Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

Havoc

Intentionally going after old people because they’re more susceptible to AI and declaring as much on record is fuckin wild. Does SV now optimize for evilness?

torginus

If you think this is morally acceptable, in which case, what you're doing is essentially trying to trick the algorithm to uprank your content. But people at Facebook/X/Youtube can just update a table row and accomplish 1000x as much as you're trying to do. Their business model is selling a less powerful version of that. When I was a kid, I used to go on private WoW servers. There were always people there who would invariably try to pick a fight with admins. It always went the way you expected.

alex1138

I remember reading about Andreessen coaching Zuckerberg, having to spoon feed him answers at trial, and apparently he was one of the masterminds behind the dual class shares/proposed third class of share (I mean that Zuckerberg apparently understood nothing. I mean when I say, 'spoon feed') This is the same man who came out and said Snowden is a traitor. Now, I've since heard other versions on this so I'm willing to entertain the arguments. But a top VC being like he is, well, it's concerning. It's concerning he chooses what to fund

zipy124

I mean a lot of successful new tech companies were about side-stepping legislation. Some that are missing here are airbnb which effectively side-stepped fairly strict hotel legislation (Though there is a case to be made that it simply improved short-term lodging), and uber which side-stepped strong taxi/private-hire legislation. This is one of the primary reasons that tech startups flourish in America but not in Europe.

tedggh

How come Flock is not listed? That’s the most troubling company a16z has heavily invested on and supported.

walrus01

Well this is all pretty fucking horrifying.

rbanffy

And you know that when someone bets so much money in a dystopian future, they’ll actively work towards that outcome.

walrus01

You know how sometimes you're exploring a location in a post-apocalyptic video game and find a message on a 'datapad' or scrawled on the wall in blood or something, as a world building fiction exercise to inform the player how screwed up the dystopia became in its last days before everything went totally to shit? Well, now I have some new material for you...

Hikikomori

They're also part of the same group of christian tech feudalists as Thiel and supports trump/project 2025. Seems like they all went insane because the government can still say no to them.

radarsat1

I know this is a very minor point in the article, but reading the message next to the Doublespeed phone farm: > out of 130 dms sent, 15 pointed to a conversion. > From a former ecom guy's lens this is insane Why do these otherwise very smart people always seem to draw these kind of shortsighted conclusions? It seems pretty obvious to me on the surface that this "works" because it's new. As soon as it becomes common place people will see that channel of communication as a source of coercion/marketing and start to ignore it. Aside from the fact that he seems to be drawing massive conclusions about the viability of a business based on extremely little data here, it seems really naive to not consider in his calculations the long term effects of essentially ruining the value of the channel that you are exploiting to get those numbers in the first place.

TwoFerMaggie

Not surprised at all as Marc Andreesen has been in the rabbit hole for a while: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-t...

wseqyrku

All investors do this, they don't really have an idea of "the future" they want to build. They just "find something they can throw money at". Their words, not mine.

JSR_FDED

Don’t forget a16z’s breathless boosterism of NFTs and Crypto. They really are the gift that keeps on giving.

vintermann

> Lee's stated goal was to “desensitize everyone to the phrase ‘cheating.’” If you say it enough, he argues, “cheat begins to lose its meaning.” A16z praised Lee's approach as “rooted in deliberate strategy and intentionality.” Investors: but surely they won't cheat me !

bambax

Marc Andreessen is an evil man with the behavior (and appearance!) of a Bond villain.

seydor

Probably it's a random sample of AI companies. Curing cancer is the marketing slogan, AI is not capable of doing that. But it's good enough to impress bankers and lawyers who will keep inflating the bubble for the foreseeable future.

larodi

Humpty is a joker and a con man, and a man without vision (in his own words!).

vrganj

The guy that quoted some of the early fascists in his reactionary manifesto that included a list of enemies wants to build a bleak future? Say it ain't so! "I have zero introspection. As little as possible" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/b6Zw50f5jJk We can tell, Marc. It's not a good thing. It's the sort of thing oblivious villains say.

ModernMech

Of course, isn’t Andreessen the one who believes introspection is a waste of time, a fad from the 1900s the only outcome of which is to slow one down? Why even consider the long term consequences of your actions when they can make you billions of dollars in the short term? Introspection, like empathy, is for suckers and losers.

Valakas_

For me it's insane, how in this day and age, we don't conduct DSM-V / ICD tests (interviews) that screen for Cluster B personality disorders on everyone , and bar, at least those with anti-social PD, psychopathy, or extreme forms of narcissism, to work in positions of influence or power over others.