Marc Andreessen, a prominent figure in the world of technology and entrepreneurship, has left an indelible mark on the landscape of innovation. As the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, Andreessen played a pivotal role in ushering in the era of the internet as we know it today. His contributions extend far beyond the realm of web browsing, however, as he went on to co-found Netscape Communications Corporation, a company that played a foundational role in shaping the early internet economy.
Beyond his entrepreneurial ventures, Marc Andreessen is renowned for his insightful commentary on technology, business, and the future of innovation. His quotes are often regarded as pearls of wisdom in the tech world, offering invaluable insights into the ever-evolving landscape of technology and its impact on society. Whether discussing the potential of artificial intelligence, the dynamics of startup culture, or the future of the internet, Andreessen’s words carry weight and resonance for entrepreneurs, technologists, and enthusiasts alike. Explore below for a collection of thought-provoking Marc Andreessen quotes that encapsulate his vision for the future of technology and entrepreneurship.
Almost every dot-com idea from 1999 that failed will succeed. Marc Andreessen
At a certain point in your career – I mean, part of the answer is a personal answer, which is that at a certain point in your career, it becomes more satisfying to help entrepreneurs than to be one. Marc Andreessen
If you want to bring down the prices of healthcare and education, the answer will be more innovation, more technology, which will then have the effect of freaking everybody out and saying, ‘Oh, my God, you’re going to kill all the jobs.’ Marc Andreessen
People are so bad at driving cars that computers don’t have to be that good to be much better. Any time you stand in line at the D.M.V. and look around, you’re like, Oh, my God, I wish all these people were replaced by computer drivers. Marc Andreessen
We are single-mindedly focused on partnering with the best innovators pursuing the biggest markets. Marc Andreessen
Consumers are freeing up an enormous amount of time that they were spending with stereotypical old media, and clearly, that time is going primarily two places: videogames and online. Marc Andreessen
Adaptability is key. Marc Andreessen
China is very entrepreneurial but has no rule of law. Europe has rule of law but isn’t entrepreneurial. Combine rule of law, entrepreneurialism and a generally pro-business policy, and you have Apple. Marc Andreessen
Organizations spend hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars installing and implementing huge servers, new Web sites and applications. They have to continue to do that, but they also have to clean up the mess of the ’90s. Marc Andreessen
If I want to get work done, that’s usually about 3 in the morning. Marc Andreessen
The reality is the world is a really, really big place, and there’s a lot of people running around with a lot on their mind. And you really have to figure out how to build a company that can put on a message that can actually reach people and have an impact globally. Marc Andreessen
One of the big first computers was called SAGE, which was a missile defense, the first missile-defense computer, which was, like, one of the first computers in the history of the world which got sold to the Department of Defense for, I don’t know, tens and tens of millions of dollars at the time. Marc Andreessen
If the Net becomes the center of the universe, which is what seems to be happening, then the dizzying array of machines that will be plugged into it will virtually guarantee that the specifics of which chip and which operating system you’ve got will be irrelevant. Marc Andreessen
I have yet to take capital losses on any company. Then again, it’s still early. Marc Andreessen
Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not. Marc Andreessen
More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services – from movies to agriculture to national defense. Marc Andreessen
Innovation accelerates and compounds. Each point in front of you is bigger than anything that ever happened. Marc Andreessen
Google is working on self-driving cars, and they seem to work. People are so bad at driving cars that computers don’t have to be that good to be much better. Any time you stand in line at the DMV and look around, you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, I wish all these people were replaced by computer drivers.’ Marc Andreessen
These days, you have the option of staying home, blogging in your underwear, and not having your words mangled. I think I like the direction things are headed. Marc Andreessen
Any successful company in the valley gets acquisition offers and has to decide whether or not to take them. Marc Andreessen
It’s hard to do that with people who think emotionally. A lot of people think in terms of people, emotions, and feelings. That’s more complicated. Engineering mentality makes it, in theory, a little easier. Marc Andreessen
The big advantage that we have as a venture capital firm over a hedge fund or a mutual fund is we have a 13-year lockup on our money. And so enterprise can go in and out of fashion four different times, and we can go and invest in one of these companies, and it’s okay, because we can stay the course. Marc Andreessen
If we’re in a bubble, it’s the weirdest bubble I’ve ever seen, where everybody hates everything. Marc Andreessen
In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day. Marc Andreessen
We worked personally with a lot of great VCs. They just work incredibly hard at supporting entrepreneurs and their companies. Marc Andreessen
In short, software is eating the world. Marc Andreessen
Tech stocks are trading at a 30-year-low when compared to the multiples of industrials (companies). It’s the weirdest bubble when everyone hates everything. Marc Andreessen
Working for a big company is, I believe, much risker than it looks. Marc Andreessen
I’m really excited about anything that is able to address the really big markets, so anything that’s universally appealing. Marc Andreessen
No one should expect building a new high-growth, software-powered company in an established industry to be easy. It’s brutally difficult. Marc Andreessen
Where I grew up, we had the three TV networks, maybe two radio stations, no cable TV. We still had a long-distance party line in our neighborhood, so you could listen to all your neighbors’ phone calls. We had a very small public library, and the nearest bookstore was an hour away. Marc Andreessen
Ten to 20 years out, driving your car will be viewed as equivalently immoral as smoking cigarettes around other people is today. Marc Andreessen
Health care and education, in my view, are next up for fundamental software-based transformation. Marc Andreessen
I enjoy not being a public company. Marc Andreessen
Many of the best firms historically in venture capital have been multi-sector. Marc Andreessen
I need more raw experience. I’ve read and watched a lot of things, but I haven’t done a lot of things. Marc Andreessen
My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy. Marc Andreessen
There will be certain points of time when everything collides together and reaches critical mass around a new concept or a new thing that ends up being hugely relevant to a high percentage of people or businesses. But it’s really really hard to predict those. I don’t believe anyone can. Marc Andreessen
Every kid coming out of Harvard, every kid coming out of school now thinks he can be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and with these new technologies like cloud computing, he actually has a shot. Marc Andreessen
The days when a car aficionado could repair his or her own car are long past, due primarily to the high software content. Marc Andreessen
When I started Netscape I was brand new out of college and all the aspects of building a business, like balance sheets and hiring people, were new to me. Marc Andreessen
The Internet has always been, and always will be, a magic box. Marc Andreessen
There’s no such thing as median income; there’s a curve, and it really matters what side of the curve you’re on. There’s no such thing as the middle class. It’s absolutely vanishing. Marc Andreessen
Newspapers with declining circulations can complain all they want about their readers and even say they have no taste. But you will still go out of business over time. A newspaper is not a public trust – it has a business model that either works or it doesn’t. Marc Andreessen
So I came from an environment where I was starved for information, starved for connection. Marc Andreessen
There was a point in the late ’90s where all the graduating M.B.A.’s wanted to start companies in Silicon Valley, and for the most part they were not actually qualified to do it. Marc Andreessen
Today’s stock market actually hates technology, as shown by all-time low price/earnings ratios for major public technology companies. Marc Andreessen
In the startup world, you’re either a genius or an idiot. You’re never just an ordinary guy trying to get through the day. Marc Andreessen
Amazon drove Borders out of business, and the vast majority of Borders employees are not qualified to work at Amazon. That’s an actual, full-on problem. But should Amazon have been prevented from doing that? In my view, no. Marc Andreessen
Nokia and Research in Motion needed a modern operating system. They could have bought Palm or Android before Google did, but they didn’t. Today, it’s probably too late, and at the time they would have been criticized for overpaying, but as they say – shift happens. Marc Andreessen
The good news about building a company during times like this is that the companies that do succeed are going to be extremely strong and resilient. Marc Andreessen
There is a constant need for new systems and new software. Marc Andreessen
If you’re the village blacksmith and a model T comes along, you better become a mechanic. People’s lives are better when they get news online versus having to wait for the morning paper. It’s a lot more efficient, a lot more real time, a lot less waste. Marc Andreessen
Technology is like water; it wants to find its level. So if you hook up your computer to a billion other computers, it just makes sense that a tremendous share of the resources you want to use – not only text or media but processing power too – will be located remotely. Marc Andreessen
The joke about SAP has always been, it’s making ’50s German manufacturing methodology, implemented in 1960s software technology, delivered to 1970-style manufacturing organizations, like, it’s really – yeah, the incumbency – they are still the lingering hangover from the dot-com crash. Marc Andreessen
When you’re dealing with machines or anything that you build, it either works or it doesn’t, no matter how good of a salesman you are. Marc Andreessen
I’m quite bullish. We’re coming up on year 15 of a flat stock market. Historically that’s a pretty good sign. So I’m not a hedge-fund manager but if I was I think I’d be feeling pretty good. Marc Andreessen
I’ve been an entrepreneur three times. I started three companies. Marc Andreessen
I am bullish on the global development. I am bullish on billions of people getting out of poverty. Marc Andreessen
People tend to think of the web as a way to get information or perhaps as a place to carry out ecommerce. But really, the web is about accessing applications. Think of each website as an application, and every single click, every single interaction with that site, is an opportunity to be on the very latest version of that application. Marc Andreessen
Around ’93, ’94, the conventional wisdom about the Internet was that it was a toy for academics and researchers. So it was very, very underestimated for about two years. Marc Andreessen
Today’s leading real-world retailer, Wal-Mart, uses software to power its logistics and distribution capabilities, which it has used to crush its competition. Marc Andreessen
The advantage of the consumer businesses is they tend to be much broader-based, much larger number of customers, that tend to over time be a lot more predictable. The advantage of the enterprise companies is they are not as subject to consumer trend, fad, behavior. Marc Andreessen
The spread of computers and the Internet will put jobs in two categories. People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do. Marc Andreessen
The smartphone revolution is under-hyped, more people have access to phones than access to running water. We’ve never had anything like this before since the beginning of the planet. Marc Andreessen
I know where I’m putting my money. Marc Andreessen
An awful lot of successful technology companies ended up being in a slightly different market than they started out in. Marc Andreessen
I don’t like to not call a spade a spade. Marc Andreessen
Google is working on self-driving cars, and they seem to work. People are so bad at driving cars that computers don’t have to be that good to be much better. Marc Andreessen
I don’t waste time being depressed. Marc Andreessen
First of all, every new company today is being built in the face of massive economic headwinds, making the challenge far greater than it was in the relatively benign ’90s. Marc Andreessen
It’s really rare for people to have a successful start-up in this industry without a breakthrough product. I’ll take it a step further. It has to be a radical product. It has to be something where, when people look at it, at first they say, ‘I don’t get it, I don’t understand it. I think it’s too weird, I think it’s too unusual.’ Marc Andreessen
To bring out a new technology for consumers first, you just had a very long road to go down to try to find people who actually would pay money for something. Marc Andreessen
Our combination of great research universities, a pro-risk business culture, deep pools of innovation-seeking equity capital and reliable business and contract law is unprecedented and unparalleled in the world. Marc Andreessen
I love what the Valley does. I love company building. I love startups. I love technology companies. I love new technology. I love this process of invention. Being able to participate in that as a founder and a product creator, or as an investor or a board member, I just find that hugely satisfying. Marc Andreessen
I feel like I’m constantly falling behind. I feel like every day I’m out of the office I’m falling behind. Marc Andreessen
Great CEOs are not just born with shiny hair and a tie. Marc Andreessen
Companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming. Marc Andreessen
China should be another United States from an economic standpoint. Beijing should be another Silicon Valley. Marc Andreessen
We have never lived in a time with the opportunity to put a computer in the pocket of 5 billion people. Marc Andreessen
Once you understand that everybody’s going to get connected, a lot of things follow from that. If everybody gets the Internet, they end up with a browser, so they look at web pages – but they can also leave comments, create web pages. They can even host their own server! So not only is everybody consuming, they can also produce. Marc Andreessen
There’s always more demands than there’s time to meet them, so it’s constantly a matter of trying to balance them. Marc Andreessen
On the back end, software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries – without the need to invest in new infrastructure and train new employees. Marc Andreessen
A very large percentage of economic activity is shifting online and it makes sense that there are more services that are going to charge. It also means there are going to be more people willing to pay. Marc Andreessen
In 2000, when my partner Ben Horowitz was CEO of the first cloud computing company, Loudcloud, the cost of a customer running a basic Internet application was approximately $150,000 a month. Marc Andreessen
People tend to think of the web as a way to get information or perhaps as a place to carry out e-commerce. But really, the web is about accessing applications. Marc Andreessen
Aaron Sorkin was completely unable to understand the actual psychology of Mark or of Facebook. He can’t conceive of a world where social status or getting laid or, for that matter, doing drugs, is not the most important thing. Marc Andreessen
There is an enormous market demand for information. It just has to be fulfilled in a way that fits with the technology of our times. Marc Andreessen
It’s much harder these days as a start-up to do physical devices. Marc Andreessen
Whatever you’re selling, storage or networking or security, you’re going head to head with the incumbent players. Marc Andreessen
And once you get instantaneous communication with everybody, you have economic activity that’s far more advanced, far more liquid, far more distributed than ever before. Marc Andreessen
A lot of things you want to do as part of daily life can now be done over the Internet. Marc Andreessen
One of the advantages of moving quickly is if you do something wrong you can change it. What technologies tend to do is they tend to make a lot of mistakes… but then we go back and aggressively attack those mistakes – and fix them. And you usually recover pretty quickly. Marc Andreessen
I think 2012 is the year when consumers all around the world start saying no to feature phones and start saying yes to smartphones. Marc Andreessen
In high school, I actually thought I was going to have to learn Japanese to work in technology. My big feeling was I just missed it, I missed the whole thing. It had happened in the ’80s, and I got here too late. But then, I’m maybe the most optimistic person I know. I mean, I’m incredibly optimistic. Marc Andreessen
PCs don’t suck. They’re inadequate. Marc Andreessen
Jobs are critically important, but looking at economic change through the impact on jobs has always been a difficult way to think about economic progress. Marc Andreessen
I’ve been a customer of the top venture capital firms, so I know exactly what they do and don’t do. Marc Andreessen
Qualified software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople in Silicon Valley can rack up dozens of high-paying, high-upside job offers any time they want, while national unemployment and underemployment is sky high. Marc Andreessen
You are cruising along, and then technology changes. You have to adapt. Marc Andreessen
