Marc Andreessen: Trump, Power, Tech, AI, Immigration & Future of America | Lex Fridman Podcast #458

Marc Andreessen 0:00 I mean, look, we're adding a trillion dollars to the national debt every 100 days right now, and it's now passing the size of the Defense Department budget. And it's compounding, and it's, pretty soon, it's gonna be adding a trillion dollars every 90 days, and then it's gonna be adding a trillion dollars every 80 days, and then it's gonna be a trillion dollars every 70 days. And then, if this doesn't get fixed, at some point we enter a hyperinflationary spiral and we become Argentina or Brazil and...

Lex Fridman 0:22 The following is a conversation with Marc Andreessen, his second time on the podcast. Marc is a visionary tech leader and investor who fundamentally shaped the development of the internet and the tech industry, in general, over the past 30 years. He's the co-creator of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser, co-founder of Netscape, co-founder of the legendary Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and is one of the most influential voices in the tech world, including at the intersection of technology and politics. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Marc Andreessen.

Lex Fridman 1:09 All right, let's start with optimism. If you were to imagine the best possible one to two years, 2025, '26, for tech, for both big tech and small tech, what would it be? What would it look like? Lay out your vision for the best possible scenario trajectory for America.

Marc Andreessen 1:28 The Roaring 20s.

Lex Fridman 1:29 Roaring 20s.

Marc Andreessen 1:30 The Roaring 20s. I mean, look, a couple things. It is remarkable over the last several years with all of the issues, including, you know, every- not just everything in politics, but also COVID and every other thing that's happened. It's really amazing, United States just kept growing. If you just look at economic growth charts, the US just kept growing. And very significantly, many other countries stopped growing. So Canada has stopped growing, the UK has stopped growing, Germany has stopped growing. And, you know, some of those countries may be actually going backwards at this point. And there's a very long (laughs) discussion to be had about what's wrong with those countries, and there's, of course, plenty of things that are wrong with our country. But, um, th- the US is just flat-out primed for growth, um, and I think that's a consequence of many factors. Um, you know, some of which we're, we are lucky and some of which through hard work. And so, the lucky part is just, you know, number one, you know, we just have, like, incredible physical security by being our own continent. Um, you know, we have incredible natural resources, right? There's, there's, there's this running joke now that, like, whenever it looks like the US is gonna run out of some, like, rare earth material, you know, some farmer in North Dakota, like, kicks over a hay bale and finds, like, a two trillion dollar deposit.

Lex Fridman 2:28 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 2:29 Right? I mean, we're j- we're just, like, blessed, you know, with, with, with geography and with natural resources. Um, energy, you know, we can be energy independent anytime we want. Um, this last administration decided they didn't want to be, they wanted to turn off American energy. This new administration has declared that they have a goal of turning it on in a dramatic way. There's no question we can be energy independent. We could be a giant net energy exporter. It's purely a question of choice, um, and I think the, the new administration's going to do that. Um, and so we ... and the ... oh, and then I would say two other things. One is, um, you know, we, we are the beneficiaries and, you know, you're an example of this, we're a beneficiary. We're the beneficiary of, you know, 50, 100, 200 years of, like, the basically most aggressive, driven, smartest people in the world, most capable people, you know, moving to the US and raising their kids here. Um, and so we just have, you know, by far the most dynamic ... You know, we're by far the most dynamic population, most aggressive, um, you know ... We're the most aggressive set of characters in a- c- certainly in any We- in any Western country and have been for a long time, and certainly are today. Um, and then finally, I would just say, look, we are overwhelmingly the advanced technology leader. Um, you know, we ha- we have our issues and we have a, I would say, particular issue with manufacturing, which we could talk about, but for, you know, anything in software, anything in AI, anything in, um, you know, all these in, you know, advanced biotech, uh, all these advanced areas of technology, like, we're, we're by far the leader. Again, in part, 'cause many of the best scientists and engineers in those fields, you know, c- y- you know, come to the US. Um, and so we, we, we just, we have all of the pre-conditions for a, uh, for a, just a monster, um, boom. You know, I could see economic growth going way up. I could see productivity growth going way up, rate of technology adoption going way up. And then we could, we can do a global tour if you like, but like, basically all of our competitors have, like, profound issues and, you know, we could kind of go through them one by one, but, uh, the, the competitive landscape just is l- it's like it's, it's remarkable how, um, how, how much better positioned we are for growth.

Lex Fridman 4:13 What about the humans themselves? Almost a, uh, philosophical questions. You know, I travel across the world and there's something about the American spirit, the entrepreneurial spirit, that's uniquely intense in America. I don't know what that is. Uh, I- I've talked to, uh, Saga who claims it might be the Scots-Irish blood that runs through, uh, the, the history of America. What is it? You, at the heart of Silicon Valley, is there something in the water? Why is there this entrepreneurial spirit?

Marc Andreessen 4:42 Yeah. So, is this a family show or am I allowed to swear?

Lex Fridman 4:44 You, you can say whatever the fuck you want.

Marc Andreessen 4:46 (laughs) Okay. So, the t- the great TV show Succession, the show of course that wh- with which you were intended to root for exactly zero of the characters.

Lex Fridman 4:53 Yes.

Marc Andreessen 4:53 The best line from Succession was in the final episode of the first season when the whole family's over in, uh, s- uh, Logan Roy's ancestral, uh, homeland of Scotland and they're at this castle, you know, for some wedding. And Logan is just, like, completely miserable after having to ... you know, 'cause he's been in New York for 50 years, he's totally miserable being back in, in, um, in Scotland. And he gets in some argument with somebody and he's like, "My g-" he says finally, he just says, "My God, I cannot wait to get out of here and go back to America where we can fuck without condoms."

Lex Fridman 5:20 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 5:20 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 5:21 Uh, was that a metaphor or ... Okay. (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 5:23 Exactly, right? And, and so, no, but it's exactly the thing. And then everybody instantly knows what the- like n-

Lex Fridman 5:27 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 5:27 ... everybody watching that instantly starts laughing 'cause you know what it means, which is- i- it's exactly this. I think there's, like, an ethnographic, you know, way of a ... There's a bunch of books on like all the, like you said, the Scots-Irish, like all the different derivations of all the different ethnic groups that have come to the US over the course of the last 400 years. Right? But it's, it'd been in... What b- what we have is this sort of amalgamation of like, you know, the, you know, the, the Northeast, you know, Yankees who were like (laughs) super tough and hardcore. Yeah, the Scots-Irish are super aggressive. You know, we've got the, you know, the Southerners and the Texans, uh, you know, and the, and, you know, the sort of, you know, whole kind of blended, you know, kind of Anglo-Hispanic thing with, you know, super incredibly tough, strong, driven, you know, capable characters.... you know, the Texas rangers (laughs) . Um, you know, we've got the... Yeah, we've got the California, you know, we've got the, you know, the wild, we've got the incredibly, you know, inventive hippies, but we also have the hardcore engineers. We've got, you know, the best, you know, rocket scientists in the world. We've got the best, you know, artists in the world. You know, creative professionals, uh, you know, the best movies. Um, and so yeah, there, there, there is, you know, the, the, the, you know... Uh, say, all of our problems I think are basically, you know, in my view to some extent, you know, attempts to basically sand all that off and make everything basically boring and mediocre. But there is something in the national spirit that basically keeps bouncing back and it... And, and basically what we discover over time is we, we basically just need people to stand up at a certain point and say, you know, "It's time to..." You know, (laughs) "It's time to build, it's time to grow. You know, it's time to do things." Um, and so... And there's something in the American spirit that just, like, roars right back to life and I... And I've seen it before. I actually s-... You know, I, I saw it as a kid here in the, in the early '80s, um, you know, 'cause the, the, the '70s were, like, horribly depressing, right? In the, in the US. like, it was... They were a nightmare, uh, on many fronts and in a lot of ways, the last decade to me has felt a lot like the '70s. Just being mired in misery, um, and just this self-defeating, you know, negative attitude and everybody's upset about everything and, you know... And then by the way, like, energy crisis and hostage crisis and foreign wars and just demoralization, right? Um, you know, the, the low point for... In the '70s was, you know, Jimmy Carter who had just passed away. He went on TV and he gave this speech known as the Malaise Speech and it was, like, the weakest possible trying to, like, rouse people back to a sense of, like, passion. It completely failed and, you know, we had the, you know, the hostages in, you know, Iran for I think 440 days and every night on the nightly news it was, you know, lines around the block, energy crisis, depression, inflation. And then, you know, Reagan came in and, you know, Reagan was a very controversial character at the time and, you know, he came in and he's like, "Yep. Nope. It's morning in America. And we're the shiny city on the hill and we're gonna do it." And he did it, and we did it, and the national spirit came roaring back and, you know, worked really hard for a full decade. And I, and I think that's exactly what... Uh, I think, you know... We'll see, but I think that's what could happen here.

Lex Fridman 7:57 And I just did a super long podcast on Milton Friedman with Jennifer Burns, who's this incredible professor at Stanford. And he was part of the Reagan... So some-... There's a bunch of components to that, one of which is economic.

Marc Andreessen 8:09 Yes.

Lex Fridman 8:09 And one of which maybe you can put a word on it of... Not to be romantic or anything, but freedom. Uh, individual freedom, economic freedom, political freedom, and just in general, individualism.

Marc Andreessen 8:22 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and I mean-... And as you know, America has this incredible streak of individualism, you know. In- individualism in America probably peaked I think between roughly call it the end of the Civil War, 1865, through to probably... Call it 1931 or something. Um, you know, and there was this, like, incredible ru-... I mean, that period, you know, we now know that period as the second Industrial Revolution, and it's when the United States basically assumed global leadership and basically took, took over technological and economic leadership from, from England. Um, and then, you know, that, that led to, you know, ultimately then therefore being able to, you know, not only industrialize the world but also win World War II and then win the Cold War. Um, and yeah, there, you know, there's a massive industrial-... You know, massive, uh, uh, individualistic streak. Um, by the way, you know Milton Freed-... Milton Friedman's old, old videos are all on YouTube. They are every bit-

Lex Fridman 9:03 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 9:03 ... as compelling and inspiring-

Lex Fridman 9:04 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 9:05 ... um, as they, uh, uh, as they were then. Um, you know, he's this... He's this singular figure and many of us, you know, have, you know... I, I never knew him, but, um, uh, he was at, uh, actually at, at Stanford for many years, at, at the Hoover Institution, but, uh, I never met him but I know a lot of people who worked with him and, you know, that it, that... You know, he was, he was a singular figure but his, his... All, all of his lessons, you know, live on or are fully available. Um, but I would also say it's not just individualism and this is, you know, one of... This is one of the big things that's, like, playing out in a lot of our culture and kind of political fights right now which is, uh, you know, basically this feeling-

Lex Fridman 9:34 Mm.

Marc Andreessen 9:34 ... you know, certainly that I have and I share, uh, with a lot of people which is: I- it's not enough for America to just be an economic zone, um, and it's not enough for us to just be individuals, and it's not enough to just have line go up, and it's not enough to just have economic success. There are deeper questions, uh, at play and, and also, you know, there- there's more to our country, uh, than just that and, and, you know, quite fr-... Quite frankly a lot of it is intangible, um, a lot of it is... You know, involves spirit, um, and, and passion and, you know, like I said, we, we have more of it than anybody else, um, but, um, you know, we, we have to choose to want it. The, the, the way I look at it is, like, all of our problems are self-inflicted. Like, they're... You know, decline is a choice. You know, all of our problems are basically demoralization campaigns. You know, basically people telling us... People in positions of authority telling us that we should, you know... We shouldn't, you know, stand out, we shouldn't be a- adventurous, we shouldn't be exciting, we shouldn't be exploratory. You know, we shouldn't, you know, this, that, and the other thing and we should feel bad about everything that we do. And I think we've lived through a decade where that's been the prevailing theme and I, I think quite honestly as of November, I think people are done with it.

Lex Fridman 10:33 If we could go on a tangent of a tangent since we're talking about individualism, and that's not all that it takes. You've mentioned in the past the book The Ancient City-

Marc Andreessen 10:42 Yes.

Lex Fridman 10:42 ... by, if I can only pronounce the name, French historian, Numa Denis Fustel de Couler... I don't know.

Marc Andreessen 10:48 That was amazing.

Lex Fridman 10:49 Okay, all right. From the 19th century. Anyway, you said this is an important book to understand who we are and where we come from.

Marc Andreessen 10:54 So what that book does... It's actually quite a striking book. Um, so that book is written by this guy, um, as, uh, profuse-... (laughs) You, you say... I'm gonna let Lex do the pronunciations, the foreign language pronunciations for the day. Um, he was a, uh, professor of classics, um, at, uh, the Sorbonne in, um, in, uh, Paris, the... You know, the top university, uh, at, um... In the- in the... Actually in 1860s, so actually right, right around after the US Civil War. And he was a savant of a particular kind which is he... Uh, and you can see this in the book, is he had apparently read and, you know, sort of absorbed and memorized every possible scrap of Greek and, and, um, Roman literature. Um, and this was like a walking, like, index on basically Greek and Roman... Everything we know about Greek and Roman culture, and that's significant. The reason this matters is because basically none of that has changed, right? And so he, he, he had access to the exact same written materials that we have, we have access to, and so there... You know, we, we've learned nothing. And then specifically what he did is he talked about the Greeks and the Romans, but specifically what he did is he went back further. He reconstructed the people who came before the Greeks and the Romans and what their life in society was like, and these were the people who are now known as the, as the Indo-Europeans. And these were very... You may have heard of these. These are the people who came down from the steppes, and so they, they, they came out of what's now, like, Eastern Europe. Like, around sort of the outskirts of what's now Russia.Um, and then they sort of swept through, uh, Europe. They ultimately took over all of Europe. By the way, you know, almost, uh, many of the ethnicities in the Americas in the hundreds of years that follow, you know, were, were, are Indo-European. And so like, you know, they were this, basically this warrior, basically class that, like, came down and swept through and, and, um, and, and, you know, essentially, um, uh, you know, populated much of the world. Um, and there's a whole interesting saga there. But what he does ... And then they basically, they, they, from there came basically what we know as the Greeks and the Romans, were kind of evolutions off of that. Um, and so what he reconstructs is sort of what life was like, what life was like, at least in the West for people in their kind of original social state. And the, the significance of that is, is the original social state is this, is living in the state of the absolute imperative for survival with absolutely no technology (laughs) , right? Like, no modern systems, no nothing, right? You've got the clothes on your back. You've got your, you know, you've, you've got whatever you can build with your bare hands, right? This is a, you know, predates basically all concepts of, of, uh, of technologies we understand of today. And so the- these are people under, like, maximum levels of physical survival pressure. And so what, what social patterns did they evolve to be able to do that? And, and the social pattern basically was as follows. Um, is a, is a three-part social structure. Uh, family, um, uh, tribe, and city. Um, and, um, zero concept of individual rights. Um, and essentially no concept of individualism. And so you were not an individual. You were a member of your family, and then y- a set of families would aggregate into a tribe, and then a set of tribes would aggregate into a, um, uh, into a city. Um, and then the morality was completely ... It was actually what Nietzsche talks, Nietzsche talks about. It, the, the morality was entirely master morality, not slave morality. And so in their morality, anything that was strong was good, and anything that was weak was bad, and it's very (laughs) clear why that is, right? It's 'cause strong equals good equals survive. Weak equals bad equals die. And that led to what became known later as the master-slave dialectic, which is ... Y- is it more important for you to live on your feet as a master even at the risk of dying? Or are you willing to, um, you know, live as a slave on your knees in order to not die? And this is sort of the, the derivation of that moral framework. Christianity later inverted that moral framework, but it, you know, the r- the original, uh, framework lasted for, you know, many, many thousands of years. No concept of individualism. The head of the family had total life and death control over the, over, over the family. The head of the tribe, same thing. Head of the city, same thing. And then you were morally obligated to kill members of the oth- of the other cities on, on contact. (laughs) Right? Right? You were morally required to. Like, if you didn't do it, you were a bad person. Um, and then the form of the society was basically maximum fascism combined with maximum communism. Right? And so it was maximum fascism in the form of this, like, absolute top-down control where the head of the family, tribe, or city could kill other members of the community at any time with no repercussions at all. Sorry, so maximum hierarchy, but combined with maximum communism, which is no market economy. And so everything gets shared, right? And the, and sort of the point of being in one of these collectives is that it's a collective and, and, and, you know, and, and, and people are sharing. And of course, that limited how big they could get, 'cause, you know, the problem with communism (laughs) is it doesn't scale. Right? It works at the level of a family. It's much harder to make it work at the level of a country. Impossible. Maximum, uh, fascism, maximum communism, and then th- and then it was all intric- intricately, uh, uh, tied into their religion. And their, their religion was, uh, it was in two parts. It was, uh, veneration of ancestors- Mm-hmm. Um, and it was veneration of nature. And the veneration of ancestors ex- is extremely important because it was basically like, the, th- basically the ancestors were the people who got you to where you were. The ancestors were the people who had everything to teach you, right? And then it was veneration of nature 'cause of course nature is the thing that's trying to kill you. Um, and then you had your ancestor ... Every family, tribe, or city had their ancestor gods, and then they had their, um, they had their nature gods. Okay, so fast forward to today. Like, we live in a world that is, like, radically different. But what you, when you ... And the, and the book takes you through kind of what happened from that through the Greeks and Romans through to Christianity. And so the, uh, but it, but it's very helpful to kind of think in these terms because the conventional view of the progress through time is that we are, you know, the, the cliché is the arc of the uni- moral universe, you know, bends towards justice, right? Or, or so-called Whig history, which is, you know, that the arc of progress is positive, right? And so we, we, you know, wh- which you hear all the time, y- which you're taught in school and everything is e- you know, every year that goes by, we get better and better and more and more moral and more and more pure and a better version of ou- of ourselves. Our Indo-European ancestors would say, "Oh, no. Like, you people have, like, fallen to shit. Like, you people took all of the principles of basically your civilization, and you have diluted them down to the point where they barely even matter, you know? And you're having, you know, children out of wedlock and you're, you know, you regularly encounter people of other cities and you don't try to kill them, and, like, how crazy is that?" And, and they would basically consider us to be living, like, an incredibly diluted version of this sort of highly religious, highly cult-like, right? Highly organized, highly fascist co- fascist communist society. I can't resist noting (laughs) that as a consequence of basically going through all the transitions we've been through, going all the way through Christianity, coming out the other end of Christianity, Nietzsche declares God as dead. We are in a secular society, you know, that still has, you know, tinges of Christianity, but you know, largely prides itself on no longer being religious in that way. Um, you know, we being the sort of most fully-evolved, modern, secular, you know, expert scientists and so forth have basically re-evolved or fallen back on the exact same religious structure, uh, that the Indo-Europeans had. Uh, specifically ancestor worship, which is identity politics, um, and nature worship, which is environmentalism. Um, and so we have actually, like, worked our way all the way back to their cult religions without realizing it. And, and, and it just goes to show that like, you know, in some ways we have fallen far from the, far from the family tree. But in s- in, in so- in some cases, we're, we're exactly the same. You kind of described this progressive idea of wokeism and so on as, uh, worshiping ancestors. Identity politics is worshiping ancestors, right? Yeah. It's, it's, it's tagging newborn infants with either, you know, benefits or responsibilities or, you know, levels of condemnation based on who their ancestors were. The, the Indo-Europeans would have recognized it on sight. We somehow think it's, like, super socially progressive. Yeah. And it is not. I mean, it, I, I would say obviously not. Those, you know, get, get nuanced, which is where I think you're headed, which is look, like ... It is the idea that you can, like, completely reinvent society every generation and have no regard whatsoever for what came before you. Like, that, that seems like a really bad idea, right? That's like the Cambodians with Year Zero under Pol Pot and, you know, death, you know, follows its ... Obviously the Soviets tried that. Um, you know, the, the, you know, the, the utopian-... fantasists who think that they can just rip up everything that came before and create something new, in the human condition. And human society have a very bad history of, of causing, you know, enormous destruction. So, on the one hand, it's like, okay, there, there is, like, a deeply important role for tradition. And, and, n- and the way I think about that is it's, it ... the process of evolutionary learning, right? Which is what, what tradition ought to be is the distilled wisdom of all. And, and, you know, this is how the new Europeans thought about it. It should be the distilled wisdom of everybody who came before even.

Lex Fridman 18:26 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 18:27 Right? All, all those important and powerful lessons learned. Um, and that's, that's why I think it's fascinating to go back and study how these people lived, is 'cause that's, that's part of the history and, you know, part of the learning that got us to where, where we are today. Having said that, there are many cultures around the world that are, you know, mired in tradition to the point of not being able to progress (clears throat) . Um, and in fact, you might even say globally, that's the default human condition, which is, you know, a lot of people are in societies in which, you know, there's, like, absolute seniority by age. You know, kids are completely ... You know, like in the US, like, for some reason, we decided kids are in charge (laughs) of everything, right? And like, you know, they're the trendsetters and they're allowed to, like, set all the agendas and, like, set, set all the politics and set all the culture, and maybe that's a little bit crazy. But, like, in a lot of other cultures, kids have no voice at all, no role at all, 'cause it's the old people who are in charge of everything. You know, they're gerontocracies and it's all a bunch of 80-year-olds running everything, which, by the way, we have a little bit of that too, right? (laughs) Um, and so I, what I would say is, like, there's a down- there's a, there's a real downside. You know, f- full traditionalism is communitarianism. You know, it's ethnic particularism, um, you know, it's ethnic chauvinism. It's, um, you know, this incredible level of, of resistance to change. Um, I ... You know, that's, uh, yeah, I mean, that ... it just doesn't get you anywhere. Like, it, it, it may be good and fine at the level of an individual tribe, but as a socie- society living in the modern world, it, it ... you, you can't evolve. You can't a- you can't advance. You can't participate in all the good things that, you know, that a- that, that have happened. And so I ... You know, I think it probably ... this is one of those things where extremeness on either side is probably a bad idea. Um, and I ... But, you know, but, but this needs to be approached in a sophisticated and nuanced way.

Lex Fridman 19:52 So the beautiful picture you painted of the roaring 20s. How can the Trump administration play a part in making that future happen?

Marc Andreessen 20:00 Yeah. So look, a big part of this is getting the government boot off the neck of the American economy, the American technology industry, the American people. Um, you know, and then, and again, this is a replay of what happened in the '60s and '70s, which is, you know, for what started out looking like, you know, I'm sure good and virtuous purposes, you know, we, we ended up both then and now with this, you know, what I, what I describe as sort of a form of soft authoritarianism. You know, the, the good news is it's not like a military dictatorship. It's not like, you know, you get thrown into Lubyanka (laughs) , you know, for the most part. I'm not (laughs) ... it's not coming at four in the morning. You're not getting dragged off to a cell. So it's not hard authoritarianism, but yet a soft authoritarianism. And so it's this, you know, incredible suppressive blanket of regulation, rules, you know, this concept of a vetocracy, right? What's required to get anything done? You know, you need to get 40 people to sign off on anything. Any one of them can veto it. It's, you know, it's a lot of how our now political system works. Um, and then, you know, just this general idea of, you know, progress is bad and technology is bad and capitalism is bad, and building businesses is bad, and success is bad. Um, you know, tall poppy syndrome. You know, w- basically anybody who sticks their head up, you know, deserves to get it, you know, chopped off. Anybody who's wrong about anything deserves to get condemned forever. You know, just this, this very kind of, you know, grinding, you know, repression.

Lex Fridman 21:11 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 21:12 And then coupled with specific government actions, such as censorship regimes, right? And debanking, right? Um, and, you know, draconian, you know, deliberately kneecapping, you know, critical American industries. Um, and then, you know, congratulating yourselves in the back for doing it, or, you know, having these horrible social policies, like let's let all the criminals outta jail and see what happens, right? Um, and so, like, we, we've just been through this period. I, you know, I call it a demoralization campaign. Like, we've just been through this period where, you know, whether it started that way or not, it ended up basically being this comprehensive message that says, "You're terrible, and if you try to do anything, you're terrible, and fuck you." Um, and the Biden administration reached kinda the full pinnacle of that in, in, in, in our time. They, they got really bad on, on many fronts at the same time. Um, and so just, like, relieving that, um, and getting kinda back to (laughs) a reasonably, you know, kind of optimistic, constructive, um, you know, pro-growth frame of mind, um ... There's just ... uh, there's so much pent-up energy and potential in the American system that that alone is gonna, I think, cause, you know, growth and, and, and, and, and spirit to take off. And then there's a lot of things proactively that ... Yeah. And then there's a lot of things proactively that could be done.

Lex Fridman 22:13 So, how do you relieve that? To what degree has the thing you describe ideologically permeated government and permeated big companies?

Marc Andreessen 22:24 Disclaimer at first, which is I don't wanna predict anything on any of this stuff 'cause I've learned the hard way that I can't predict politics or Washington at all. Um, but I would just say the, the, the, the plans and intentions are clear and the staffing supports it. Um, and all the conversations are consistent, um, with the new administration in that they plan to take v- you know, very rapid action on a lot of these fronts very quickly. They're gonna do as much as they can through executive orders, and then they're gonna do legislation and, and regulatory changes for the rest. And so they're, they're gonna move, I think, quickly on a whole bunch of stuff. You can already feel, I think, a shift in the national spirit. Or at least let's put it this way. I feel it for sure (laughs) in, in Silicon Valley. Like, it, it ... Well, I mean, we s- we'd ... you know, we just saw a great example of this with what, you know, with what M- Mark Zuckerberg is doing. Um, you know, and obviously I'm in- I'm involved with, with his company, but, you know, we, we just saw it kind of in public. The scope of the ... and speed of the changes, you know, are, are reflective of, of sort of this ... o- of a lot of these shifts. But I would say that, that same conversation, those same kinds of things are happening throughout the industry, right? And so the, the, the tech industry itself, whether people were pro-Trump or anti-Trump, like, there is just, like, a giant vibe shift, mood shift that's, like, kicked in already. And then I was with a group of Hollywood people about two weeks ago, um, and they were still, you know, people who at least ... l- at least vocally were still very anti-Trump, but I said, you know, "Has anything changed since, since November 6th?" And they, they immediately said, "Oh, it's completely different. Um, it feels like the ice has thawed. Um, you know, woke is over." Um, you know, they said that all kinds of projects are gonna be able to get made now they couldn't before, that, you know, Hollywood's gonna start making comedies again. (laughs) You know? Like, it's, it j- they were just like, it, it's, it's, like, a ... it's, like, a ... just, like, an incredible immediate, uh, environmental change. And I'm ... A- a- as I talk to people kinda throughout... you know, certainly throughout the economy, people who run businesses, I h- I hear that all the time, which is just this, this last ten years of misery is just over. I mean (laughs) , the one that I'm watching that's really funny ... I mean, Facebook's getting a lot of ... Meta's getting a lot of attention, but the other funny one is BlackRock.

Lex Fridman 24:03 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 24:04 Which I'm not ... which I ... You know, and I, I don't know him, but I've watched for a long time. And so, you know, the ... Larry Fink, who's the CEO of BlackRock, was, like, first in as a major, you know, investment CEO on, like, every dumb social trend and rule set. Like, every (laughs) ...... all right, I'm going for it. Every retard- (laughs)

Lex Fridman 24:21 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 24:22 Every retarded thing you can imagine.

Lex Fridman 24:24 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 24:24 Every ESG and every, like, every possible satellite companies with every aspect of just this, these crazed ideological positions. And, you know, he was coming in, he literally was, like ... had aggre- aggregated together trillions of dollars of, of, of, of, of shareholdings that he did not, that were, you know, that were his, his customer's rights. And he, you know, seized their voting control of their shares and was using it to force all these companies to do all of this, like, crazy ideological stuff. And he was like the Typhoid Mary of all this stuff in corporate America. And if, if ... and he, in the last year, has been, like, backpedaling from that stuff, like, as fast as he possibly can. And I saw ... just an example, last week, he pulled out of the, whatever, the Corporate Net Zero Alliance. You know, he pulled out of the crazy energy, energy, energy stuff. And so, like, you know, he's backing away as fast as he can. He, he's doing it ... remember the Richard Pryor, uh, backwards walk?

Lex Fridman 25:07 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 25:08 Richard Pryor had this way where he could, he could back out of a room while looking like he was walking forward.

Lex Fridman 25:12 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 25:13 (laughs) Um, and so ... um, you know, even they're doing that. Um, and just the whole thing, I mean, this ... I don't know if you saw, the court recently ruled that NASDAQ had these crazy board of directors composition rules. One of the funniest moments of my life is when my friend, Peter Thiel, and I were on the, the, the Meta board. And these NASDAQ rules came down, mandated diversity on corporate boards. Um, and so we sat around the table and had to figure out, you know, which of us counted as diverse. And the, um, very professional m- attorneys at, at Meta explained with a 100% complete, um, straight face that Peter Thiel counts as diverse.

Lex Fridman 25:44 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 25:44 Uh, by virtue of being LGBT. (laughs) And, and-

Lex Fridman 25:46 Nice.

Marc Andreessen 25:46 ... this is a guy who literally wrote a book called The Diversity Myth.

Lex Fridman 25:49 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 25:49 Um, and he literally looked like he'd swallowed a live goldfish. Um, and, and that-

Lex Fridman 25:55 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 25:55 And, and this was imposed ... I mean, this was, like, so incredibly offensive to him that, like, it just, like ... it was just absolutely appalling, and I felt terrible for him. But the look on his face was very funny.

Lex Fridman 26:03 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 26:03 Um, and it was imposed by NASDAQ, you know, your stock exchange im- imposing this stuff on you. And then the court, whatever, the court of, court of appeals just nuked that. And so, like, the- these things basically are being, like, ripped down one by one. And, and what's on the other side of it is basically, you know, finally being able to get back to, you know, everything that, you know, everybody always wanted to do, which is, like, run their companies, have great products, have happy customers, you know, like succeed, like succeed, achieve, outperform, um, and, you know, work with the best and the brightest and not f- and not be made to feel bad about it. And I th- I think that's happening in many areas of American society.

Lex Fridman 26:34 It's great to hear that Peter Thiel is fundamentally a diversity hire.

Marc Andreessen 26:38 Well, so it was very ... you know, there was a moment. So, so Peter, you know, Peter, of course, um, you know, is, is, uh, you know, is, is, is publicly gay, has been for a long time. You know, but, you know, there were other men on the board, right? And, you know, we're sitting there and we're all looking at him, and we're like, "All right, like, okay, LGBT," and we just, we keep coming back to the B, right? Um, and it's like-

Lex Fridman 26:56 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 26:59 You, you know?

Lex Fridman 26:59 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 26:59 It's like-

Lex Fridman 27:00 All right.

Marc Andreessen 27:01 You know, I'm willing to do a lot for this company, but-

Lex Fridman 27:03 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 27:04 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 27:05 It's all about sacrifice for diversity.

Marc Andreessen 27:07 Well, yeah, and then it's like, okay, like, is there a test?

Lex Fridman 27:09 Right, right. (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 27:10 Like, you know. Um, so ...

Lex Fridman 27:13 Oh, yeah, exactly.

Marc Andreessen 27:14 You know?

Lex Fridman 27:14 And how do you prove it, you know?

Marc Andreessen 27:15 The questions that got asked, you know?

Lex Fridman 27:18 (laughs) What are you willing to do-

Marc Andreessen 27:19 Yeah, and I, I think I'm-

Lex Fridman 27:19 ... for the greater good?

Marc Andreessen 27:20 I think I'm very good at asking, um, uh, lawyers, uh-

Lex Fridman 27:23 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 27:23 ... completely absurd questions with a totally straight face.

Lex Fridman 27:26 And do they answer with a straight face, like lawyers must?

Marc Andreessen 27:28 Uh, som- sometimes.

Lex Fridman 27:29 Okay. All right.

Marc Andreessen 27:29 I, I think, in fairness, they have trouble telling when I'm joking.

Lex Fridman 27:31 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 27:32 So you mentioned the, the Hollywood folks, maybe people in Silicon Valley, and the vibe shift. Maybe you can speak to, um, uh, preference, falsification. What do they actually believe? How many of them actually hate Trump? What, like, what percent of them are, uh, feeling this vibe shift and are interested in, uh, creating the Roaring '20s in the way that you've described?

Marc Andreessen 27:57 So first, we should maybe talk popul- population. So there's like all of Silicon Valley, (laughs) um, and the, and the way to just measure that is just look at voting records, right? And, and, and what that shows consistently is Silicon Valley's just a, you know, at least historically, my entire time there, has been overwhelmingly a majority of just straight up Democrat. Um, uh, the other way to look at that is political donation records. And again, you know, the political donations in the Valley, you know, range from 90 to 99%, you know, to one side. Um, and so, you know, we'll, we'll ... I just bring it up 'cause, like, we'll see what happens with the voting and with donations going forward. Um, i- uh, we can maybe talk about the fire later, but I can tell you there is a very big question of what's happening in Los Angeles right now. Um, the, uh ... I don't wanna get into the fire, but, like, it's catastrophic, and, you know, there was already a rightward shift in the big cities in California, and I think a lot of people in LA are really thinking about things right now as they're trying to, you know, literally save their houses and save their families. Um, but, you know, even in San Francisco, there was a big right, there was a big shift to the right in the voting, um, in, um, in '24. So we'll, we'll see where, we'll see where that goes. But, you know, you observe that by just looking at, looking at the numbers over time. Um, the part that I'm more focused on is, uh, you know, and I don't know how to exactly describe this, but it's like the top 1,000 or the top 10,000 people, right? Um, and, um, you know, and I don't have a list, but like it's the, you know, it's all the top founders, top CEOs, top executives, top engineers, top VCs, you know, and then kind of in- in- into the ranks, um, you know, the people who kind of build and run the companies. Um, and they're, uh, they're, you know, I don't have numbers but I have a much more tactile feel, you know, for, for, for what's happening. Um, so I th- the big thing I th- I have now come to believe is that the idea that people have beliefs is mostly wrong. Um, I think that most people just go along. Um, and I think even most high-status people just go along, and I think maybe the most high-status people are the most prone to just go along because they're the most focused on status. Um, and the way I would describe that is, um, you know, one of the great (laughs) forbidden philosophers of our time is, uh, the Unabomber, uh, Ted Kaczynski. And amidst his madness, he had this extremely interesting articulation. You know, he was a, he was a, he was an insane lunatic murderer, but he was also a, you know, a Harvard super genius. Um, not that those are in conflict. Um ... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 30:02 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 30:02 But, um ...

Lex Fridman 30:03 Shots fired, man.

Marc Andreessen 30:04 But, uh, he, uh, was a very bright guy and he, he did this whole thing, um, where he talked about ... basically, he wa- he was very right wing and ta- talked about leftism a lot. Um, and he had this great concept that's just stuck in my mind ever since I read it, which is, he had this concept he just called over social- over-socialization.Um, and so, you know, most people are sociali- m- uh, most people are socialized. Like, most people are, you know... We live in a society, most people learn how to be part of a society, they give some difference to the society. There's something about modern Western elites where they're Over-socialized, um, and they're just, like, overly oriented towards what other people like themselves, you know, think, um, and believe. And y- you can get a real sense of that if you have a little bit of an outside perspective, which I just do, I think, as a consequence of where I grew up. Um, like even before I had the views that I have today, there, there was always just this weird thing where it's like, "Why does every dinner party have the exact same conversation? Why does everybody agree on every single issue? Why is that agreement precisely what was in The New York Times today?" (laughs) Um, "Why are these positions not the same as they were five years ago?" (laughs) Right? Uh, "But why does everybody, like, snap into agreement every step of the way?" And that was true when I came to Silicon Valley, and it's just as true today, 30 years later. And so I, I think most people are just literally take- I think they're taking their cues from s- it's some combination of the press, the universities, the big foundations, yeah, so it's like basically, it's like The New York Times, uh, Harvard, the Ford Foundation, and, you know, I don't know, um, you know, a few CEOs, um, and a few public figures, and, you know, maybe the, you know, maybe the president of your parties in power. And, like, whatever that is, everybody just d- everybody who's sort of good and proper and elite and good standing and in charge of things and a sort of correct member of, you know, let's call it coastal American society, everybody just believes those things. And then, you know, the two interesting things about that is, number one, there's no divergence among the, the, the organs of power, right? So Harvard and Yale believe the exact same thing. (laughs) The New York Times and The Washington Post believe the exact same thing. The Ford Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation believe the exact same thing. Google and, you know, whatever, you know, Microsoft believe the exact same thing. Um, but those things change over time, (laughs) b- but there's never conflict in the moment, right? Um, and so, you know, The New York Times and the Wa- and the Washington Post agreed on exactly everything in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. Despite the fact that the specifics changed radically, the, the lockstep was what mattered. Um, and so I, I think basically, we, we in the Valley, we're, we're on the tail end of that in the same way Hollywood's on the tail end of that, in the same way New York's on the tail end of that, the same way the media is on the tail end of that. It's, it's like some sort of collective hive mind thing. A- and I just go through that to say, like, I don't think most people in my orbit, or, you know, let's say the te- top 10,000 people in the Valley or the top 10,000 people in LA, I don't think they're sitting there thinking, "Uh, basically, I have Rox-" I mean, they probably think (laughs) they have Roxana beliefs, but they don't actually have like some inner core of Roxana beliefs and then they kind of watch reality change around them and try to figure out how to keep their beliefs, like, correct. I don't think that's what happens. I think what happens is they conform to the belief system around them. And, and I think most of the time, they're not even aware, th- th- that, that they're basically part of a herd.

Lex Fridman 33:01 Is it possible that the surface chatter of dinner parties, underneath that, there is a turmoil of ideas and thoughts and beliefs that's going on, but you're just talking to people really close to you or in your own mind, and then the socialization happens at the dinner parties? Like, uh, when you go outside the inner circle of one, two, three, four people who you really trust, then you start to conform. But inside there, inside the mind, there is an actual belief or a struggle, a tension with The New York Times or with the (laughs) with the, with the s- (laughs) uh, for the listener, there's a, there's a slow smile that overtook Marc Andreessen's face.

Marc Andreessen 33:41 So, look, I, I'll just tell you what I think, which is at, at, at the dinner parties and at the conferences, no, there's none of that. Um, it's wha- what there is is that all of the heretical conversations ha- anything that challenges the status quo, um, any heretical ideas, and any new idea, you know, is a heretical idea, um, any deviation, it, the, is either discussed, uh, one-on-one, face-to-face. It's, it's like a whisper network (laughs) or it's like a real-life social network. There's a secret handshake, which is like, okay, you meet somebody and you, like, know each other a little bit, but, like, not well, and, like, you're both trying to figure out if you can, like, talk to the other person openly or whether you have to, like, be fully conformist. It's a joke.

Lex Fridman 34:15 Oh, yeah. Humor, 100%.

Marc Andreessen 34:16 Somebody cracks a joke.

Lex Fridman 34:17 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 34:17 Right? Somebody cracks a joke.

Lex Fridman 34:18 Yep.

Marc Andreessen 34:19 If the other person laughs, the conversation is on.

Lex Fridman 34:21 Yeah, yeah.

Marc Andreessen 34:22 If the other person doesn't laugh, back slowly away from the scene. (laughs) Yeah, I didn't mean anything by it. Right?

Lex Fridman 34:30 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 34:30 And, and by the way, it doesn't have to be like a super offensive joke. It just has to be a joke that's just up against the edge of one of the, to use the Sam Bankman-Fried term, one of the Shibboleths. You know, it has to be up against one of the things, um, of, um, you know, o- one of the things that you're absolutely required to, to believe to be at the dinner parties. And then, and then at that point what happens is you have a peer-to-peer network, right? You have, you have, you have a- a one-to-one connection with somebody, and then you, you have your, you have your own, your ov- your little conspiracy of, of thar- thought criminality. Um, and then you have your net- and you've probably been through this. You have your network of thought criminals, and then they have their network of thought criminals. And then you have this, like, delicate mating dance as to whether you should bring the thought criminals together.

Lex Fridman 35:03 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 35:04 Right? Um-

Lex Fridman 35:05 And the dance, the fundamental, uh, mechanism of the dance is humor.

Marc Andreessen 35:09 Yeah, it's humor.

Lex Fridman 35:09 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 35:09 Like, it's... Right. Well, of course.

Lex Fridman 35:11 Memes. Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 35:12 Well, for t- for two reasons. Number one-

Lex Fridman 35:13 It's true.

Marc Andreessen 35:13 Number one, humor is a way to have deniability, right? Hu- humor is a way to discuss-

Lex Fridman 35:16 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 35:16 ... serious things without, without, without... with having deniability. "Oh, I'm sorry, it was just a joke," right? So th- so that's part of it, which is one of the reasons why comedians can get away with saying things the rest of us can't.

Lex Fridman 35:24 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 35:24 Is, is, you know, they can always fall back on, "Oh, yeah, I was just going for the laugh."

Lex Fridman 35:27 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 35:27 But, but the other key thing about humor, right, is that, is that laughter is involuntary, uh, right? Like, you either laugh or you don't. And, and it's not like a conscious decision whether you're gonna laugh. And everybody can tell when somebody's fake laughing, right? And this every p- professional comedian knows this, right? The laughter is the clue that you're onto something truthful.

Lex Fridman 35:41 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 35:41 Like, people don't laugh at, like, made-up s- bullshit stories. They, they, they laugh 'cause, like, you're revealing something that they either have not been allowed to think about or have not been allowed to talk about, right? Or is off limits. And all of a sudden, it's like the ice breaks, and it's like, "Oh, yeah, that's the thing, and it's funny, and, like, I laugh." A- and then, and then, of course, this is why, of course, live comedy is so powerful is 'cause e- you're all doing that at the same time, so you start to have, right, the safety of, you know, the safety of numbers. And so, so the comedians have like the alt... It is no, no surprise to me that, like, for example, Joe has been as successful as he has, because they have, they have this hack that the, you know, the rest of us who are not professional comedians don't have. But, but you have your in-person version of it. Yeah, and then you got the question of whether the, whether you can sort of join the networks together. And then you've probably been to this is, you know, then at some point, there's like a different... there's like the alt dinner party, (laughs) uh, the thought criminal dinner party, and you get six or eight people together, and you join the networks. And those are like the happiest mo- at least in the last decade-

Lex Fridman 36:27 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 36:27 ... those are like the happiest moments of everybody's lives.

Lex Fridman 36:29 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 36:29 Because they're just like, everybody's just ecstatic 'cause they're like, "I don't have to worry about getting yelled at and shamed, (laughs) like for every third sentence that comes out of my mouth, and we can actually talk about real things."... um, so, so that's the live version of it. And then the... and then, of course, the other side of it is the, you know, the group chat, the group chat phenomenon. Um, right. A- and then this... and then basically the same thing played out, you know, until E- until Elon bought X and until Substack took off, um, you know, which were really the two big breakthroughs, uh, in free speech online. The, the same dynamic played out online, which is you had absolute conformity on the social networks, like literally enforced by the social networks themselves through censorship and, and then also through cancellation campaigns and mobbing and shaming, right? And, and... but then you had... but, but then group chats grew up to be the equivalent of Samizdat, right?

Lex Fridman 37:08 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 37:08 Anybody who grew up in the Soviet Union under, you know, communism know... You know, they had the hard version of this, right? It's like, how do you know who you could talk to and then how do you distribute information and, you know... Like, you know, again, that was the hard authoritarian version of this. And then we've been living through this weird mutant, you know, soft authoritarian version but with, you know, with some of the same patterns.

Lex Fridman 37:26 And WhatsApp allows you to scale and make it more efficient to, uh, to build on these, uh, groups of heretical ideas bonded by humor?

Marc Andreessen 37:36 Yeah, exactly. Well, and this is the thing. And well, this is kind of the running joke about group... or the running, running kind of thing about group chats. It's not even a joke. It's true. It's like, it's like every group chat... uh, if you've noticed this... like every... this is the principle of group chats... every group chat ends up being about memes and humor. And the goal of the game... the game of the group chat is to get as close to the line of being actually objectionable-

Lex Fridman 37:54 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 37:54 ... as, as you can get without actually tripping it, right? And like literally every group chat that I have been in for the last decade, even if it starts some other direction, what ends up happening is it becomes the absolute comedy fest where... but it's walking... they walk right over the line, and they're constantly testing. And every once in a while, somebody will trip the line and people will freak out and it's like, "Oh, too soon. Okay, you know, we got to wait till next year to talk about that." You know, they, they walk it back. And so it's that same thing. And yeah, and then group chats is a technological phenomenon. It was amazing to see because basically it was... number one, it was, you know, obviously the rise of smartphones, then it was the rise of the, of the new messaging services. Um, then it was the rise specifically of, I would say, combination of WhatsApp and Signal. And the reason for that is those were the two, the two big systems that did the full encryption, um, so you actually had... you actually felt safe. And then the real breakthrough, I think, was disappearing messages, which hit Signal probably four or five years ago and hit WhatsApp three or four years ago.

Lex Fridman 38:47 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 38:47 And then the combination of, um... the combination of encryption and, um, uh, and disappearing messages, I think, really unleashed it. Well, then there's the fight, then there's the fight over the, the length of the disappearing messages.

Lex Fridman 38:57 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 38:58 Right? And so it's like, you know, I often get behind in my t-... my thing, so I set to seven-day, you know, disappearing messages and my friends who, you know, are like, "No, that's way too much risk."

Lex Fridman 39:07 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 39:07 "It's got to be a day." And then every once in a while somebody will set it to five minutes before they send something like particularly inflammatory.

Lex Fridman 39:12 Yeah, 100%. Well, what... I mean, one of the things that bothers me about WhatsApp, the choice is between 24 hours and, you know, seven days. One day or seven days.

Marc Andreessen 39:21 (laughs) Right, right.

Lex Fridman 39:21 And I have to have an existential crisis about deciding-

Marc Andreessen 39:24 Yes, exactly.

Lex Fridman 39:25 ... whether I can last for seven days with what I'm about to say. (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 39:29 Yeah, exactly. Now, of course, what's happening right now is the big thaw, right? And so-

Lex Fridman 39:32 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 39:33 ... the vibe shift. So what's happening on the other... on the other side of, of the election is, you know, Elon on Twitter two years ago, and now Mark with Facebook and Instagram, and by the way, with the continued growth of Substack and with other, you know, new platforms that are emerging, you know. Like I, I think it, it may be... you know, I don't know that everything just shifts back into public, but like a tremendous amount of the... uh, a tremendous amount of the verboten, um, uh, conversations, you know, can now shift back in, into public view. Um, and I mean, quite frankly, this is one of those things, you know... quite frankly, even if I was opposed to what those... you know, what people are saying, and I'm sure I am in some cases, um, you know, I, I would argue it's still like net better for society that those things happen in public instead of private. Um, you know, do you, do you really want... like, yeah, like don't you want to know?

Lex Fridman 40:12 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 40:12 Um, and, and so... and, and then it's just... look, it's just I think clearly much healthier to live in a society in which people are not literally scared of what they're saying.

Lex Fridman 40:19 I mean, to, to push back-

Marc Andreessen 40:21 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 40:21 ... to come back to this idea that we're talking about, I do believe that people have beliefs and thoughts that are heretical, like, a lot of people. I wonder what fraction of people have that. To me, this is... the preference falsification is really interesting. What is the landscape of ideas that human civilization has in private as compared to what's out in public? Because like that... the, the dynamical system that is the difference between those two is fascinating. Like there's... throughout history, the fall of communism in multiple regimes throughout Europe is really interesting because everybody was following, you know, the line until not.

Marc Andreessen 41:01 Right.

Lex Fridman 41:02 But you better... for sure, privately, there was a huge number of boiling conversations happening where like this is... this... the bureaucracy of communism, the corruption of communism, all of that was really bothering people more and more and more and more. And all of a sudden there's a trigger that allows the vibe shift to happen.

Marc Andreessen 41:22 That's right.

Lex Fridman 41:22 To me like the in-... the interesting question here is, what is the landscape of private thoughts and ideas and conversations that are happening under the surface of, uh, of, of Americans? Especially my question is, how much dormant energy is there for this roaring '20s where people are like, "No more bullshit, let's get shit done"?

Marc Andreessen 41:43 Yeah. So let's go through the... we'll go through the theory of preference falsification, just, just to-

Lex Fridman 41:46 By the way, amazing. The book

41:48 is fascinating.

Marc Andreessen 41:49 Yeah, yeah. So this is... this is exactly... this is one of the all-time great books. Incredibly, it's about 20, 30-year-old book, but it's very... it's completely modern and current, um, in what it talks about, uh, as well as very deeply historically informed. Um, so it's called Private Truths, Public Lies, and it's written by uh, uh, as- uh, a social science professor named Timur Kuran, um, at I think Duke. Um, and it's his definitive work on this. And so he, he has this concept he calls preference falsification. And so preference falsification is two things. Preference falsification... and, and you get it from the title of the book, Private Truths, Public Lies. So preference falsification is when you believe something and you can't say it, or (laughs) and this is very important, you don't believe something and you must say it, right? Um, and, and, and the commonality there is in both cases you're lying. You, you, you, you believe, you believe something internally and then, and then you're lying about it in public. Um, and so the, the thing... you know, the... and there's sort of two, two classic forms of it. There's the... you know, for example, there's the "I believe communism is rotten but I can't say it" version of it, um, but then there's also the, the, the famous parable of the real-life example, but, um, the thing that Vaclav Havel talks about in the other good book on this topic, which is The Power of the Powerless-... um, you know, who was an anti-Communist resistance fighter, who ultimately became the, you know, the, the president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of the wall. But he wrote this book and he, he describes the other side of this, which is, um, (laughs) w- workers of the world unite (laughs) , right? And so, he, he describes what he calls the parable of the green grocer, which is, you're a green grocer in Prague in 1985, um, and for the last 70 years it has been ... or s- 50 years, it's been absolutely mandatory to have a sign in the window of your store that says, "Workers of the world, unite." (laughs) Right? Um, and it's 1985, it is, like, crystal clear that the world, the workers of the world are not going to unite. Like (laughs) -

Lex Fridman 43:28 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 43:28 ... like, of all the things that could happen in the world, that is not going to happen. The Commies have been at that for 70 years, it is not happening. But that slogan had better be in your window every morning, because if it's not in your window every morning, you are not a good Communist. The secret police are gonna come by and they're gonna, they're gonna get you. Um, and so the first thing you do when you get to the store is you put that slogan in the window, and you make sure that it stays in the window all day long. And, but he says, the thing is, every single person ... the green grocer knows the slogan is fake. He knows it's a lie. Every single person walking past the slogan knows that it's a lie. Every single person walking past the store knows that the green grocer is only putting it up there because he has to lie in public. Um, and the green grocer has to go through the humiliation of knowing that everybody knows that he's caving into the system and lying in public. And so, it, it, it turns into demoralization campaign. It, it, it, it's, it's, it's not just ideological enforcement. I- in fact, it's not ideological enforcement anymore, because everybody knows it's fake. The authorities know it's fake. Everybody knows it's fake. It's not that they're enforcing the actual ideology of the world's, workers of the world uniting, it's that they are enforcing compliance, right?

Lex Fridman 44:26 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 44:26 And compliance with the regime and ... fuck you (laughs) , you will comply. Right? Uh, and so, so anyway, that, that, that's the other side of that. And, and of course, we have lived in the last decade through a lot of both of those. Um, I think anybody listening to this could name a series of slogans that we've all been forced to chant for the last decade, that everybody knows at this point are just, like, simply not true. I'll, I'll let the audience, you know, speculate on those o- o- on their own group chats. Um ... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 44:50 (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 44:50 But-

Lex Fridman 44:50 Send Mark your memes online as well, please.

Marc Andreessen 44:52 Yes, yes, exactly. But, okay, so anyway, so it's the two sides of that, right? So, it's, it's pu- it's, it's, it's private truths, public lies. Um, uh, so then what preference falsification does is it talks about e- extending that from the idea of the individual experiencing that to the idea of the entire society experiencing that, right? And this gets to your percentages question, which is like, okay, what happens in a society in which people are forced to lie in public about what they truly believe? What happens, number one, is that individually they're lying in public, and that's bad. But the other thing that happens is they no longer have an accurate gauge at all or any way to estimate how many people agree with them. A- a- a- and this is how you ... and again, this, this, this literally is, like, how you get something like, like the Communist system, which is like, okay, it, it ... you, you, you end up in a situation in which 80 or 90 or 99% of a society can actually all be thinking individually, "I really don't buy this anymore, and if anybody would just stand up and say it, I would be willing to go along with it, but I'm not gonna be the first one to put my head on the chopping block." But you have no w- because of the suppression, censorship, you have no way of knowing how many other people agree with you. And if the people who, if the people who agree with you are 10% of the population, and you become part of a movement, you're gonna get killed. If 90% of the people agree with you, you're gonna win the revolution (laughs) , right? And so, the, the question of, like, what the percentage actually is is, like, a really critical question and then, and then basically in any sort of authoritarian system, you ca- you can't, like, run a survey, right, to get an accurate result. And so you actually can't know until you put it to the test. And then what he describes in the book is, it's always put to the test in the same way, and this is exactly what's happened for the last two years. Like, 100% of exactly what's happened. It's, like, straight out of this book, which is, somebody (coughs) , Elon-

Lex Fridman 46:18 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 46:19 ... sticks his hand up (laughs) and says, "The workers of the world are not going to unite."

Lex Fridman 46:23 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 46:24 Right? Or the emperor is actually wearing no clothes, right? You know, that famous parable, right? Um, so one person stands up and does it. And, and literally that person is standing there by themselves, and everybody e- else in the audience is like, "Ooh."

Lex Fridman 46:34 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 46:34 "I wonder what's gonna happen to that guy." Right? But again, nobody knows. Elon doesn't know, the first guy doesn't know, other people don't know. Like, which way is this gonna go? And it may be that that's the minority position and that's a way to get yourself killed. Or it may be that that's the majority position and that, and you are now the, the leader of a revolution. And then basically, of course, what happens is, okay, the first guy does that, doesn't get killed (laughs) . The second guy does ... well, a lot of the time that guy does get killed. But when the guy doesn't get killed, then a second guy pops his head up, says the same thing, all right? Now you've got two. Two leads to four, four leads to eight, eight leads to 16. And then as we saw with the fall of the Berlin Wall, th- this is what happened in Russia and Eastern Europe in '89. You, you ... when it, when it goes, it can go, right? And then it rips. And then what happens is very, very quickly ... i- if, if it turns out that you had a large percentage of the population that actually believed a different thing, it turns out all of a sudden everybody has this giant epiphany that says, "Oh, I'm actually part of the majority (laughs) ." And at that point, like, you are on the freight train to revolution, right? Like, it is rolling, right? Now, the other part of this is the distinction between the role of the elites and the masses. Um, and here, and here the best book is called The True Believer (laughs) , which is the, the Eric Hoffer book. Um, and so the, the, the nuance you have to put on this is the, the, the elites play a giant role in this, 'cause the, uh, the, the elites do idea formation and communication. But the, uh, el- el- elites by definition are a small minority, and so there's also this giant role played by the masses. And the masses are not necessarily thinking these things through in the same intel- intellectualized, formal way that the elites are. But they are for sure experiencing these things in their daily lives, and they f- for sure have at least very strong emotional views on them. And so when you, when you really get the revolution, it's when you get the elites lined up with ... or, or, or, or a new s- either the current elites change or the new set of elites, a new set of counter-elites, um, basically come along and say, "No, there's actually a different and better way to live." And then the p- the people basically decide to follow the, you know, to follow the counter-elite. So that, that, that's the other dimension to it. And of course, that part is also happening right now. Um, and again, case study number one of that would be Elon and his, you know, it turns out, you know, truly massive following.

Lex Fridman 48:26 And he has done that over and over in different industries. Not just saying crazy shit online, but saying crazy shit in the, uh, uh, in the realm of space, in the realm of autonomous driving, in the realm of AI. Just over and over and over again. Turns out saying crazy shit is one of the ways to do a revolution and to actually make progress.

Marc Andreessen 48:43 Yeah, and it's like, well ... and the, but then there's the test. Is it crazy shit or is it the truth?

Lex Fridman 48:46 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 48:47 Right? And, and, and you know, and this is where, you know, e- th- many, there are many m- specific things about Elon's genius, but one of the, one of the really core ones is an absolute dedication to the truth. Um, and so when Elon says something, it sounds like crazy shit, but in his mind it's true. Now, is he always right? No.... sometimes the rock is crashed. Like, you know, there, you know, sometimes he's wrong on th- eh, ev- he's human, he's like any, anybody else. He's not right all the time. But it, at least my, my through line with him, both in what he says in public and what he says in private, which by the way are the exact same things, he, he does not do this. He doesn't lie in public about what he believes in private, or at least he doesn't do that anymore. Like, he, he's 100% consistent in my, in my experience. (laughs) By the way, there's two guys who are 100% consistent like that, that I know, um, (laughs) T- Elon and Trump.

Lex Fridman 49:24 (laughs) Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 49:26 Whatever you think of them-

Lex Fridman 49:27 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 49:27 ... what they say in private is 100% identical to what they say in public. Like, they are completely transparent, they're completely honest in that way, right? Which is like ... And again, it's not like they're perfect people, but they're honest in that way. And it, and it makes them ve- potentially both, as they have been, very powerful leaders of these movements, 'cause they're both willing to stand up and say the thing that, if it's true, it turns out to be the thing in many cases that m- you know, many or most or almost everyone else actually believes, but nobody was actually willing to say out loud. And so th- they can actually catalyze these shifts. And I, and I mean, I think this framework is exactly why Trump took over the Republican Party, is I think Trump stood up there on stage with all these other kind of conventional Republicans, and he started saying things out loud that it turned out the base really was, they were either already believing or they were prone to believe, um, and he was the only one who was saying them. And so the ma- again, elite masses, he was the elite, the voters are the ma- masses, and the, the voters decided, you know, no, (laughs) no more Bushes, like, "We're going this other direction." That's the mechanism of social change. Like, w- what we just described is, like, the actual mechanism of social change. It is fascinating to me that we have been living through exactly this. We've been li- living through exa- everything exactly what Timur Kuran describes, everything that Vaclav Havel described (laughs) we've been li- you know, black squares on Instagram, like the whole thing, right? All of it. Um, uh, and we've been living through the, um, you know, the, the true believer, elites, masses, you know, thing, with, you know, with th- a set of, like, basically incredibly corrupt elites wondering why they don't have the loyal masses anymore, and a set of new elites that are running away with things. And so, like, w- we're living through this, like, incredible applied case study, um, o- of these ideas. And, you know, if there's a moral of the story, it is, you know, I think fairly obvious, which is it's ... It's a really bad idea for a society to wedge itself into a position in which most people don't believe the fundamental precepts of what they're told they have to do, you know, to be, to be good people. Like, that, that is just not, not a good state to be in.

Lex Fridman 51:03 So one of the ways to avoid that in the future maybe is to keep the delta between what's said in private and what's said in public small.

Marc Andreessen 51:10 Yeah, it's like, well, this is sort of the, the siren song of censorship is we can keep people from saying things, which means we can kee- kee- keep people from thinking things.

Lex Fridman 51:16 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 51:17 And, you know, by the way, that may work for a while, right? Like, you know, (laughs) l- this, I mean, th- again, the hard form of the Soviet Un- you know, the Soviet Union, uh, o- owning a mimeograph ... Pre-photocopiers, there were m- mimeograph machines that were used to make samizdat and underground newspapers, which was the, the mechanism of commu- written communication of, of radical ideas, heretical ideas. Um, ownership of a mimeograph machine was punishable by death. Um, right? So tha- that's the hard version, right? You know, the soft version is somebody clicks a button in Washington and you are erased from the internet, (laughs) right? Like, uh, which, you know, good news, you're still alive. Bad news is, you know, shame about not being able to get a job, you know. Too bad your family now, you know, hates you and won't talk to you, r- you know, what- or whatever the, you know, whatever the version of cancellation has been. Um, and so, so, so like does that work? Like, maybe it works for a while. Like, it worked for the Soviet Union for a while, you know, in its way, especially when it was coupled with, you know, official state power. But when it unwinds, it can unwind with, like, incredible speed and ferocity, 'cause to your point, there's all this bottled up energy. Now, your question was like, the, what are the percentages, like what, what's the breakdown? And so my, my rough guess, just based on what I've seen in my world is it's something like 20-60-20. Um, it's like you've got 20%, like true believers in whatever is, you know, the current thing, you know, you got 20, you got 20% of people who are just like true believers of whatever they, they're, they're, you know, whatever's in the New- like I said, whatever's in the New York Times, Harvard professors and the Ford Foundation. Like, just, they're just believe- and by the way, maybe it's 10, maybe it's five, but let's say generously it's, it's 20. So it's, uh, you know, 20% kind of full on revolutionaries. Um, um, and then you've got, let's call it 20% on the other side that are like, "No, I'm not on board with this. This is, this is crazy. I'm not, I'm not signing up for this." But, you know, you know, they, their view of themselves is they're in a small minority, and in fact they start out in a small minority, 'cause what happens is the 60% go with the first 20%, not the second 20%. So you, you've got this large middle of people, i- and it's not that there's anything, like, it's not the people in the middle are not smart or anything like that, it's that they just have, like, normal lives, and they're just trying to get by, and they're just trying to go to work each day and do a good job and be a good person and raise their kids and, you know, have a little bit of time to watch the game. Um, and they're just not engaged in the cut and thrust of, you know, political activism or any of this stuff. It's just not their thing. But then, but that's where the over socialization comes in is just like, okay, by default the 60% will go along with the 20% of the radical revolutionaries at least for a while, and then the counter elite is in this other 20%, and over time they build up a theory and network and ability to resist, um, and a new set of representatives and a new set of ideas. And then at some point, there's a contest, and then, and then, and then, and then, right? And then the question is what happens in the middle? What happens in the 60%? And it, and it do- and it's kind of my point, it's not even really does the 60% change their beliefs as much as it's like, okay, what, what is the thing that that 60% now decides to basically fall in- into step with? And I think that 60 per- i- in the valley, that 60% for the last decade decided to be woke. Um, and you know, extremely, I would say (laughs) say on edge, uh, on a lot of things. And I, you know, that 60% is pivoting in real time. They're, they're just done. They're, they're, they've just had it.

Lex Fridman 54:18 And I would love to see where that pivot goes, 'cause there's internal battles happening right now, right?

Marc Andreessen 54:23 So this is the other thing. Okay, so there's two, two forms of internal, there's two forms of things that, and Timur Kuran has, Timur has actually talked about this, Professor Kuran has talked about this. So, so one is he said the- he said this is the kind of unwind where what you're gonna have is you're, you're now gonna have people in the other direction. You're gonna have people who claimed that they supported Trump all along who actually didn't. (laughs) Right?

Lex Fridman 54:40 Right.

Marc Andreessen 54:40 So it's gonna swing the other way. And by the way, Trump's not the only part of this, but, you know, he's just a convenient shorthand for, you know, for, for a lot of this. Um, but you know, whatever it is, you'll, you'll have people who will say, "Well I never supported the EI," right? Or, "I never supported ESG." Or, "I never thought we should've canceled that person," right? Where of course they were full on a part of the mob, like, you know, kind of at that moment. And so, uh, anyway, so you'll have preference falsification happening in the other direction. And hi- his prediction I think basically is you'll end up with the same, quote, "problem" on the o- uh, on the other side. Now-... will that happen here? I don't know. You know, we'll... How far is American society willing to go on any of these things? I don't know. But, like, there is some, some question there. Um, and then, and then the other part of it is, okay, now you have this, you know, elite that is used to being in power for the last decade, and it... And by the way, many of those people are still in power and they're in very, you know, important positions, and The New York Times is still The New York Times, and Harvard is still Harvard, and, like, those people haven't changed, like, at all, right? Um, and they still... you know, they've been bureaucrats in the government and, you know, senior Democratic, you know, p- politicians and so forth. And, and they're sitting there, you know, right now feeling like reality has just smacked them hard in the face 'cause they lost the election so badly, but they're now going into a... and specifically the Democratic Party is going into a civil war, right? And, and, and, and, and that form of the civil war is completely predictable, and that's exactly what's happening, which is half of them are saying, "We need to go back to the center. We need to de-radicalize 'cause we, we've lost the people. (laughs) We've lost that... the people in the middle, and so we need to go back to the middle in order to be able to get 50% plus one in an election," right? And then the other half of them are saying, "No, we weren't true to our principles. We were too weak. We were too soft. You know, we must become more revolutionary. We must double down, and we must, you know, celebrate, you know, murders in the street of health insurance executives." And that's... and that, that right now is, like, our real

Marc Andreessen 56:15 fight.

Lex Fridman 56:15 If I could tell you a little personal story that breaks my heart a little bit. There's a, there's a professor, a historian, I won't say who, who I admire deeply, love his work. He's a kind of a heretical thinker, and we were talking about having a podcast or doing a podcast, and he eventually said that, "You know what? At this time, given your guest list, I just don't want the headache of being in the faculty meetings in my particular institution." And I ask, "Who are the particular figures in this guest list?" He said, "Trump." And the second one, he said that you announced your interest to talk to Vladimir Putin. So, "I just don't want the headache." Now, I, I fully believe he, uh... it would surprise a lot of people if I said who it is, but, uh, you know, this is a person who's not bothered by the, uh, the guest list. And I should also say that 80-plus percent of the guest list is left-wing, okay? Uh, nevertheless, he just doesn't want the headache, and that speaks to the, the thing that you've kind of mentioned, that you just don't, don't want the headache. You just wanna just have a pleasant morning with some coffee and talk to your, uh, fellow professors, and I think a lot of people are feeling that in universities and in other contexts in tech companies. And I wonder if that shifts, how quickly that shifts, and there, the percentages you mentioned, 20-60-20, matters, and the, and the, the contents of the private groups matters, and the dynamics of how that shifts matters 'cause it's very possible nothing really changes in u- universities and in major tech companies, or just there's a kind of, um, excitement right now for po- potential revolution and these new ideas, this new vibes to reverberate through these companies and universities, but it's possible the, the (laughs) the wall will hold.

Marc Andreessen 58:14 Yeah. So he's a friend of yours. I respect that you don't wanna name him. I also respect you don't wanna beat on him, so I would like to beat on him on your behalf.

Lex Fridman 58:21 Mm-hmm.

Marc Andreessen 58:21 Um, does he have tenure?

Lex Fridman 58:23 Yes. He should use it.

Marc Andreessen 58:27 So, this is the thing, right? This is the ultimate indictment of the corruption and the rot at the heart of our education system, uh, at the heart of these universities, and it's... by the way, it's, like, across the board. It's, like, all the, all the top universities. It's like the... 'cause the, the siren song for, right? What has been for 70 years, whatever, the tenure system, peer review system, tenure system, um, which is like, yeah, you work your butt off as an academic to get a professorship and then to get tenure because then you can say what you actually think, right? Then you can do your work and your research and your speaking and your teaching without fear of being fired, right? Without fear of being canceled. Um, like, academic freedom. I mean, think, think of the term "academic freedom," and then think of what these people have done to it. Like, it's gone. Like, that entire thing was fake and is completely rotten, and these people are completely, completely giving up the entire moral foundation of the system that's been built for them, which, by the way, is paid for virtually 100% by taxpayer money.

Lex Fridman 59:34 What's the... what's the inkling of hope in this? Like, what... uh, this particular person and others who hear this, what can give them strength, inspiration, and courage?

Marc Andreessen 59:44 Um, that the population at large is gonna realize the corruption in their industry and it's going to withdraw all the funding.

Lex Fridman 59:49 (laughs) Okay, so desperation. (laughs)

Marc Andreessen 59:52 No, no, no, no, no. Think about what happens next. Okay, so let's go, let's go through it. So the, the, the universities, the univer- the universities are funded by f- four primary sources of federal funding. Th- the big one is the Federal Student Loan Program, which is, you know, in the many trillions of dollars at this point and, and o- only spiraling, you know, way faster than, than inflation. Um, that's number one. Number two is federal research funding, which is also very large, and you probably know that, um, um, when a scientist at university gets a f- a research grant, the university rakes as much as 70% of the money, uh, for central (laughs) uses.

Lex Fridman 1:00:19 Yeah.

Marc Andreessen 1:00:20 Uh, number three is tax exemption at the operating level, which is based on the idea that these are nonprofit institutions as opposed to, let's say, political institutions. Um, and then number four is tax, uh, exemptions at the endowment level, um, you know, which is the financial buffer that these places have. Um, hy- hypotheti... A- anybody who's been close to a