Marc Andreessen | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Andreessen in 2013 | |
| Born | Marc Lowell Andreessen (1971-07-09)July 9, 1971 (age 54) Cedar Falls, Iowa, U.S. |
| Education | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (BS) |
| Occupations | |
| Known for | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | John[1] |
| Relatives | John Arrillaga (father-in-law) |
| Website | a16z |
Marc Lowell Andreessen (/ænˈdriːsən/an-DREE-sən; born July 9, 1971) is an American businessman,venture capitalist, and formersoftware engineer. He is the co-author ofMosaic, the firstweb browser todisplay inline images; co-founder ofNetscape; and co-founder and general partner ofSilicon Valley venture capital firmAndreessen Horowitz. He co-founded and later sold the software companyOpsware toHewlett-Packard; he also co-foundedNing, a company that provides a platform for social networking websites. He supported presidential candidates of the Democratic party until 2016. In 2024 he became an advisor toDonald Trump.[2] Andreessen's net worth is estimated at $1.9 billion as of January 2025.
Andreessen was born inCedar Falls, Iowa, and raised inNew Lisbon, Wisconsin,[3] which he considered "the sticks".[4] He is the son of Patricia, customer service operator atLands' End, and Lowell Andreessen, who worked as a sales manager for the seed producerPioneer Hi-Bred International.[4][1][5] He has a younger brother named Jeff. In 1998,Bloomberg reported that Jeff was a history major at theUniversity of Wisconsin. Andreessen stated that he had problematic relationship with his parents and brother, and that he did not like to talk about them.[4][6]Andreessen discovered programming at age 12.[4]In December 1993,[3] Andreessen received hisbachelor's degree incomputer science from theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC).[7] As an undergraduate, he interned twice atIBM inAustin, Texas.[8] He worked in the AIX graphics software development group responsible for the MITX implementation and ports of the 3D language APIs: SGI's Graphics Language (GL) and PHIGS.[citation needed] He also worked as a programmer, earning $6.85 per hour, at theNational Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. At that time, he became familiar withTim Berners-Lee's open standards for theWorld Wide Web, but the World Wide Web browser required advanced programming skills to use. After being shown the graphic web browserViolaWWW in late 1992, Andreessen and full-time salaried co-workerEric Bina worked on creating a browser with integrated graphics that could be ported to a wide range of computers, including Windows. The result was the Mosaic web browser released in 1993.[9] The new web browser led to a 342,000 percent increase in web traffic in a year. Before Mosaic, there had only been 50 websites on the Web, but the number now increased to 10,000, while the percentage of internet users who surfed the Web increased from 1% to 25%.[10]
In the Web's first generation, Tim Berners-Lee launched the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and HTML standards with prototype Unix-based servers and browsers. A few people noticed that the Web might be better thanGopher. In the second generation, Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina developed NCSA Mosaic at the University of Illinois. Several million then suddenly noticed that the Web might be better than sex.
— Bob Metcalfe,InfoWorld, August 21, 1995, Vol. 17, Issue 34.[11]
Mosaic is often referred to as the first successful web browser.[12][13] It was also the first browser widely used for both Windows and Mac.[14]
The NCSA though refused to give the Mosaic team credit for their contribution, so Andreessen, disillusioned, decided to leave the center in 1994.[10]
Andreessen has worked atNetscape,Opsware, foundedAndreessen Horowitz, and invested in many successful companies includingFacebook,Foursquare,GitHub,Pinterest,LinkedIn, andTwitter.[15]
After graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993, Andreessen moved toCalifornia to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met withJim Clark, the founder ofSilicon Graphics, who had recently exited the firm. Clark believed the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet software company. Soon,Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business inMountain View, California, with Andreessen as co-founder and vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its flagship Web browser was theNetscape Navigator.[16] Netscape was the first successful commercial web browser (offered for free).[17][18] It offers a wide variety of clients, servers, development tools and e-commerce applications.[19] It also simplied the interface, increased speed and provided tools to prevent financial transactions in comparison with its predecessor Mosaic.[20]
Netscape'sIPO in 1995 put Andreessen in the public eye. He was on the cover ofTime[21][22] and other publications.[23]
Netscape was acquired in 1999 for $4.3 billion byAOL. Andreessen's hiring as itschief technical officer was contingent on the completion of the acquisition.[24] The same year, he was named to theMIT Technology ReviewTR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[25]
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After AOL acquired Netscape in late 1998, Andreessen founded Opsware withBen Horowitz,Tim Howes, and In Sik Rhee.[26] Originally named Loudcloud, the company provided computing, hosting and software services to consumer-facing internet and e-commerce companies. Loudcloud sold its hosting business toEDS and changed its name to Opsware in 2003, with Andreessen serving as chairman. Acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007, it was one of the first companies to offersoftware as a service and to attempt cloud hosting.[27]
Between 2005 and 2009, Andreessen and Horowitz separately invested a total of $80 million in 45 startups, includingTwitter andQik.[28] The two became well known assuper angel investors.[28] On July 6, 2009, Andreessen and Horowitz announced their Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.[29]
Andreessen Horowitz began with an initial capitalization of $300 million;[30] within three years the firm grew to $2.7 billion under management across three funds.[31] In 2012, Andreessen Horowitz's portfolio holdings includedFacebook,Foursquare,GitHub,Pinterest,Twitter and Honor Technology.[32] In 2021,Business Insider notes that successful IPOs that have cemented Andreessen Horowitz's reputation includeOkta, Inc.,PagerDuty, Pinterest, Accolade,Slack Technologies,Lyft,DigitalOcean andCoinbase.[33]
Both Andreessen and the firm have an interest in crypto currency. In 2021, the firm launched a $2.2 billion crypto-focused fund, which was followed by a 2022 $4.5 billion fund dedicated to crypto and blockchain. Notable crypto and NFT startups in its portfolio include Alchemy,Dapper Labs,Avalanche,OpenSea,Solana andYuga Labs.[34][35]
In 2023, the firm launched the American Dynamism fund, which focuses on hard tech sectors which serve national interest, including space, defense, manufacturing, robotics. The fund has backed companies like the defense manufacturing startup Hadrian and the hypersonic long-range rocket startup Castelion. In 2024, Andreessen Horowitz launched the 12-month American Dynamism Engineering Fellows Program, which was intended to recruit and train technologists.[36] Also associated with the American Dynamism fund is the annual American Dynamism summit sponsored by Andreessen Horowitz, which gathers startup founders, investors, Members of Congress and Defense Department officials. The summit is officially non-partisan and has partnered with Democratic defense officials like former Deputy Secretary of DefenseKathleen Hicks.[37]
On September 1, 2009, an investor group that included Andreessen Horowitz acquired a majority stake inSkype at a valuation of $2.75 billion,[38] which was considered risky.[39] The deal paid off in May 2011 whenMicrosoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion.[39] In 2010, the firm assisted Silicon Valley attorneyTed Wang in creating the first free standardized seed round financing documents, the Series Seed Documents.[40]
Andreessen joined theeBay board of directors in 2008 and served on it for six years.[41] In October 2014, he announced his resignation from the board due to the company's decision to break off itsonline payments unitPayPal. The decision to cut ties with PayPal was a point of contention between Andreessen and investorCarl Icahn. Icahn advocated for the PayPal split while Andreessen opposed the spin-off, resulting in public disputes. Andreessen was accused by Icahn of putting his own interests in front of what was best for shareholders. Icahn published his argument in an open letter that detailed alleged conflicts of interest in eBay's 2009 sale of Skype to a group of private investors, which included Andreessen's firm.[42]
The fund is active in Europe. Despite this, in January 2025, after Donald Trump's election, Andreessen Horowitz closed its London office (its first office in Europe, led by general partnerSriram Krishnan) to pivot back to the crypto market in the U.S.[43] Nevertheless, it has also been developing a strong scout network in Europe, with a focus on AI startups. The fund has invested in the French unicornMistral AI, the German AI image generation startupBlack Forest Labs and Berlin-based automation platform unicornn8n, the UK's metaverse unicornImprobable and insurtech startup Hyperexponential.[44][45][46]
In July 2025, Andreessen Horowitz led the largest seed round in history for AI startupThinking Machines Lab, which raised a record $2 billion, valuing the firm at $12 billion.[47]
Andreessen Horowitz presents their primary political agenda as defending Little Tech (startups), in contrast to Big Tech incumbents. In April 2025, together withY Combinator and AI companies like Anyscale,Exowatt, andSourcegraph, the firm launched American Innovators Network, a coalition that represents "America's Little Tech ecosystem leading the next era of innovation and economic growth".[48][49]
The New Yorker's Tad Friend remarks that Andreessen and Horowitz's leadership styles complement each other, with Andreessen being the visionary chairman while Horowitz is the people-person CEO.[1]
Andreessen cofounded and chaired Ning, the third company he established, after Netscape and Loudcloud.[50] In September 2011, it was announced that Ning had been sold toMode Media for a reported price of $150 million. Andreessen joined Glam Media's board of directors after the sale.[51]
He is a personal investor in companies includingLinkedIn[52] and boutique bank Raine.[53]
He has also invested in funds tied to conservative causes such as New Founding, which is described as a "pro-American, Christian" venture capital fund or the "anti-woke"1789 Capital, which aims to build a "parallel economy" (both as personal investments).[54][55]
Andreessen has invested in multiple special economic zones includingCalifornia Forever in northern California,[56]Próspera off the coast of Honduras,[57] andPraxis in an as yet to be announced location.[58] He has also invested in Pronomos Capital,[59] which is funding multiple special economic zone projects across the world.[60] These special economic zones have been linked by various sources to the Network State movement.[61][62]
Andreessen serves on the board ofMeta,[63]Hewlett Packard Enterprise,Kno,[64]Stanford Hospital,[65]Bump Technologies,Anki,[66]Oculus VR,[67]OpenGov,[68] Dialpad, andTinyCo.[69] Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced in February 2018 that board member Andreessen would not seek reelection at the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders on April 4.[70] In his time at Hewlett Packard, Andreessen had been partially blamed for some of the company's failures, including the recruiting ofLéo Apotheker as well as the acquisitions ofAutonomy andPalm.[71][72]
Andreessen advises the leaders of companies in which Andreessen Horowitz invests, includingMark Zuckerberg of Facebook andMark Pincus of Zynga.[73] For example, he is advisor toAsana and director ofCollabNet.[74] He is a proponent ofBitcoin.[75] Andreessen is on an advisory board forNeom, theSaudi Arabian government's plan to build a futuristicmegacity in the desert.[76][77]
In April 2020, early in theCOVID-19 pandemic, Andreessen published an opinion article, "It's time to build", describing theUnited States' COVID-19 response and suggesting technological and cultural solutions to the problem.[78][79]
In October 2023, Andreessen published a "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" arguing that civilization is built on technology and that "Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential."[80] He has also described himself as a "tescrealist".[81]
Thinkers who have been noted to inform his writings include the German socialist philosopherRobert Michels,[82]Friedrich Nietzsche,[83] and the Italian writerFilippo Tommaso Marinetti, who was the founder ofFuturism.[84]
Andreessen and Horowitz were ranked No. 6 onVanity Fair's 2011 New Establishment List,[85] no. 1 onCNET's 2011 most influential investors list[86] and Nos. 2 and 21, respectively, on the 2012ForbesMidas List of Tech's Top Investors.[87]
In 2012, Andreessen was named in theTime 100, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world assembled byTime.[88] His essay "Software is eating the world" has been influential and widely cited.[52][89][90][91]
In 2013, Andreessen was one of five Internet and Web pioneers awarded the inauguralQueen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.[92]
Andreessen was one of six inductees in theWorld Wide Web Hall of Fame announced at theFirst International Conference on the World-Wide Web in 1994.[93][1]
In April 2012, Andreessen and Andreessen Horowitz General Partners Ben Horowitz,Peter Levine,Jeff Jordan,John O'Farrell, andScott Weiss pledged to donate half their lifetime incomes from venture capital to charitable organizations.[94]
Andrew Keen remarks that "more than any other single individual , Andreessen was responsible for transforming the nonprofit Internet into a winner - take - all economy".[10] One of Andreessen's recognizable decisions was to makehyperlinks appear in blue and visited links in purple in the NCSA Mosaic web browser, a change that was implemented around 1993.[95] This choice, while seemingly simple, had a profound impact on the development of the World Wide Web. The blue hyperlink became a standard convention, allowing users to easily identify clickable text and navigate the burgeoning online world. This intuitive design choice contributed significantly to the widespread adoption of the web and remains a fundamental element of web design to this day. Andreessen has publicly explained his reasoning for the color choice, noting in an interview[96] that he simply "liked blue" and needed a color that would stand out on the original gray background of the browser, along with purple being visually distinct for visited links.[97]
Andreessen, alongsidePeter Thiel andEric Schmidt, are often considered the important tech investors in the U.S. defense industry sector. TheNeue Zürcher Zeitung remarks that while Schmidt often issues warnings about the risk of the U.S. losing technological lead and Thiel emphasizes dominance over opponents, Andreessen strives for achieving peace through deterrence. His important investments in the area includeAnduril Industries,Shield AI, the drone startup Skydio and the counter-drone startup Epirus.[98][99]
In February 2016, Andreessen posted a tweet in response to India's decision to applynet neutrality to Facebook's proposed projectFree Basics. The tweet suggested that anti-colonialism had been catastrophic for the Indian people. Andreessen later deleted the tweet following criticism from Indians and non-Indians alike (including Facebook founderMark Zuckerberg).[100][101][102][undue weight? –discuss] Facebook spent millions advertising Free Basics to the Indian public.[103] The project failed due to violations, setting preferential tariffs in accessing content and setting up a"walled garden" on the internet.[104][105]
In April 2016, Facebook shareholders filed a class action lawsuit to block Zuckerberg's plan to create a new class of non-voting shares. The lawsuit alleges Andreessen secretly coached Zuckerberg through a process to win board approval for the stock change, while Andreessen served as an independent board member representing stockholders.[106]
According to court documents, Andreessen shared information with Zuckerberg about their progress and concerns and helped Zuckerberg negotiate against shareholders. Court documents included transcripts of private texts between Zuckerberg and Andreessen.[107]
Andreessen endorsed and voted forBill Clinton,Al Gore,John Kerry,Barack Obama andHillary Clinton.[108] In 2012, Andreessen donated $100,000 to Republican presidential candidateMitt Romney.[109][110] During the 2016 primary season, he endorsed Republican candidateCarly Fiorina, but after Fiorina dropped out of the race, Andreessen switched his endorsement to the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, citing the Republican nomineeDonald Trump's immigration stance.[111][112]
In July 2024, Andreessen announced he would donate tosuper PACs that supportDonald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.[113] During the first half of 2025, Andreessen donated $3 million toMAGA Inc., a super PAC that supports Donald Trump.[114]
Andreessen is a mega-donor to the political superPAC and pro-cryptocurrency advocacy groupFairshake.[115] Andreessen came out against presidentJoe Biden'sre-election bid, saying he feared higher taxes on billionaires and stricter regulations on industries he invests in (cryptocurrency and AI).[115] OnJoe Rogan's podcast in November 2024, Andreessen claimed that some cryptocurrency users have been unfairlydebanked.[116]
While not officially part ofElon Musk'sDOGE, Andreessen has been listed as a “a key networker for talent recruitment” at the agency, according toThe Washington Post.[117][118] He has also shared insight about DOGE's plans in various interviews.[119]
Several authors note that Andreessen belongs to a small group of tech leaders who play an increasingly central role not only in the Silicon Valley, but also in the U.S. political life. German journalistClaus Kleber, author of theZDF documentaryTrump und das Silicon Valley – Staatsstreich der Tech-Oligarchen ("Trump and Silicon Valley - coup d'état of the tech oligarchs"), opines that Andreessen's power is only outmatched by that of Peter Thiel, who often works alongside him.Evgeny Morozov, writing for the SpanishEl País, notes that Andreessen "reimagines money" for the government, and that the tech leaders (dubbed "oligarch-intellectuals" by Morozov) have power to turn their "interpretive gift [...] into legislative mandate".[120][121][122][123][124]
Regarding his shift towards the Republican party, Andreessen explained that he was shocked by the Biden administration's aggressive attitude towards crypto currency and AI. In 2025, when interviewed byThe New York Times'sRoss Douthat, he recounted an occasion (in May 2024) in which he and Ben Horowitz attempted to meet with then-PresidentJoe Biden, who declined the meeting but sent senior staff to explain the new policies, which included making sure "that A.I. is going to be a function of two or three large companies", directly regulated and controlled by the government without competition from any startup, as well as a ban on the free creation and release of code.[125][126][127] Andreessen's claim was disputed bySam Altman.[128]
Andreessen also criticized elite education institutions for having radicalized children of the privileged class, teaching them to hate capitalism and start their job at his companies with the intention to destroy those companies from inside:
In other words, the young children of the privileged going to the top universities between 2008 to 2012, they basically radicalized hard at the universities, I think, primarily as a consequence of the global financial crisis and probably Iraq. Throw that in there also. But for whatever reason, they radicalized hard [...] What I now understand it to be historically is a rebirth of the New Left [...] It turned out to be a coalition of economic radicals, and this was the rise of Bernie Sanders, but the kids turned on capitalism in a very fundamental way. They came out as some version of radical Marxist, and the fundamental valence went from "Capitalism is good and an enabler of the good society" to "Capitalism is evil and should be torn down." And then the other part was social revolution and the social revolution, of course, was the Great Awokening, and then those conjoined. And there was a point where the median, newly arrived Harvard kid in 2006 was a career obsessed striver and their conversation with you was: "When do I get promoted, and how much do I get paid, and when do I end up running the company?" And that was the thing.By 2013, the median newly arrived Harvard kid was like: "[expletive] it. We’re burning the system down. You are all evil. White people are evil. All men are evil. Capitalism is evil. Tech is evil."[127][129][130]
Futurism counters Andreessen's point on elite education by showing that the political position of the average American remains stable.[129] ButBloomberg notes that among the tech champions, the Democrats' turn to identity politics and technology-skepticism has spurred a rightward shift.Bloomberg remarks that the skepticism against new technology is based on issues such as "privacy, monopoly power and social media’s effects on young people", but criticizes the crackdown on crypto in particular, describing it as bringing "no discernible political benefit" as there are very few voters who are fixated on anti-crypto matters.[130]
Andreessen has supported high-skilled immigration as a source of talent for the tech industry, but by January 2025, he said that he was reconsidering this position. He has also criticizedDEI policies issued by government and institutions in multiple occasions. In a 2014 interview withNew York Magazine'sKevin Roose, he questioned the need of diversity rules on ethnicities. His reasoning was that companies were so desperate for talent that they would try to get it from anywhere. He also questioned the fact white and Asian people of different ethnicities and religions were often grouped together and considered not diverse. In a 3.5h interview talk withLex Fridman, Andreessen said that mandatoryNASDAQ rules that imposed diversity criteria on corporate boards were "crazy", recounting that on one occasion he was tempted to describe himself as "bisexual" to help Meta meet those criteria, as he felt for Peter Thiel, who was horrified when Meta lawyers suggested that he classified himself as "diverse".[131] In July 2025, theWashington Post published leaked messages Andreessen sent to top officials in the Trump administration, stating that "The combination of DEI and immigration is politically lethal [...] they systematically cut most of the children of the Trump voter base out of any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America". He also namedStanford University, theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as well as theNational Science Foundation (NSF) as particular culprits, warning that these institutions "will pay the price". In a group chat, he allegedly called for the NFS to receive "the bureaucratic death penalty". Reacting to the messages, MIT's spokesperson said that, "MIT is merit-based and affordable, driven by innovation and entrepreneurship, and committed to excellence — all with a mission of national service", while Stanford refused to comment on Andreessen's characterization of the university.[132][133][134][135]
Andreessen identifies himself as German-American.[136]
Andreessen marriedLaura Arrillaga in 2006.[137] She is the founder of the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund and daughter of Silicon Valley real estate billionaireJohn Arrillaga. The couple met in 2005, at a New Year’s Eve dinner organized by Andreessen. Andreessen considered Arrillaga and her father his replacement family. They got married nine months later. They have one son who was named John after Laura's father. John was carried by a gestational surrogate. According toBusiness Insider, John was 8-year-old in 2023.[138][139]
In 2009, Andreessen issued a $25,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the 1987 unsolved murder of Barbara Blackstone, a teacher fromNew Lisbon High School in Wisconsin, which he had attended.[140] The case remains unsolved as of 2022.[141]
In 2021, he and his wife bought a property in Malibu for $177 million from Serge and Florence Azria. This was the highest price paid for a California property at that time.[142] As of February 2023, his net worth is estimated at $1.7 billion byForbes.[143]
In 2022, Andreessen advocated against the construction of 131 multifamily housing units in their affluentAtherton, California town.[144] In a letter, Andreessen and his wife wrote that they opposed permitting more than one house on a single acre of land.[145] Andreessen's comments sparked criticisms of hypocrisy, as he had previously argued for increased housing supply, in particular in California.[145][144]
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