On December 13, local time , billionaire Marc Andreessen, co-founder of venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, accepted an interview with Free Press reporter Bari Weiss, confirming that he was cooperating with the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) and in the interview Shared his feelings about working with US President-elect Trump.
Andreessen said that scientific and technological innovation is the cornerstone of U.S. economic prosperity and national security. It is crucial for the United States to maintain its leading position in science and technology. However, the policies of the current government (Biden administration) suppress scientific and technological innovation. Andreessen expressed appreciation for the science and technology policies of the Trump administration.
During the interview, Andreessen said that he was a "unpaid volunteer" for DOGE and said that DOGE had two main goals: cutting expenses and reducing supervision.
Andreessen also said that since the election, he has spent "probably half the time" at Mar-a-Lago and participated in some interviews with cabinet officials. His contributions have mainly focused on the following areas: technology policy, business, Economy and national health. But he also said:
"I'm not saying I'm involved in every decision, but I'm always trying to help in as many ways as I can."
In response to a question about whether talent might be hesitant to join the Trump administration because of the controversies of his last term, Andreessen said he has observed the opposite trend:
"I think the flow of qualified talent from outside the system is actually stronger now."
The core ideas are as follows:
- The current government (Biden administration) lacks understanding of the technology industry and is too conservative and even hostile in formulating policies; while the Trump administration is supportive of technological innovation and is more friendly to the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industries.
- Under the Biden administration, the United States is in a state of "soft authoritarianism" in which the government controls society through strict censorship and "de-banking" (closing the bank accounts of certain individuals or businesses based on political affiliation). He worries about this kind of state power and believes the next government should legislate to protect citizens from such behavior.
- The traditional elite originally had a set of "agreement", which was to pursue wealth in the business field and donate the wealth to charities after retirement, in order to wash away their "original sins" and gain social recognition. But in recent years, this "agreement" has been broken, and the traditional elite has lost its social status and voice.
- The original elite composed of business oligarchs and the media has become corrupt and is being replaced by a "new anti-elite" force, and Trump's election is a manifestation of this trend. Andreessen himself is both a "renegade" member of the traditional elite and a representative of the emerging "counter-elite" forces.
- There will always be "servitors" around the center of power, which is inevitable. But he believes that the core figures of the emerging "anti-elite" forces, such as Elon Musk, can maintain independent thinking and avoid making the same mistakes.
- Andreessen supports a comprehensive review of government spending and regulation to improve efficiency and reduce waste.
- The tech industry is politically divided, with founders of big companies leaning to the left and founders of startups leaning more to the right. But generally left-wing ideas dominate, especially in consumer-facing areas.
- Government investment and support are crucial to technological development, but the government should also avoid excessive intervention and let the market play its role.
- Artificial intelligence is the key to future development, but Andreessen also worries that artificial intelligence may become a tool of government control and censorship in the future.
- Technological progress will inevitably change social structure and power distribution, but humans also need to think about the ethical and social issues brought about by technological development.
The following is the transcript of the interview:
Weiss: Andreessen, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the show. I have to say, I've never seen you look more energetic in public than you do now in the last four weeks, and I think it's because Donald Trump won the election.
I think everyone listening wants to know, what fundamental meaning does Trump's victory have to you and to the United States?
The trend shift behind Trump’s election win
Andreessen: The first thing I'll say is, it's morning in America, so I'm definitely happy. The first thing to say is, it's not just because of Trump, but his victory is certainly part of it, and I think there are two other things besides that.
First, there was a dramatic "rightward turn" in this election. Including places like California and San Francisco (strong Democratic ticket bases), many areas have "turned red" this time. The second biggest change is the youth vote, they are changing.
I would say that these changes have transcended political parties, because the past decade has been an "emotionally dark" period, and you have written a lot of similar reports. The industries represented by Silicon Valley have been suppressed by soft authoritarianism, which has had an impact on the entire industry. There are real negative impacts on the nation and the world’s tech industry.
So I think it's important that there's a whole generation of young people changing, and I'm in the venture capital business, so I get all these breakdowns from people in different industries about what's changing.
Now, there are a lot of small changes that are bringing hope: people can now write a book they never thought would actually be published; comedians can start telling jokes they couldn't tell before... These little sparks are burning everywhere, and people It's basically poking its head out of the frozen tundra of culture, and people are starting to smile, play, and have fun. It's actually a matter of pride for the country.
Weiss: There are a lot of people around you, and I think the most obvious one is Elon Musk, who reiterated over and over again in the weeks leading up to the election that if Donald Trump doesn't win the election, if the right doesn't come to power, this will be the last time America election. Do you agree?
Andreessen: I don’t know to be honest, maybe I have a little more confidence in the system.
I don’t think the world we’re in now is going to change suddenly. You know, there are these incredible times all over history, and I don't think that's the world we live in.
For example, people are always ready to take to the streets to kill. This can be found in the United States, in Western and Eastern history. Now, the battlefield will shift online. This is a virtual cold war rather than a physical hot war. Like people beating each other up on X or Facebook to vent their anger.
Look, that's why I say it's kind of like soft authoritarianism, we don't live in a world where there are thugs, but if we live in a world where if you speak inappropriately, you're completely wiped out reputationally and financially, you Friends and family will lose you too.
This is a very tense situation. American politics and culture will continue to be intense, a soft form of authoritarianism and repression rather than a dramatic physical historical breakpoint. I don't think there's any new meat on the bones of this soft authoritarianism, soft totalitarianism that you're describing.
Weiss: Why is this worldview so popular, and why has it been so widespread and effective in conquering so many territories and institutions?
Andreessen: I think there are two reasons. One is a basic impulse, you might say political cultural left, which is basic, by the way, society is inherently unfair and unequal.
Another reason is that it's kind of like a circle of power. Just like if you have the power to destroy a person, you can say he is a racist, sexist, or accuse him of any number of other thought crimes. What we can be sure of is that power corrupts.
This is the worldview that I have observed, and the worldview that we describe operates in an authoritarian manner. I saw the impact it had on me and my loved ones. For me, I want to stay as far away from that as possible.
That's why we have the middle tier of Congress and the Senate, because every experiment in direct democracy in the history of the world has ended in disaster, and any form of democracy will have an elite running it.
This will be a structural reality. This elite in power is either good, beneficial, and has the best interests of the people in mind, or they are just pretending that they were just randomly voted in and that the people are in power is a myth.
Anyway, are we living in an American democracy or an oligarchy? We have always lived in an oligarchy. Every society in history has been an oligarchy of some kind.
Under that premise, the election on November 5th is something of a vote by the American public, or at least a huge pushback against the old elites, the old guard, the old oligarchy, and maybe the introduction of a new oligarchy.
Weiss: You supported Clinton in 1996, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, Obama in 2008, Hillary in 2016, and Donald Trump in this election. Trump.
Do you represent a shift: someone who sees the corruption of the old elite and decides to convert into a new counter-elite?
Andreessen: Yes. Politically, socially, and culturally, I am a child of the 1990s. For tech founders like me, being educated at an American university benefits from everything from federal research funding to student loan programs and has the opportunity to start a successful tech company.
Basically someone like me could start a company, make money and pay taxes through extensive journalism. And then at the end of your career, you're left with a bunch of money, and you give it to charity. This washes away all your sins and you transform from a dubious business tycoon into an ethical philanthropist.
And then you get invited to all the wonderful parties, you go to the World Economic Forum, you get honorary degrees from all the universities, you sit on the New York Times editorial board.
Basically everything I say here, over the past decade, is now considered relatively evil. Some people are more likely to achieve greater economic outcomes than others, which is inherently evil. Tech companies are considered presumptively evil, techies are considered the evil class, and anyone with wealth is considered evil as well.
Over the past few years, there have been a lot of people who feel they can't take a risk, for the sake of their company, their financial interests, their reputational interests, or even for their children to get into the right schools, and they feel they can't risk public support in society. Trump, but they feel either professional Trump or disillusioned enough that they won't vote for Kamala.
However, on July 13, the day Trump was shot, I learned privately from WhatsApp groups and Signal groups that they were curious about Trump, but publicly they behaved completely differently. Suddenly, we were retweeting the iconic image of Trump with blood on his ears and a raised fist.
So I think even within the elite, most people don't have these super strong specific views. If the dynamics of society as a whole are moving in one direction, then following it is the most natural thing in the world. Then when that preference loosens, it may correlate strongly in the other direction.
Going back to the Trump assassination, it was very difficult for a man to see someone shot in the head, bleeding, and unaware of the seriousness of the injury. And that typical photo is amazing, it happens to have three colors: red, white, and blue, with the American flag behind it. At that point, we knew he was going to get more support.
Another important thing is that Musk stood up and said that I support him. That was an important moment for the entire industry.
The current government’s suppression of the technology industry is the main reason why Andreessen supports Trump.
Andreessen: The Biden administration is really bad, they despise the American tech industry and want to do whatever they can to destroy it as much as possible.
The current administration has the unenforceable binary of a seemingly reasonable, moderate, centrist, thoughtful president and a pillar of the old democratic establishment. They specifically targeted us in three areas that led us to support Trump.
One is cryptocurrency and they just declared war and tried to kill the entire industry and push it overseas. The second one is AI, and earlier this year I was very scared that they were going to treat AI like cryptocurrencies. And then the third one seems like an esoteric topic, but I think it's very important, which is the concept of capital gains tax that hasn't been implemented yet. Taxing private companies means essentially destroying the ability of small businesses to own homes and tech startups, through this change in the tax structure known as unrealized capital gains.
We just went through the cryptocurrency war where we were passive for four years. This is incredibly cruel, incredibly destructive artificial intelligence. A group of us had a meeting in Washington in May to discuss this issue, and it was so horrific that we basically decided we had to support Trump.
They're actually telling us directly, don't start a business, don't do an AI start-up, don't fund an AI start-up. We don't allow this to happen. They're basically saying that artificial intelligence is going to be a game between two or three big companies working closely with the government, and we're basically going to wrap them in a government cocoon. We want to protect them from competition, we want to control them, we want to dominate them.
And then I thought, I don't understand how you can seal it off so tightly, because the principles of artificial intelligence are out there, everywhere. They say that during the Cold War, we pigeonholed all areas of physics and removed them from research areas, like entire branches of physics were basically plunged into darkness and could no longer be studied. If we decide to do this, we will do the same thing with mathematics for artificial intelligence. I said, I just learned two very important things, because I didn't know the former existed, and I didn't know you would do the same thing for the latter. So they basically said, we're going to find out, we're going to take full control of the whole thing.
Weiss: What specific points are there?
Andreessen: This is divided into several levels. I will try my best to "steal the concept."
One, if you think of artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons as new things that determine the outcome of a war, then these things are relevant to the military, and they are. So you can make an analogy, during the Cold War, that was nuclear energy, that was the atomic bomb, and the federal government wouldn't let startups build the atomic bomb, right? According to them, their level of secrecy reaches the level of mathematics, and they tightly control everything. This largely determines the shape of the world.
The second part is the social control aspect, and the trial that we've had with social media on how artificial intelligence is fundamentally being weaponized and how governments have become entangled with social media censorship over the last decade. One of the real scandals. These people have been using social media trials against their political enemies. These people have been debanking their political enemies. They basically, I think they want to do it, they want to use AI in the same way.
The third is, I think this generation of Democrats, under the Biden White House, they've become very anti-capitalist and they want to go back to a more centralized, controlled, planned economy. You see this in many aspects of their policies. But frankly, I don't think they see the idea of a significant role outside the system being high on their priority list. They generally believe that corporations are bad, capitalism is bad, and entrepreneurs are bad. They said it a thousand different ways. , they demonize entrepreneurs as much as possible, proposing tax policies that will only undermine the process of building private companies and undermine venture capital.
I will say that I'm cautiously optimistic that smart moderate Democrats will realize that these are unnecessary fights. There seems to be no reason to take this approach. It has nothing to do with the party's historical foundation, or what people think they are voting for, or its ability to care for the poor, or its ability to have progressive social policies. It's like extreme anti-business, anti-tech hostility, and they should let it go, reestablish historically close ties, and move on. I hope they come to the right conclusion.
One of the things the Biden administration has done is they've aggressively gone after Google, Amazon, and Meta on these antitrust laws. Across the political spectrum, there is growing dissatisfaction with so-called Big Tech.
Weiss: Incoming Vice President Vance supports a massive tech antitrust crackdown. Which of his points do you agree or disagree with? In other words, where do we control these big tech companies and protect consumers? In your opinion, where is this excessive?
Andreessen: So we differentiate between what we call big tech and what we call small tech. Big tech companies have been successful and have a level of market power, at least people accuse them of being terrible monopolies, meaning very big market power, and that's what big tech is. And if you're a big tech company, you're a household name.
And then let's define what we call small technologies and small technologies for startups, right? Therefore, the new company has the desire to become a big company. It has an interesting life cycle, where all small companies want to be big companies, right? What is the goal of small technology? It's going to be a big tech company, right?
So there's this cycle, and this is how the tech industry has been for 80 years, you have the existing banking tech companies, and then you have these small tech startups. Most people fail, but when they succeed, they become big tech companies. Basically the cycle repeats. The role of venture capital firms is to fund each new generation of small tech companies, right? So you end up, basically what we end up doing, like most of our day jobs, is funding companies that are trying to grow, to take out the existing big tech companies and replace them.
I would say that over the last decade, both sides of the political spectrum have really decided that they really hate big tech, but I would say, in many ways, for diametrically opposed reasons. So there are several reasons why the left hates Big Tech. First, they simply hate capitalism, hate corporations, and hate external economic success. And then to the extent that they blame technology for the oblivion of Trump’s election, they blame technology for fueling the rise of populist right-wing politics.
This has played out in many ways over the past 10 years. But if we didn't have these big tech companies, these big social networks, we wouldn't have Trump. And, you know, therefore, these are considered evil.
Frankly, I think it has to do with electoral politics, which is that the union vote has really started to shift. So I think there are some people on the right who believe that if they work harder at the big companies, they'll be able to get more union votes, and by the way, that's probably true. It's like a new shade.
But I think a lot of it is anger at big tech and anger at censorship and debanking.
Weiss: Let me ask you one more question about the relationship between government and technology. The government invested in the original Internet, which built your career. They fund GPS, they provide loans to Tesla to keep Tesla afloat, they fund the California public university system, which essentially provides you with employees and founders to invest in, so to speak. They kind of build or at least cultivate the soil and create a very rich environment that allows all these companies to grow. But now many people turn around and say: The government is out.
How do you respond to this criticism?
Andreessen: In this view, the government created the seedbed for those companies and the overall success of the American experiment, and the whole complex of government and private action made America successful.
However, when these companies get too big and out of control, no matter what, there are going to be problems. But in general, the success of American industry, the success of American business, and the success of American technology are seen by both sides as beneficial to the United States. This is a very sharp new anti-capitalist phenomenon.
About what the new administration will do. There's a controversy online, and a lot of people in the first Trump administration told me that they experienced this themselves, so after the first Trump administration, they couldn't get various insurances or home loans or other things, and then This has happened to many of their friends and allies over the past decade. I would say, number one, discovering what's actually going on, what's going on in the shadows of Washington is always not easy to see from the outside, but they can now be discovered. And then number two, if they think there's a case, they certainly have the ability to litigate.
Andreessen plays a "volunteer" role in the new government
Weiss: Speaking of the next administration and administration, some people are reporting that you are considering running.
Andreessen: I am an unpaid volunteer and an unpaid intern with the new Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE).
Weiss: What do you think it will do?
Andreessen: Basically there are two important parts. One is that they will conduct a comprehensive review of government spending and cut costs where possible. They have a whole theory and strategy for this. And then related to that, they're going to do the same thing with regulations. So they're basically going to do a top-down review of regulation, what we call the regulatory state and the connective tissue that they don't talk about in public, which I think is actually very important.
By law, the president must spend every dollar allocated by Congress, regardless of whether he thinks it's a good idea. But the Constitution doesn't actually say that. The Constitution says the president needs to get money from Congress, it doesn't say he has to spend it. So it's kind of a constitutional issue. It's like we've been living under a regime where a lot of things that are taken for granted may not be constitutional. So, that's one of the things that I'm sure will be looked at.
Weiss: Just because you're great in one area, doesn't mean you're great in another. You know, like me, some of the people I'm thinking of right now, who are obviously very good at technology and entrepreneurship, have some of the stupidest ideas about foreign policy that I've ever heard in my life. What makes you believe this is the right role for these two men and their various unpaid interns?
Andreessen: Of course. I think the first question is how good do you think the experts are?
Weiss: Very bad.
Andreessen: Yes. So, I think the American people would agree with that. Yes, exactly. So if you can't rely on the expert class to do good things, to have good judgment or to run these things, I think it's pretty obvious by now that you can't like that.
Weiss: You can agree that experts are bad, but believe you still need experts. In other words, I think the current elite is terrible, but I would still be skeptical of anti-elites. Don't you agree?
Andreessen: Obviously the overall point is correct. Obviously, this will always be a matter of concern. You could even say it’s not about different types of experts. It's just that these are complex systems with huge implications for decision-making.
This is the structure of government we have today. The government we have today was established in the 1930s, and Roosevelt, like, revolutionized government. It's like a little slice of the 1920s. A small part of what it became. That is a discontinuous step function. If you remember what Roosevelt did, which was widely praised and felt at the time, he called on basically every bright young man in the country to put their hands up and become volunteers.
But I think there's an argument to be made that just like you want Elon Musk to pick up a rocket with chopsticks, you want him to build an electric car. So he concluded that he had to do it. I would say that Elon was involved in this long before he was formally involved in any political matters. Elon has been an important part of the national defense system and our allied defense system.
Weiss: I want to go back briefly to what you mentioned about having dinner with Trump a few days before he was shot, before you supported him, and you said it was a wonderful dinner. Tell us what you heard there that made you feel comforted, even excited and enthusiastic, and, have you been to Lakeside Estates since the election?
Andreessen: I've been there almost half the time since the election. I state the following that I am not at the center of all decisions but help in as many ways as possible. So, I want to start by saying, as we discussed, Trump evokes a lot of emotion in a lot of people, and they have very strong views. I'm not Mr. Foreign Policy, Mr. Abortion Policy, Mr. Gun Policy. My views revolve around technology policy, business economics, the health of the country, the success of the country.
He (Trump) is an incredible owner of the estate, no matter what people think, he is an incredible owner, you know, he runs his own private world. We had a great time. He loved being surrounded by his friends, family, grandchildren and members of various clubs and it was also a very interesting way to observe him at work, he treated everyone equally and talked to everyone. I think that was one of his really underappreciated strengths that people didn't realize for a long time was that he would happily talk to visitors about, like, you know, who the vice president should be, and then he would Asking questions like he actually talks to regular people all the time. He has a lot of stories on the campaign trail, like spending a lot of time with the police and everywhere he went and so on.
His view of us was basically: I don't know much about technology, but I don't need to because you guys know a lot. You should be building tech companies. You are the American tech company that should win. American technology companies should be the winners. We should defeat China. We should export. We should make products that the world wants.
Weiss : You spend half your time in or around Lakeland Estates, what types of meetings do you attend, participate in, or assist with?
Andreessen: I was involved in the interview process for a number of officials, and many of the people I met were of very high caliber. A lot of jobs have gone down in the last two weeks, you know, next level employees, I think are very impressive people. I think the flow of talent seems to be very strong.
Weiss: There is this general concern that everyone who is qualified is wary of working for Trump?
Andreessen: I think the opposite is happening, I think the influx of qualified talent from outside the system is actually much stronger now. This is all in preparation for the actual inauguration on January 20th. So we still have a long way to go, but they will certainly move quickly on Inauguration Day.
AI may become a “supervisory machine” throughout all systems
Weiss: One of the things I've been wanting to ask you about is this war on AI regulation.
Andreessen: I think what's happening is that social media has followed the arc that I described from 2013 to today, becoming a censorship machine. The AI has gone into a hyper-accelerated version of that arc. It basically happens in front. It will take time for social media to become a censorship machine. It's happened to AI from the beginning. They're going to happen with AI from the beginning because AI companies learned from the experience of social media companies and they just said, well, if we're going to end up building a censorship machine in ten years, we might as well do it earlier.
My concern, and this goes back to censorship and political control of AI, is a thousand times more dangerous than censorship and political control of social media. Social media censorship and political control are very dangerous. But at least it only happens when people are talking and interacting with each other. And the thing with AI is, I think AI is going to be the control layer for everything in the future, so I think AI is going to be the control layer for how the health care system operates. I think it's going to be the control layer for how education systems operate, it's going to be the control layer for government operations, so in the future, when you're dealing with a health care system or an education system or a government, you're going to be dealing with an AI.
This goes directly to Elan's argument, which is the core of the argument, that all you have to do is train the AI. Like if you wanted to create the ultimate dystopian world, you would have a world where everything is controlled by an AI that is programmed to lie.
To put it bluntly, technology can change society, and this goes back to the invention of fire and everything that follows. This has a long history and many great books have been written about it. Technology simultaneously rearranges power and status in society; it changes the way society functions. It always does, changing the way things are done, changing society.
