Marc Andreessen is no stranger to Silicon Valley. He was around during the dot com boom and bust of the early aughts, and he's still there today. Netscape, which he co-founded in 1994, went on to become the first mainstream web browser. And his venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has backed some of the biggest startups around.
His thoughts, which he abundantly shares on Twitter, have made him an icon.
The venture capitalist recently sat down with New York Magazine's Kevin Roose to discuss the state of Silicon Valley and the worldwide tech industry.
Here are three entrepreneurial truisms upon which he consistently adheres:
1. All feedback is good feedback. Andreessen loves to pour out his thoughts, and disagreements with others, on Twitter. These don't come without backlash, of course.
"Every morning," says Andreessen, "I wake up and several dozen people have explained to me in detail how I'm an idiot on Twitter, which is actually fairly helpful."
This feedback keeps Andreessen from living inside of a bubble, which he warns is killer. "It’s very rare that billionaires actually stop and think, Everybody’s nicer to me than they were 10 years ago," says Andreessen. "This is not limited to billionaires. This applies to presidents, senators, congressmen, mayors, anybody who gets in a position of power."
2. An investment is more than monetary. As a venture capitalist, Andreessen doesn't just throw money at companies and wait for a return to show up.
"A lot of my time is working with founders and CEOs of companies in the portfolio," says Andreessen, "I'm basically permanently on call to all of them."
3. Regulation is not your friend. Andreessen is a vocal opponent of new legislation and regulation.
"There’s this myth that government regulation is well intentioned and benign, and implemented properly," says Andreessen. "That’s the myth. And then when people actually run into this in the real world, they’re, 'Oh, fuck, I didn’t realize.'"
At the end of the day, it's ideas that move a business forward, not cynicism. "My presumptive tendency," says Andreessen: "is not to ask, 'Is it going to work?' It's, 'Well, what if it does work?'"
Keep reading for Andreessen's full interview with New York Magazine.
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