Andreessen tests founder IQ by whether they take notes during pitches
Marc Andreessen · Marc Andreessen: Will a16z Go Public & Why Labour Displacement with AI is Wrong? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Mar 30, 2026 · at 8:23
Marc Andreessen, co-founder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, discusses his evaluation criteria for early-stage founders.
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“My personal formula is basically the follows, is basically as follows, which is you need high IQ as table stakes. Like, you just need somebody who's, like, incredibly smart. My basic test is if I have my notebook open and they're talking, am I, like, writing out lots of notes or not? And if I'm writing out lots of notes and I'm learning from them, then, like, that, that indicates that their level of, you know, intelligence and some of the other attributes that we'll talk about, but, you know, indicates, you know, clearly that, that they're very smart.”
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