Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital firms, says he has been a Democrat most of his life. He says he endorsed and voted for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
However, he says he is no longer loyal to the Democratic Party. In the 2024 presidential race, he is supporting and voting for former President Donald Trump. The reason he’s picking Trump over President Joe Biden comes down to one major issue — he believes Trump’s policies are much more tech-friendly, especially the startup ecosystem.
Andreessen explained his reasoning and how the two presidential candidates’ agendas stack up against each other on the latest episode of “The Ben & Marc Show,” a podcast he co-hosts with a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz.
“I wish we didn’t have to pick a side,” said Horowitz, who also acknowledged that his political choice would upset many of his friends and even his mother. “We literally [believe] the future of our business, the future of technology, and the future of America is at stake.”
Andreessen and Horowitz explained that technological prowess is one of the three pillars – along with economy and military power – that allowed the US to be the most successful country in the world over the past century. American dominance in these three areas helped the US peacefully defeat one of the greatest threats of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union ended the Cold War because it could not keep pace with the US technologically, a16z co-founders said.
“Why is technology important? That’s because if you don’t have the technology part of that triangle, you won’t have the economic part, you won’t have the military part,” Andreesen said.
The pair listed several reasons they believe the Biden administration is stifling startups through overregulation and potentially unnecessary taxation, while Trump would help innovation flourish.
Among other things, the co-founders explained that they disagree with the White House’s current plan to “over-regulate” artificial intelligence.
“Every restriction we put in place [on] we will have the US at a disadvantage against the rest of the world,” Andreesen said.
They also discussed Trump’s view of AI at a recent dinner they had with the former president. “What he told us is,”[AI] it’s very scary, but we absolutely have to win, because if we don’t, China wins,” Horowitz said.
Furthermore, Andreesen said that, unlike the Biden administration, Trump’s crypto regulation plan is “a complete endorsement of the entire space.”
But Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains is what Andreesen called “the final straw” that forced him to switch from supporting the incumbent to voting for Trump. If the unrealized capital gains tax goes into effect, start-ups may have to pay taxes on the increase in valuation. (The price of private companies is not liquid. However, the US government collects taxes in dollars.)
“If you’re a venture firm, every year they’re going to pull from your portfolio. You’re out of business,” Andreesen said. “That makes startups completely unbelievable.”
Andreessen has been vocal about the importance of technology to society in the past. Last October, he published a “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” that called on technologists to ignore critics and pessimists and embrace technology as “the only permanent source of growth.” The firm is one of Silicon Valley’s largest venture investors, with more than $42 billion in assets under management, according to PitchBook.