is, everything is ... [laughs] Do you remember The Lego Movie? Remember the song Everything is Wonderful?
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
21. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
23. MAMarc Andreessen
  Everything is wonderful, everything's amazing.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  [laughs]
25. MAMarc Andreessen
  Um, there's a viral AI video which is, uh, Spencer Pratt, uh, uh, one of his fans made, uh, which is, uh, it's Everything is Awful. Um, and it's LA. It's, it's, uh, it's like The Lego Movie set in LA. It's with, like, Lego junkies bleeding onto the street.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, his AI videos have been amazing.
27. MAMarc Andreessen
  L- the Lego city's on fire. And so I, I, I think there's just, there's just an advanced level of denial. Um, I mean, it just ... And I think, I don't know if it came out today, I just saw the report today, but apparently the head of the LA Water Department, you know, is a super high-paid, you know, person, and apparently she, apparently, according to the information, was, uh, unaware that the key reservoir was not full, didn't have water in it. Uh, uh, you know, the ... So the fire hydrants didn't have water in them.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
29. MAMarc Andreessen
  [laughs] So the, the, the, the police, the, the, the, the fire trucks would pull up, and they would plug in, and there would be no water coming out. I mean, so it's, it's a level of dereliction that is cosmic. And to your point, Spencer is articulating that in a way that shockingly no- nobody else has been able to.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  There's also talk about the Palisades, about them selling the land, about acquiring the land and selling the land.
37:53 – 57:10
The California asset/wealth tax proposal: unrealized gains, valuation, and ‘Trojan horse’ risk
1. JRJoe Rogan
  And let's explain this asset tax because-
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
3. JRJoe Rogan
  ... it's, uh, th- people are thinking it's just as simple as you get an additional X amount of percentage of your income, but it's not. It's unrealized income as well.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  So yeah. So there's, there's, so there's lots-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Unrealized gains.
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. So there's lots of different kinds of taxes that one can have, and there's, you know, the obvious one's sales tax when you buy or sell something. There's property tax based on, you know, you're paying property tax on, on property you own. There's, you know, there's all, all these theories in this. There's tar- tariffs, which are taxes on international transactions. So y- so you have to get tax revenue somewhere, and you can decide from among these taxes. Historically, the US didn't, in, in the old days, [chuckles] the, the US didn't have an income tax, and then the income tax was introduced about 100 years ago. Uh, and, and it was a big deal at the time. It was a big deal. It was just like, "Oh, wait a minute. I'm, I'm getting a salary. I'm getting paid," at the time, whatever it was, $100 a month, "and you're gonna take, you know, whatever ex- you're gonna take a percentage of my income, of money that I earned?" And so that was, like, very controversial. It started out, I, if I'm remembering properly, it started out, it was like a 3% tax, only on rich people. You know, this, this... But what happens is they, they got the mechanism in place, and then before you know it, you know, 30 years later, it's, you know, you have 50% tax rates. And then by the 1950s, the marginal tax rates on, on high-income people were up in the 90s, right? And so, b- so it was a very big deal to get, to be able to get the ability to seize a percentage of somebody's income. But we're all used to that now. And so, you know, we all pay, we all pay, we all pay federal income tax in California. We pay a lot of state income tax. We pay local income tax. I mean, my income tax rate's some, you know, something like 60%, maybe at this point 62 or 63% all in. Um-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  You're not paying your fair share.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Uh, exactly. Exactly. It ought, ought to be, ought to be, ought to be, ought to be, ought to be 99, clearly, if not 100.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  [chuckles]
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  But we're all used to income tax. Okay. So park that for a moment.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay.
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  Then there's this concept of a asset tax.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  Um, uh, and so in very various terms, asset tax, wealth tax, um, uh, or you might think of it as a property tax that applies to everything you own.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  [chuckles] So not just the land that your house is on, but everything you own.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Car collection, art collection.
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  Art collection, all the stuff on the walls-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... all your clothes, all your jewelry-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... all your everything, your house pets, like the whole thing.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  It's also stocks, right?
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Uh, stocks, bonds, ev- yes. Every-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... ev- everything, crypto.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  How-
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  It, it-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... did this get proposed? How is it possible that someone proposed something this insane?
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  So this has been running, this idea's been running around for a while. Um, by the way, there are other countries that have done this with disastrous results because all of the people with any level of assets flee the country. Um, and so Eur- Europe has been through this multiple times, and, you know, we, we don't, we don't pay attention to that. But, you know, there's, there's case studies from that. It's, it- it's worked out poorly every time. Uh, but it's been kicking around for a while. It, it, it almost passed. There was almost a federal wealth tax, uh, asset tax in, uh, 2022 that almost passed, that didn't pass. Um, and then the Biden administration, uh, said in their 2024 fiscal plan for '25, they said they were gonna come back and do a federal wealth tax, asset tax in '25 if they had gotten reelected. Um, and then now in California, there's a ballot proposition that a specific union has put on the ballot specifically for itself. Uh, um, uh, um, the com- politics are weird 'cause it, it's, it's, it's a bad ballot proposition 'cause it's one union where all the money just goes to it and its causes. And so it, it's, it's a weird one, but this is the first of what's gonna be a [chuckles] flood of these. And, and so the, the... And, and, and again, you can imagine the story. The ballot proposition is it's a one-time tax, 5% of assets for people with a net worth above some level. Um, and then that level, you know, kind of moves around depending on who's talking about it. And by the way, depending on what's included and what's not included. And so I think in the current proposition, for example, they exclude property. They exclude, like, real estate. And I think they did that-
57:10 – 1:05:14
Propaganda loops online: bots, paid influencers, and ‘heaven banning’ echo chambers
1. JRJoe Rogan
  The amount of propaganda that people are subject to in 2026, though, is very different.
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  And the social media propaganda is wild.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Because people live in these echo chambers, and they, you know, especially like go to Blue Sky. You wanna think the world's falling apart? Go read what people's opinions are on Blue Sky. Like, Jesus Christ, they're advocating murder for people that don't agree with what they believe. I mean, I saw after Charlie Kirk got killed, there was all these people that were like, "Do him next. Do this next. Do..." Not, "This is horrific. Someone just got murdered." It's like, "Yeah, do someone next. Do this person next." And no punishment, no, no banning, no taking it down. It's like you've got these social media echo chambers that get people thinking that these are good ideas, and then there's no one around them that gives them a counter-narrative, and anybody who does is a fascist.
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. Now, the good, again, I'll, I'll, I'll be, I'll try to be the bright spot. The good news of Blue Sky is they've self-isolated to Blue Sky. [laughs]
7. JRJoe Rogan
  How many people are on Blue Sky?
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Do you know the concept? It's probably, I'm gonna guess a couple million. Um-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Even Jack, who created Blue Sky, is like, "Yeah, it's a fucking dumpster."
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, he's, he's-
11. JRJoe Rogan
  "I'm out"
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... he's disowned it. Um, so do, do you know the term, do you know the term heaven banning? Have you heard of this?
13. JRJoe Rogan
  No.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  This is an old term. Okay, this is an old term for people who run like chat groups and forums online, which is, okay, you've got somebody in a f- you've got somebody in a chat group, and they're being a pain in the butt. There's two things you can do. One is you can ban them from it, and that'll make them mad, uh, and it'll, you know, be everybody be miserable. The other thing you can do is you can promote them to heaven, which is you just let them interact with bots that just agree with everything they say.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, boy.
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. And so you just let them, like every day they have the best experience of their life because they're [laughs] right? 'Cause they're, they're in heaven. They're just, they're saying every crazy thing, and they've got 30 people right there with them who are like, "Absolutely. They are absolutely correct on everything."
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow.
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  And so the, in the industry, the joke is that Bl- Blue Sky is real, it's real-life heaven banning. Um, it's, it's, uh, it's all these people have ascended into their own private Idaho.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  That's a good question about like how many people are on Blue Sky that, that's a bot.
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Jamie and I were just having this conversation about how many of these conversations that we deal with, with political issues-
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
23. JRJoe Rogan
  ... are bots.
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah, that's also true. There's tremendous amounts of bots, and then there's also, by the way, just payola is running crazy right now.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Payola how?
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  Um, so influencers getting paid. Um-
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, yeah.
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. And-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, that's weird.
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  And there's a, there's a, there, I've been, this is something I've been looking at recently. Um, the, the, there's a legal, there's a legal loophole, um, which is, uh, you have to disclo- y- uh, political, uh, f- uh, f- uh, campaign finance laws, you have to disclose political contributions. Um, if you're advertising a product, you, FTC, you have to disclose that for consumer fraud reasons. Um, but if it's just an idea, you don't have to disclose it.
1:05:14 – 1:10:51
Too online vs. too offline: media realities splitting society
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Um, do you go online? Do you fuck around and go on Twitter and read things? Do you-
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  All the, all the time.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Do you really?
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  Half man, half laptop.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  How do you have the time to do that?
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  I mean, it's just, it's just, I mean, I, I, so it's, it's what's, it, it's an incredible in- information source. Like, if you, if you, like, for what, you know, everything we're doing is trying to keep up on every new trend, every new development.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Trying to track, you know, all these, all these smart people and everything that they're working on, and it's just-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  So how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  So there's two, so I go back and forth. So I, I use, I use, I, uh, the, I use X and Substack. I use Instagram. I use a bunch of these things, but I spend a lot of time on X and Substack in particular. Um, on X, uh, both of which we're, we're involved in. Um, on X, um, the, I use both. I, so I let the algorithm do its work, um, but then I also keep, like, curated lists, um, and, uh, you know, that are, that are clean, uh, where, you know, where I hand, hand curate every, every person. Um, and then I, I'm, I'm sort of, I'm sort of semi-notorious on Twitter. I have a, I have a, um, I have a, I have a one tweet policy. Um, I, I follow you based on one tweet, and then I block you based on one tweet.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Hmm.
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  Um, and so I'm, like, I, for me, it's like a real life video game or an online video game, and I'm just, like, on a hair trigger.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Interesting.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  Uh, and there are people, by the way, there are people where I will follow them based on a tweet, and then block them based on a tweet, and then refollow them based on another tweet. [laughs] So I saw one yesterday that says there's a, there's an Andreessen samsara circle of life, uh, on Twitter of how often you get, uh, blocked, unblocked, followed, unfollowed. Um-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  And what do you block people for?
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  Uh, just being an asshole.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah. Just e- either-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  There's a lot of that
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... I don't wanna see it. I just don't wanna see it. Which co- which covers a lot of bad behavior. Um, uh, yeah, but I mean, it's, it's an incredible cross-section of, of, of, of information. I mean, we, we, it's, it's amazing. We, we have this, like, incredible resource with social media feeds. We have this incredible resource now with talking to AIs-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... digging information and, and, you know, and they're, you know, and I'm not a utopian and there's, there's downsides to both of those. Um, and, and you can use them, you know, they, they, you can use them in, in dysfunctional ways, but-
23. JRJoe Rogan
  What percentage of it do you think-
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  They're, they're g- for me, they're great
25. JRJoe Rogan
  What do, what percentage of what you're interacting with online do you think are bots?
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  Hmm. I think m- I, I think all, most of the people I fo- at this point, I think most of the people I, like, actively follow, like, they're on, on, like, my curated list, I think they're real people.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  So how do you do this curated list? Do you have a, do you use different software?
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  It's all by hand. No, it's all just in the Twitter UI. It's all just the standard-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Okay. So-
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  Just the standard, just the standard thing.
1:10:51 – 1:21:08
AI interfaces arrive: glasses, wristbands, ‘typing with intent,’ and real-world overlays
1. JRJoe Rogan
  I'm reading a book right now on the Yugas, the cycles of civilization.
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Ah, yes, yes.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  The Kali Yuga. Yes.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, we, I thought we were in Kali Yuga, but according to this book, we're not. We're in the, the Kali Yuga ended in the 1900s.
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  Mm-hmm.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  And that we're in the next stage.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Mm.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  And so it's got me very optimistic.
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  The rebuild, the rebuilding? The rebuilding.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  The rebuilding after the, after the end of the world.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  The rebuilding and, like, that we're entering into an age of enlightenment.
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  And that there's going to be some significant breakthroughs with, uh, technology in particular that allow people to have, uh, a much more balanced life and perspective and a more, much more balanced civilization. Like, this is, this is the doom or gloom-
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
17. JRJoe Rogan
  ... right? When it comes to AI.
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  There's a lot of people that think this is gonna be the end. We're gonna be enslaved. It's gonna be over. And then Elon's like, "No, universal high income, you know, no, no longer, there's no more poverty. There's no more, everyone's going to be, there's massive resources. You're not gonna have any problems with all the things that people are hung up with in today's world."
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  In particular with communication. You know, if we do develop some sort of technology-based telepathy, you think that the internet is a game changer.
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Technology-based telepathy is the ultimate game changer.
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Because there'll be no more frauds.
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  There's gonna be, I mean, you, you're not gonna be able to exist as a fraud if everybody could read your mind. You, you're not gonna be able to exist as a grifter. Everyone's gonna know your motivations. Everyone's gonna know everything. It's gonna be very strange, but that couldThat literally could call in the next cycle of humanity, if you really think about it.
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yep. Yep. Well-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  If you wanted to be completely-
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
1:21:08 – 1:39:58
AI data centers and ‘can America build things?’—energy, incentives, and nuclear reboot
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Let's watch it. Let's see if you can, uh, pull a clip of it, because Tucker was, uh, essentially saying like, "How did you get this passed?" And he said, "They voted on it," and it turns out it's like, three representatives in Utah.
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Mm-hmm.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  And Tucker's argument is like, how difficult would it be to subvert the, y- you know, get ahold of three of these representatives and get them to vote on this thing that's not good for the people, that... He's saying you're gonna be taking American jobs with this thing, and this is like, Tucker's position.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  Right.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  You find any clips on it?
6. SPSpeaker
  Well, yeah, it was fi- I found the whole thing first. This is 10 minutes long, but-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, let's just play a little of it
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... I, I can give you... I, if you want, I can give you a quick while we're looking for it, or-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, no, let's-
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  Okay.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Slap on some headphones.
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Let's listen to this one.
14. SPSpeaker
  There's a difference. There's a state fighting-
15. MAMarc Andreessen
  Hey, that's no problem. I'll, I'll-
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yeah
17. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... that's no problem. I can build it in Texas. I can build it in Jacksonville, Mississippi. There-
18. SPSpeaker
  Yeah, but, but why, if it's such a good business, would you be asking taxpayers to help pay for it without giving them equity in the company? Are you giving taxpayers shares?
19. MAMarc Andreessen
  No, the, the investors get the shares, but here's why they would do it.
20. SPSpeaker
  But why would the taxpayers have to?
21. MAMarc Andreessen
  Well, I'm telling you why.
22. SPSpeaker
  I mean, unless if you want to start a business, uh, but why, why am I, as a taxpayer, forced to pay for your business? I don't, I don't get it.
23. MAMarc Andreessen
  Well, let's forget about data centers. Let's go any manufacturing. Let's say you're gonna build, um, an aluminum sheet manufacturing facility.
24. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm.
25. MAMarc Andreessen
  You go to the government there and say, "Look, this has got a huge CapEx expect- you know, a, a huge CapEx expenditure. I'm gonna hire 2,000 people. I'm going to build a community center. I'm going to pay a lot of tax on the profits in your state when I sell the aluminum, and I'm gonna hire all these people who they will also pay tax. And we will build a school because our workers need a, we need a school," and, and, and, and, and. What can you give me to incentivize me versus the s- the state right beside you, which is willing to give me an incentive package?
26. SPSpeaker
  No, no, I understand-
27. MAMarc Andreessen
  But it's called-
28. SPSpeaker
  ... uh, I understand that you're, you're gaming a system in place. You didn't come up with this.
29. MAMarc Andreessen
  No, I'm-
30. SPSpeaker
  But I'm just trying to understand, so the trade typically is jobs, okay? But these projects don't actually-
1:39:58 – 2:07:27
Marc’s ‘alchemy’ pitch for AI: sand into thought, universal superpowers, and AGI claims
1. JRJoe Rogan
  So what, so you're saying that the people running AI have done a terrible job of selling AI.
2. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes, awful.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  So sell it.
4. MAMarc Andreessen
  Yes. Uh, sell it. I mean, look, so it, it, it is... All right, I'm, all right, I'm, I'm gonna give you the deepest of all pitches. I'm gonna give you the, the, the... Okay. So, uh, Isaac Newton spent 20 years looking for this key to what he called alchemy. Um, and the d- idea of alchemy was to transmute something that was very common into something that was very rare, and the common thing was supposed to be lead, and the rare thing was supposed to be gold. And he said if I c- And his, there was this thing called the philosopher's stone that he kept trying to discover that would turn lead into gold, and the theory was if you could turn lead into gold, then all of a sudden you have material abundance, prosperity forever for everybody, and you, you eliminate all drudgery. Everybody's rich. And you know, and there's a question, by the way, of like if the world's awash in gold, is gold still valuable? So maybe there was a hole in the argument. But in any event, you may know that he never, we have never figured out how to do that.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
6. MAMarc Andreessen
  And gold is still rare and valuable. So imagine a form of alchemy that turns sand into thought. Pause on that for a moment. Um, so chips are made out of sand. They're made out of silicon, so they're literally made out of sand. And so we gather up sand and a whole bunch of other stuff, and we apply all this advanced manufacturing technology to it. We create the chip. We plug the chip into a data center, into power, we light it up, and we put AI on it, AI on it, and all of a sudden it's thinking. And so we've turned sand into thought. And so it's possibly the most revolutionary technology in the history of the species, maybe. It's certainly on par with electricity and steam power. It's certainly more important than the internet. Um, and, and just think about what this means. And so then again, peop- people get immediately to, to s- and there are very serious practical implications, but just think conceptually, which is just like, okay, our entire life, everybody who's ever lived on planet Earth, like you're constrained in what you can think based on just what's in your head, right? Like what you know, and like how much time you have to spend thinking, and how, you know, smart and capable you are, and the complexity of the situation you're dealing with. And you know, we can only get trained up in a finite lifetime to be an expert in so many things. And, and everybody has this experience in life where they run into a complex situation, and they just don't have the grounding to be able to process it. And for a lot of people, that's a health issue where all of a sudden they're listening to these doctors saying all these contradictory things, and how are you supposed to figure out what you should do for, you know, a cancer patient or somebody who gets in a lawsuit, and all of a sudden you're listening to all these high-paid lawyers making all these claims. Or [chuckles] for that matter, you go get your car fixed, and the mechanic's making all these claims.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
8. MAMarc Andreessen
  Or you deal with the government, and they're prosecuting you, or they're investigating you, or they're, [chuckles] or they're in there val- trying to value your assets for the purpose of the new tax, and you have to figure out how to argue with them. And so like we all... And, or, or just you go to work, and you just go to work, and you just have like a complex problem, and you don't quite know how to solve it, and you're really worried 'cause like what if your boss thinks that you're not capable, and you're gonna get fired. And so we're, we're, we're always all bumping up against these, just these limitations on thought, like just how smart can we be? How many things can we know about? And so AI quite literally is that. It's, it's thought at scale for everybody in perpetuity, right? So everybody-- I, I see this with my 11-year-old right now. Like ev- everybody who grows up now is going to have AI as a comp- as a, as a augmentation, companion, capability, superpower-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
10. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... right, that they're gonna have, where all of a sudden they have this, they have, they have their own capability, and then they have this enormous other additional capability. And every time they need to figure something out, or every time they need to fill out a form, or every time they need to make an argument, or every time they need to try to just, you know, figure out a course of action, um, all of a sudden they have the ability to tap into this resource that can really help them solve just an extraordinary number of problems, um, that today we just, you know, take for granted that we can't solve.And so th- th- this is a very, very, very big concept, but it is literally happening. Um, and, and last time I, uh, just go, la- last time I was here, I was pretty sure that this was gonna happen. Um, and, and now I'm comple- and, and now with all the advances in the technology, now I'm, you know, I'm completely confident that this is happening. Um, and, and in fact, I, I think it's a- it, it's essentially already happened. Um, what-
11. JRJoe Rogan
  It's kind of crazy 'cause you weren't here that long ago
12. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... I was not here that long ago. The field has-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Things changed that much
14. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... the field has moved incredibly quickly. Um, last time I was here probably was not that long after ChatGPT came out, would be my guess, sometime around then. Um, and, um, you, you recall when ChatGPT first came out, the kind of, you know, the thing that was fun about it was it could compose, you know, rap lyrics based on Shakespearean poetry, or it could write a great wedding speech, or, like, what... You know, it could do all kinds of fun stuff, but it had all these problems. It hallucinated, and it made stuff up, and it wasn't good at, like-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
16. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... it wasn't good at logic, and it couldn't do basic math, and it had all these issues, and so people-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  It was a baby
18. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... it was a baby. It was a little, it was a little, yes, a little tiny baby learning how the world works. The, the, the technology advances in the last three years have been, like, mind-boggling, like crazy, amazing, impressive. Um, and so I, I actually, you know, people talk about this concept called AGI, which means artificial general intelligence, which basically means an AI that's as smart as a person, and I actually think we crossed that about three months ago. Um, and I think it was, it was with the very latest versions of the, of the leading models. A- and, and one of the reasons people are having a har- I would come back to that. One of the reasons people are having a hard time understanding what's happening in AI is 'cause it's moving so fast that if you don't use the latest thing, you don't understand what's happening 'cause you're not seeing it. And so a lot of people used ChatGPT last year or the year before, and-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
20. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... they're not actually seeing the new thing.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
22. MAMarc Andreessen
  The new thing specifically is, um, it's, uh, uh, it's called, uh, uh, GPT, I think it's 5.5, uh, and then it's this, uh, cl- it's called the Claude. Anthropic has this thing, Claude, um, and, and that's, uh, called, uh, 4, 4.6, um, was, was the key release, and then Google has this thing, Gemini, uh, which is like 3.0, and then, uh, Grok, um, it's 4.3. So these models all have, they, uh, in, in each case, I think in, in, in, with those releases, they kind of hit this threshold, uh, where all of a sudden... I guess I say this, like, in, in, in, in, in my line of work, 99% of the time the answer that I'm getting from the AI from those, from the most advanced models is better than I would get from talking to a, uh, basically almost any expert I have access to. Um, and I have access to, you know, in my job, a lot of experts. Um, and I'd say like 99% of the time I'm getting a better answer from the AI. Meaning a better answer, meaning sm- smarter, better analysis.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
24. MAMarc Andreessen
  And, and, and, and part of it is what they call f- fluid intelligence, which is the ability to conceptualize and process information, and, and part of it is what psychologists call crystallized intelligence, which is just memorization of everything. And so the, the, the AI brings you, it brings you both because it, it's smart, but it also knows, it's, it's trained on all the data. It's trained on, it's trained on, like, the complete corpus of human knowledge, right?
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
26. MAMarc Andreessen
  And so it's a world-class doctor and a world-class lawyer- [chuckles]
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Right
28. MAMarc Andreessen
  ... and a world-class accountant, right? And a world-class politi- you know, I don't know, political operative, uh, if you want to run for city council. Um, and it's a world-class marketing expert if you want to market your podcast, or, and it's a world-class software coder if you want to write, write, write, write some software code. And so, so it knows everything about all of these fields all at the same time. And then, of course, it has the huge advantage, [chuckles] and, and I love people, and I love talking to people, it has the huge advantage of it's endlessly happy to talk to you about anything.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
30. MAMarc Andreessen
  It doesn't-

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Intro

Austin teen crime spree and why real-time camera networks matter

How Flock works: AI license-plate and vehicle-identification at city scale

Privacy, corruption risk, and safeguards: the surveillance-state objection

ShotSpotter explained—and why Chicago turned it off anyway

Accuracy controversies, missing evidence, and the illusion of “crime is down”

DC National Guard, media framing, and the politics of public safety

Are cities driving out ‘responsible’ residents? Incentives, voter shifts, and bailouts

Ken Griffin and ‘eat the rich’ politics: targeting the tax base that funds the city

Socialism vs. capitalism: two competing moral definitions of fairness

California crisis case study: fires, rebuilding paralysis, and permit politics

The California asset/wealth tax proposal: unrealized gains, valuation, and ‘Trojan horse’ risk

Propaganda loops online: bots, paid influencers, and ‘heaven banning’ echo chambers

Too online vs. too offline: media realities splitting society

AI interfaces arrive: glasses, wristbands, ‘typing with intent,’ and real-world overlays

AI data centers and ‘can America build things?’—energy, incentives, and nuclear reboot

Marc’s ‘alchemy’ pitch for AI: sand into thought, universal superpowers, and AGI claims

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