www-theverge-com-qbbp8t.txt (32638B)
1 [1]Skip to main content 2 [2]The Verge logo.[3]The Verge homepage 3 4 • [4]The Verge homepageThe Verge logo./ 5 • [5]Tech/ 6 • [6]Reviews/ 7 • [7]Science/ 8 • [8]Entertainment/ 9 • [9]AI/ 10 • MoreMenu 11 12 [11]The Verge logo. 13 Menu 14 15 • [13]Business 16 17 The moral bankruptcy of Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz 18 19 Two of Silicon Valley’s famous venture capitalists make the case for backing 20 Trump: that their ability to make money is the only value that matters. 21 22 By [14]Elizabeth Lopatto, a reporter who writes about tech, money, and human 23 behavior. She joined The Verge in 2014 as science editor. Previously, she was a 24 reporter at Bloomberg. 25 26 Jul 24, 2024, 12:00 PM UTC 27 28 Share this story 29 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 34 If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. [19] 35 See our ethics statement. 36 37 3D illustration of a red elephant surrounded by wireframe dollar signs. 38 In venture capital, you are what you fund. Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge 39 3D illustration of a red elephant surrounded by wireframe dollar signs. 40 In venture capital, you are what you fund. Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge 41 42 Last week, the founders of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz declared 43 their allegiance to Donald Trump in their customary fashion: talking about 44 money on a podcast. 45 46 “Sorry, Mom,” Ben Horowitz says in an episode of The Ben & Marc Show. “I know 47 you’re going to be mad at me for this. But, like, we have to do it.” 48 49 Marc Andreessen and Horowitz insist they voted for Democrats until now. They 50 are friends with liberals. They claim to be nervous about the social blowback 51 they will receive for this, especially because of the historically progressive 52 nature of the tech industry and the Bay Area. 53 54 “It doesn’t have anything to do with the big issues that people care about.” 55 56 But given the general movement among their class toward Trump, I think those 57 claims about being nervous are overblown, if not performative. There is, for 58 instance, Elon Musk’s [20]pro-Trump super PAC, which has support from Sequoia 59 Capital’s Shaun Maguire and 8VC’s Joe Lonsdale, among other notables. (The Wall 60 Street Journal reported Musk is planning to [21]donate $45 million a month, 61 which Musk has denied.) There’s the [22]$160 million the crypto movement has 62 put forward in support of crypto-friendly candidates. We can’t forget their VC 63 pal [23]David Sacks speaking at the Republican National Convention. And last 64 but not least, there’s Trump’s running mate choice of JD Vance, [24]a former 65 venture capitalist whose firm’s investors included Peter Thiel, Eric Schmidt, 66 and Andreessen himself. 67 68 This isn’t a movement. It’s a clique. 69 70 The podcast itself is an extraordinary performance. At one point, Andreessen 71 concedes that their major problems with President Joe Biden — the ones that led 72 them to support Trump — are what most voters would consider “subsidiary” 73 issues. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the big issues that people care 74 about,” he says. If we take this podcast at face value, we are to believe that 75 these subsidiary issues are the only reason they’ve chosen to endorse and 76 donate to Trump. 77 78 These subsidiary issues take precedence for Andreessen and Horowitz over, say, 79 mass deportations and [25]Project 2025’s attempt to end no-fault divorce. We 80 are looking at a simple trade against personal liberty — abortion, the rights 81 of gay and trans people, and [26]possibly democracy itself — in favor of 82 crypto, AI, and a tax policy they like better. 83 84 For Horowitz, “probably the most emotional topic” is crypto — [27]a16z started 85 a $4.5 billion crypto fund in 2022, and the pair believe that the Biden 86 administration has been deeply unfair to crypto. In Horowitz’s view, the Biden 87 administration “basically subverted the rule of law to attack the crypto 88 industry.” 89 90 “We’re the largest crypto investors or largest blockchain investors in the 91 world.” 92 93 [28]Certainly much of the crypto industry prefers Trump. But it seems obvious 94 that there has been a lot of [29]intra-agency squabbling as Congress dithered 95 on passing any laws. To place the blame squarely on Biden is bizarre, 96 particularly when we have Trump’s chaotic previous term as guidance. Sure, 97 Trump is no longer saying Bitcoin is “[30]a scam against the dollar,” as he did 98 in 2021; he is scheduled to speak at the Bitcoin conference this year. But his 99 record in office is not exactly pro-crypto. During the Trump administration, 100 financial regulator FinCEN initially asked the public to provide comments on a 101 crypto rule change [31]over a 15-day period that included Christmas Eve, 102 Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day, which effectively shortened 103 the comment window by four working days. There is also the Ripple Labs 104 enforcement case, [32]in which the SEC is seeking a $1.95 billion fine; it, 105 too, dates to the Trump administration. 106 107 The pair’s complaints about Gary Gensler, the current head of the Securities 108 and Exchange Commission, are striking. They are particularly annoyed that he 109 won’t pay attention to them. “We’re the largest crypto investors or largest 110 blockchain investors in the world, and we’ve requested meetings with him at 111 least a half a dozen times,” Horowitz says. Gensler has not met with them. 112 Neither, they say, has Senator Elizabeth Warren or Biden himself. 113 114 In fact, Andreessen makes it clear that he expects presidential attention, 115 something he’s been getting since he was 23. Given the number of times 116 Andreessen and Horowitz make references to various meetings with various 117 politicians, it’s easy to get the impression that they are mostly insulted that 118 they are being treated like ordinary constituents. 119 120 From crypto, we move to AI, which Andreessen and Horowitz don’t think is being 121 regulated correctly either. According to Horowitz, AI is as powerful as, or 122 more powerful than, the internet and the global computer industry from the 123 1950s on. “This may be the biggest technological boom of all time,” Andreessen 124 says. 125 126 These regulations have little to do with technology and a lot to do with 127 old-fashioned lying 128 129 Andreessen says in his newsletter-cum-manifesto, “[33]The Little Tech Agenda 130 ,” that he is worried that AI will face similar scrutiny to crypto. The FTC has 131 [34]issued guidance to the AI industry that indicated it will pursue companies 132 that exaggerate what their AI can do, say they are using AI when they are not, 133 and recklessly put products on the market without properly analyzing the risks. 134 Meanwhile, [35]the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has told lenders that 135 they must supply a reason for a credit denial that’s better than just “[36] 136 computer says no” when using AI models. These regulations have little to do 137 with technology and a lot to do with old-fashioned lying. 138 139 In the podcast, Andreessen and Horowitz single out [37]Biden’s executive order 140 about artificial intelligence. The order requires companies to disclose the 141 presence of very large models, as well as to provide the government information 142 about what the plans are for the model, what cybersecurity measures are taken 143 to protect those models, and the results of red-team testing for sensitive 144 subjects, among other things. This is in keeping with Horowitz’s assertion 145 about the seriousness of the technology. 146 147 So what’s the problem? The two focus on computing power. The disclosure 148 requirements apply to “any model that was trained using a quantity of computing 149 power greater than 10^26 integer or floating-point operations, or using 150 primarily biological sequence data and using a quantity of computing power 151 greater than 10^23 integer or floating-point operations.” Andreessen and 152 Horowitz think specifying such a limit is ridiculous. Little tech “will be 153 snuffed out by this kind of regulation,” Horowitz says. 154 155 It is perhaps worth noting that nothing above the size specified in the 156 executive order — the size Andreessen and Horowitz object to — [38]even exists 157 yet, according to Arati Prabhakar, Biden’s top tech advisor. 158 159 The irony is so obvious it’s almost embarrassing to point it out 160 161 The fundamental complaint here is that these two believe that the Biden 162 administration’s approach to AI “enshrine[s] the two or three companies that 163 they believe are the only companies that matter as sort of permanent 164 monopolies,” Andreessen says. “And they’re going to just basically destroy the 165 startup ecosystem underneath that.” [39]Andreessen Horowitz is, of course, 166 invested in that ecosystem, having earmarked $2.25 billion for AI applications 167 and infrastructure. 168 169 The anti-monopoly rhetoric is in keeping with a16z’s latest marketing push. 170 According to Andreessen’s newsletter, startups are threatened by the 171 government, which is “now far more hostile to new startups than it used to be.” 172 Besides his objections to the way the SEC has increased its oversight of 173 crypto, he is also upset that a stepped-up interest in antitrust has made it 174 more difficult for him to exit investments. “Regulatory agencies are punitively 175 blocking startups from being acquired by the same big companies the government 176 is preferencing in so many other ways,” Andreessen writes. After all, the 177 Federal Trade Commission [40]has launched an inquiry into Big Tech’s 178 partnerships and investments with startups — with the goal of seeing if those 179 partnerships squash competition. 180 181 The irony is so obvious it’s almost embarrassing to point it out. Andreessen 182 says he is upset that Big Tech is too powerful, but he opposes antitrust action 183 because that blocks a route for VCs to exit. Either you’re comfortable with Big 184 Tech getting bigger, in which case acquisitions are fine, or you want little 185 tech to be competitive, which means blocking industry consolidation. Mainly, it 186 seems that Andreessen believes in cashing out. 187 188 In the podcast, Andreessen and Horowitz pointedly name Google as a threat to 189 startups. “Google, I think we would all agree, is more powerful than probably 190 95 percent of countries in the world,” Horowitz says at one point. Google, 191 specifically, is a sore spot with the right wing. Vice presidential nominee 192 [41]Vance has already said it should be broken up. Vance believes Google is 193 controlling information and [42]skewing too far left. Of course, Google’s 194 moderation policies don’t just apply to Google News — they also affect YouTube, 195 which hosts a great many right-wing podcasts without issue. 196 197 Tax reform was “the final straw for me, the thing that tipped me hard.” 198 199 It’s unclear how seriously to take Andreessen and Horowitz’s complaints about 200 Big Tech because the complaints don’t quite square with their behavior. For 201 instance, Facebook is similarly powerful and influential, especially in AI. 202 [43]Andreessen sits on its board. A16z is invested in OpenAI, which has a 203 partnership with Microsoft — and both have lobbied strenuously for more 204 regulation around AI. It sure seems like if a16z wants to change things at 205 those big companies, someone could simply pick up the phone. 206 207 At this point in the podcast, you could squint and say maybe the concern about 208 AI and crypto is really about technology and progress. But from those two 209 topics, we move on to classic rich guy shit of the most tedious kind: [44]tax 210 reform. Andreessen says it was “the final straw for me. This is the thing that 211 tipped me hard.” They are upset about a proposal to alter capital gains taxes. 212 213 Capital gains are paid on investment assets, and they are typically paid when 214 the investment is sold and the gains are, in industry terms, “realized.” The 215 [45]new Biden treasury proposal means that for people whose wealth is worth 216 more than $100 million, any unrealized capital gains will be taxed, too. This 217 is what has Andreessen and Horowitz in a tizzy. It means that if they own a 218 clutch of highly valued startup shares, they will have to pay taxes on them 219 before they cash out. This is a “very scary proposal,” Horowitz says. 220 221 Startups are illiquid assets, Andreessen points out. “Startups never go up and 222 down. They’re never overvalued,” says Horowtiz, dryly. “There’s no bubbles.” 223 Andreessen notes that the way the value of a startup is calculated for the 224 purposes of this proposed tax has to do with the latest round’s valuation. 225 226 “Presto chango, we’re Argentina!” 227 228 Historically, one of the ways that [46]Andreessen Horowitz has approached 229 startup investing is to inflate a company’s valuation; it is “[47]the OG when 230 it comes to doling out speculative startup valuations.” The new proposed tax 231 punishes this kind of behavior — a high valuation means a high tax. “This makes 232 startups completely implausible,” says Andreessen. “Venture capital just ends. 233 Firms like ours don’t exist.” 234 235 This is followed by [48]an anxiety spiral that is sort of difficult to convey 236 in text; I suggest you listen for yourself. “California is done,” says 237 Andreessen. “It’s total destruction.” The taxes won’t just target the wealthy; 238 they’ll come for everyone. “Once the structure gets established, the 239 politicians do what they do: they’ll walk the numbers up,” Andreessen says. 240 “Presto chango, we’re Argentina!” says Horowitz. 241 242 Finally, Horowitz gets [49]ahold of himself. “By the way, this one probably 243 won’t get all the way through the system,” he says. “But it might!” 244 245 There is another issue that might cause wreckage throughout Silicon Valley. It 246 is immigration. An awful lot of immigrants comprise Silicon Valley’s talent 247 pool — a huge swath of engineers in the US [50]are on H-1B visas. The Trump / 248 Vance ticket is virulently anti-immigrant. 249 250 “The crypto industry is uniquely international, and so immigration law is 251 crypto law.” 252 253 The current CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and IBM are all immigrants. So 254 are Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are involved in 255 Fwd.us, a lobbying group dedicated to immigration reform that Musk and Sacks 256 both left. If there were an issue that would rally the people who care most 257 about progress, innovation, and talent, you’d think protecting the immigrants 258 who’ve built lives and careers in tech would be it. 259 260 Stopping immigration is a core issue of the Trump campaign. During the 261 Republican National Convention, delegates held up signs saying “[51]Mass 262 Deportation Now.” Trump [52]has called the H-1B, the visa many tech workers use 263 to come to Silicon Valley, “very bad” and “unfair” to US workers. In his 264 previous term, he targeted H-1B visa applications specifically; in the fiscal 265 year 2018, almost 25 percent of applications were denied, up from about 13 266 percent the year before. In fiscal year 2019, 20 percent of H-1B applications 267 were denied. The denials plummeted after several Trump administration rules 268 were thrown out by courts; the denial rate in 2022 was just 2 percent. 269 270 Immigration plainly matters for crypto — as [53]Ethereum founder Vitalik 271 Buterin says, “The crypto industry is uniquely international, and so 272 immigration law is crypto law.” Buterin is one of the most influential voices 273 in crypto, and Ethereum is the foundation for a swath of Andreessen Horowitz’s 274 investment portfolio. Among the investments that rely on it are MakerDAO, 275 VeeFriends, Dapper Labs, and EigenLayer. It is remarkable that the founder of 276 Ethereum is saying that voting for Trump is against the crypto ethos, and the 277 big crypto investors are doing it anyway. 278 279 The word “immigration” is only mentioned by Andreessen and Horowitz in the 280 podcast when they discuss the rally in which someone attempted an 281 assassination: Trump had turned his head to look at a chart that [54]purported 282 to show illegal immigration into the US as the bullet whizzed by. I wondered 283 why such an important issue for tech wasn’t addressed, so I emailed Margit 284 Wennmachers, a16z’s PR guru, to ask. She didn’t reply. 285 286 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 287 288 After I finished listening to the podcast, a few things kept nagging at me. 289 Take the very beginning of the podcast. Once upon a time, Andreessen says, you 290 could get very rich and then give the money away in philanthropy, “and you get 291 enormous credit for that. And, you know, it absolves you of whatever.” 292 293 At some point in the last 10 years, some people suggested that maybe rich 294 people should pay more taxes instead of giving their money away — that perhaps 295 the whims of some random rich person are not the best way to support the most 296 vulnerable in our society. Andreessen and Horowitz suggest that this critique 297 of philanthropy is simply jealousy. It also unbalanced “the deal.” 298 299 “The deal,” as described on the podcast, is vague. To my ear, it sounds like 300 this: Tech companies could basically do whatever they wanted, as long as people 301 who worked there paid high taxes and donated enough money to charitable causes. 302 The money — taxes, donations — made them the good guys. 303 304 The one thing all these hype cycles had in common was VCs talking their books, 305 as publicly as possible 306 307 Andreessen and Horowitz point to the mid-2010s — that is, the era of low 308 interest rates — as the time of “the deal” unraveling. Notably, this is around 309 the time that the tech hype cycle became obvious even to people who weren’t 310 paying attention. This year, it’s scooters! Now it’s [55]viral media companies! 311 Now it’s metaverse! Now it’s crypto! Now it’s AI! 312 313 These ideas were more or less rejected by the market, except possibly AI. The 314 one thing all these hype cycles had in common was VCs talking their books, as 315 publicly as possible. That charge was led by Andreessen Horowitz. 316 317 So now, instead of investing in things the market wants, Andreessen and 318 Horowitz appear to be gambling on legislation instead. Their timing is 319 remarkable; not even a week after their Trump endorsement, Biden dropped out of 320 the race, rallying the Democrats behind Vice President Kamala Harris. In the 321 hours immediately following the announcement, [56]small-money donors raised 322 $46.7 million for her campaign. By endorsing Trump, Andreessen and Horowitz 323 have effectively lost whatever leverage they might have had with the Harris 324 campaign. 325 326 But maybe that doesn’t matter. Near the end of the podcast, Horowitz says that 327 he was shaken by the assassination attempt on Donald Trump because he’s friends 328 with Ivanka, his daughter, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law. “Ivanka and the 329 kids were just at my house,” Horowitz says, of learning Trump was shot. “We 330 went to see David Copperfield and all that. So my brain was almost frozen 331 because I had this feeling about, ‘Oh my god, Grandpa just got shot.’” 332 333 “Ivanka and the kids were just at my house.” 334 335 [57]As for Andreessen, he has been inveighing against [58]“woke” capital, 336 engaging in [59]Twitter culture wars, and complaining about [60]what he views 337 as the media’s hostility to free speech for [61]a while now. In Andreessen’s 338 2023 “[62]Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” he lists what he terms “patron saints” of 339 the movement. They include Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian futurist who 340 was [63]also the co-author of The Fascist Manifesto; Nick Land, [64]whose 341 writing is a foundational text for the so-called alt-right; Neven Sesardic, a 342 philosopher who [65]argues that race is biologically real and not socially 343 constructed; and [66]Vilfredo Pareto, who [67]argued that [68]democracy is an 344 illusion. 345 346 And this talk about democracy brings me to Curtis Yarvin, [69]personal friend 347 of vice presidential candidate Vance. Yarvin, a software developer, [70]is 348 openly anti-democracy. (Yarvin’s [71]recent newsletter, in response to Biden 349 dropping out, enthusiastically advocates for a return to monarchy. Freak shit.) 350 One of Yarvin’s ideas, called “retire all government employees” or RAGE, is 351 part of [72]Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation proposal for what Trump should 352 do if he wins. This rhetoric [73]was echoed by Vance in 2021, who called out 353 Yarvin by name. 354 355 So this VC cabal is trading against the basic principles of America — not 356 merely against personal freedom, but democracy itself — in the hopes of profit. 357 It’s not the first time tech has made the trade against freedom; [74]IBM made 358 it during the Holocaust. 359 360 In venture capital, you are what you fund. Andreessen and Horowitz understand 361 this, even embody it. But they aren’t just funding the issues they discuss on 362 their podcast; they are funding Trump and Vance. That means those donations are 363 anti-abortion, anti-immigration, and possibly even anti-democracy because that 364 is what the Trump / Vance ticket stands for. These are not subsidiary issues: 365 these are now what two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures now stand 366 for, too. Is that a good investment? 367 368 Correction July 24: An earlier version of this article misstated the donation 369 strategy of a crypto super PAC. The group also spends money on Democratic 370 candidates, not just right-wing ones. 371 372 Most Popular 373 Most Popular 374 375 1. [76] 376 377 The Elon / Trump interview on X started with an immediate tech disaster 378 379 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 380 2. [77] 381 382 Good luck with the PlayStation VR2 PC Adapter — you’ll need it 383 384 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 385 3. [78] 386 387 A nightly Waymo robotaxi parking lot honkfest is waking San Francisco 388 neighbors 389 390 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 391 4. [79] 392 393 Signal has been blocked by Venezuela and Russia 394 395 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 396 5. [80] 397 398 Is the US finally getting ‘all aboard’ with electric trains? 399 400 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 401 402 Verge Deals 403 404 / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your 405 inbox weekly. 406 407 Email (required)[81][ ]Sign up 408 By submitting your email, you agree to our [83]Terms and [84]Privacy Notice. 409 This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google [85]Privacy Policy and [86] 410 Terms of Service apply. 411 From our sponsor 412 413 [87] 414 415 [88] 416 Advertiser Content FromSponsor logo 417 Sponsor thumbnail 418 419 More from [89]Business 420 421 • A Cruise Origin, viewed from the side. It’s a bread loaf-shaped van. glossy 422 white and black on the side and with an orange roof.A Cruise Origin, viewed 423 from the side. 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