Michael Calore: This is WIRED’s Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. I’m Michael Calore, Director of Consumer Tech and Culture here at Wired.
Zoë Schiffer: I’m Zoe Schiffer, WIRED’s director of Business and Industry.
Lauren Goode: I’m Lauren Goode. I’m a Senior Writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: Today, we’re talking about Marc Andreessen. He is one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists. He’s also the co-founder of the early web browser company Netscape and until not that long ago, he was a top democratic donor, but in recent years, Andreessen has fully changed his political stripes. These days, he is an advisor to the Trump administration and has been helping recruit people from Silicon Valley to bring ideas into Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. He’s even called himself the unpaid intern of DOGE.
Lauren Goode: How is he eating at night?
Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I feel like that’s such a thing that’s someone who’s never been an unpaid intern would say, like, “Ha, ha, ha.”
Michael Calore: Picture Andreessen eating a lot of ramen noodles, and I think you can get there. Now, Andreessen isn’t just somebody with a long and successful career in tech. He’s also a godfather-like figure in the industry who’s known for setting the tone for the culture in Silicon Valley. So, how does Andreessen end up making a sharp turn toward the right in his fifties? How did he go from formerly supporting the Clintons/Gore, Kerry/Obama, to being an essential part of Donald Trump’s transition back into the Oval Office? Zoe, let’s start this conversation with you. I want to ask you to tell us about Mark Andreessen’s worldview.
Zoë Schiffer: Happily, and I will just say that we’re going to slap a big “allegedly” onto every single comment that we make on this podcast, because in this here political climate, we should do that. Okay, so I want to start by telling you about something that Mark Andreessen calls the deal. Have either of you heard about this?
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Zoë Schiffer: Do you know what I’m talking about?
Lauren Goode: Enlighten us, please.
Zoë Schiffer: Okay, so the deal is a concept that Mark Andreessen has talked about on a number of podcasts, including Honestly with Bari Weiss Back in December.
Marc Andreessen [Archival audio]: The deal was somebody like me basically could start a company. You could invent a new technology, in this case, web browsers and all the other things that Netscape did. Everybody would think that that was great.
Zoë Schiffer: He says it’s basically an unspoken agreement wherein if you’re an entrepreneur and you make a company and that company does really, really well and you make a lot of money, and eventually you give all that money away, you are seen as an impressive figure in society and you enjoy a sterling reputation.
Marc Andreessen [Archival audio]: And then at the end of your career, you would be left with this giant pot of money, and then what you would do is donate it to philanthropy. That washes away all of your sins, reclassifies you as from a sort of suspect business mogul to a virtuous philanthropist, and that’s the arc, and it’s all great and wonderful.
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