Dec 12, 2019 · 44m · a16z
Why You Should Be Optimistic About the Future
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In a wide-ranging fireside chat at the a16z Summit, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and WIRED co-founder Kevin Kelly explore the future of technological progress, AI, biotechnology, and economic growth. Andreessen outlines a deeply optimistic vision of civilizational advancement driven by continuous innovation, historical perspective, and structural problem-solving.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 2.4 Guest teaching 5.1 Guest disagreement 2.2 The host pushing back 1.4
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 33:37 Flat rejection of government portfolio comparison
Marc forcefully dismisses the host's framing that governments manage portfolios of bets, emphasizing that governments face n-of-1 risk and cannot afford failure.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 3:08 Reframing connectivity optimism with Wired perspectiveKevin Kelly interrupts Marc's optimistic view on universal internet access to insert his own past prediction at Wired that total connectivity creates major societal risks.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 27:30 History lesson on whaling syndicates and carried interestMarc educates the host on how modern venture capital terms like carried interest originated directly from 16th-century whaling expedition investments.
The host holds their own ▶ 3:08 Citing personal Wired editorial authorityKevin Kelly leverages his historical expertise as executive editor at Wired to counter Marc's premise about the unmixed benefits of universal internet connectivity.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unprepared for Universal Connectivity and Internet Culture | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Kevin Kelly cites his past experience at Wired regarding the digital divide to question the consequences of universal internet access. Marc Andreessen highlights historical examples of bad predictions and points to Jio in India as evidence of impending universal connectivity. | |
| Technology Backstories and Timing Over Failure | 2 | 5 | 4 | 1 | Marc Andreessen playfully objects to the premise of the host's question about tech failures, explaining that major technology breakthroughs have decades-long backstories where timing rather than fundamental viability is the issue. | |
| Business Models for AI: Feature vs. Architecture Shift | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Kevin Kelly asks who will profit most from AI, prompting Marc to explain the structural distinction between treating AI as a surface feature versus a platform architecture shift. | |
| Voice Interfaces, Ambient Audio, and Augmented Reality | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Kevin Kelly connects voice user interfaces with augmented reality, and Marc expands on how ambient audio products like AirPods represent the foundational layer for AR interactions. | |
| Engineering Biology and Overcoming E-Room's Law | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | In response to Kelly's question about biotechnology misconceptions, Marc contrasts the cost scaling of drug discovery under E-Room's Law with the productivity gains of Moore's Law. | |
| The Future of Moore's Law and Computing Architectures | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Kelly asks whether Moore's Law can continue for another 30 years, prompting Marc to detail physical limitations at the chip level, scale-out cloud computing, and Worth's Law regarding software bloat. | |
| 5G Technology, Geopolitics, and Network Scaling Laws | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Kelly questions whether 5G can fulfill its promises, leading Marc to reframe 5G as a geopolitical race and analyze network scaling principles using Sarnoff's, Metcalfe's, and Reed's laws. | |
| Evolution of the Sharing Economy and Specific Market Models | 2 | 5 | 4 | 1 | Marc again playfully rejects the host's premise that the sharing economy is at a dead end, illustrating how non-fungible services like senior care require distinct employment and matching models. | |
| The History and Future of Venture Capital | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Kelly asks about innovating venture capital, prompting Marc to deliver a historical breakdown of how 16th-century whaling syndicate financing established carried interest and modern VC structures. | |
| Long-Term Thinking and Managing Risk via Portfolios | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Asked about implementing long-term thinking, Marc shifts the focus from simple time horizons to managing uncertainty through venture portfolio construction and sequential company experimentation. | |
| Government Experimentation and Risk Aversion | 3 | 6 | 6 | 2 | Marc directly refutes Kelly's suggestion that governments manage portfolio risk, pointing out governments face n-of-1 risk. He then argues strongly for economic growth as essential for positive-sum politics. | |
| Cyber Conflict, Autonomous Defense, and Mechanized Warfare | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | Kelly raises concerns about cyber warfare and lack of international consensus, but Marc presents a counter-intuitive optimistic argument favoring mechanized autonomous warfare over sending human soldiers. | |
| Cosmic Optimism and 300 Years of Human Progress | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | In response to Kelly's question about the root of his optimism, Marc presents a grand historical narrative asserting that the technological singularity began 300 years ago with the Enlightenment. |
Statements from this episode (28)
Andreessen: The internet's impact on global culture is just beginning
“And it feels like the internet's impact on culture is, is just beginning in, in the sense of, like, a world in which culture is based on the internet, which is what I think is happening is just at the very start, right, because it had to get universal before i…”
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio provides internet access to 500 million low-income Indians
“Mukesh Shambani, who's the richest man in India, has this program called GEO where he is literally providing internet access to the five hundred million lowest income Indians like from, it's like literally, it's like free for six months, and then it's like a d…”
Andreessen: Breakthrough technologies always have 25-to-50-year backstories of failed attempts
“Every successful technology that I'm aware of, you know, the things that are, like, all of a sudden, like, the next big thing, like the iPhone in 2007, or, you know, just as an example they all have this, like, incredible 25 or 40 or fifty-year backstory”
Andreessen: VCs should assume every pitch will work; timing is the challenge
“I pushed the, pushed all the way to the point where I just think we should assume that whatever we're being pitched is going to work. It's just a question of timing. Then of course, timing turns out to be the hard part, but it at least focuses the conversation…”
Andreessen: Voice interfaces will not directly replace keyboards, mice, or touchscreens
“Yeah, so I think the thing that, if we're going to get something wrong about voice, I think it's going to be that it would be a one-to-one replacement for existing user interaction models, so that it would be like a replacement for keyboard or that it'd be a r…”
Andreessen predicts voice audio, not visuals, will be the foundation of AR
“Yeah, I think actually I'd go so far as to say it may be the case that voice actually is the key to the AR world. Like voice may be the thing. Voice may actually be the foundation of the whole thing.”
Andreessen considers Apple AirPods to be a fundamental technological breakthrough
“You know, for, this is kind of a cliche at this point, but like air, you know, the Apple AirPods, I think were a fundamental breakthrough.”
Kelly: Real-time universal voice translation will integrate millions into the global economy
“And we could very quickly have universal language translation of speaking over yours, and I think people underestimate the change that that would bring about in the world. You'd have millions of people who are highly skilled in everything except the skill of E…”
Andreessen: Biology is shifting from empirical discovery to engineering and programming
“We think biological science is at a turning point at the scientific level, and we think it's at a turning point from basically being a process of discovery of how biology works to being able to engineer biology, right? Up to including literally being able to p…”
Andreessen: Drug discovery costs follow E-Room's Law, rising exponentially over time
“In biology, in, in drug discovery, there's what they call E-Room's Law which is Moore spelled backwards, E-Room and it's the cost of discovering a new drug and it's exactly the wrong direction, that's right, it's up and to the right you know, billions of dolla…”
Andreessen: Traditional single-chip semiconductor scaling has reached fundamental atomic limits
“So the bad news is that that in, in that form seems to be coming to something of an end which is we have, we're too good at it. We've hit basically, we being the semiconductor industry broadly, the tech industry have kind of hit the limits of fundamental physi…”
Andreessen: Modern software code has become massively inefficient
“Software today is just, like, massively inefficient.”
Andreessen: Computing will see decades of advances beyond classic Moore's Law
“And so with those different approaches, it feels like we've got, you know, it feels like decades of advances ahead that aren't purely dependent on classic Moore's law.”
Andreessen: 5G is the space race of the US-China Cold War
“Five G has become an actual geopolitical battle. Like, it's actually a very interesting twist. It's become actually a primary, like, you know, if the Cold War between the US and the USSR was like defined by the space race, like at least the sort of nascent Col…”
Andreessen: 5G will turbocharge network scaling laws and economic activity
“The introduction of five G the way I think about it is it's going to turbocharge those three networks in particular, that last one, or the, you know, those last two. And so it's gonna add a lot more, and there's just gonna be a lot more devices on the network.…”
Andreessen: Great startup ideas stem from market-specific dynamics, not generic formulas
“That's not how the great ideas arrive. They don't look like that. They look like very specific. They look like very specific theories, not general theories. And so they tend to be very specific to the details of the market involved.”
Andreessen: VC "carried interest" originated from 17th-century whaling expedition profits
“The term carry, which is sort of how VCs get paid, the so-called carried interest, which is like the 20 or 25% that you make of the profits that, that you share. The term carry actually was the percentage of the whale that the ship carried. It was literally ph…”
Andreessen: Building important tech products or companies takes a decade or more
“Any of the important companies, any of the important products take like a decade or more to build”
Andreessen: Top venture funds assume half of their investments will fail
“In top-end venture, you just kind of assume, fundamentally, it's half the company's gonna work, half of them aren't.”
Andreessen: Federalism is a massive advantage because it allows multiple simultaneous experiments
“Ex-federalism, which has been a huge, huge advantage, I think, for the U.S., but like, you know, the U.S. National government only gets to run one scenario.”
Andreessen: Economic recessions drive zero-sum politics and anti-tech backlashes
“In the wake of every economic recession, the politics just go, like, seriously negative on in terms of thinking about the world as zero sum. And then when you get a zero sum outlook in politics, that's when you get like anti-immigration. That's when you get an…”
Andreessen: US carbon emissions and resource utilization are actually falling
“In the U.S., carbon emissions and resource utilization are actually falling.”
Kelly: Technology leapfrogging is a myth for developing nations
“The idea of leapfrogging technology is a myth. It doesn't really work. You actually have to, if you want to have a high tech infrastructure, you actually need the intermediate roads, clean water. You can't skip over that, and so they all need to be built out i…”
Andreessen: Future military warfare will be fully autonomous and software-driven
“If you kind of project forward what's happening with generally cyber, with information, you know, operations of different kinds, but also with drones you know, UAVs and then also with, you know, unmanned, you know, unmanned fighter jets, right? Unmanned you kn…”
Andreessen: Drafting 18-year-olds for combat will be viewed historically as a mistake
“We want to take eighteen-year-olds out of their homes, right, and we want to put a gun in their hand and send them someplace and tell them to decide who to shoot. That that is gonna go down in history as having been a good idea. Just strikes me as, like, unlik…”
Andreessen: Humanity entered the technological singularity 300 years ago during the Enlightenment
“My reading history is actually, we actually were in the singularity already and that it actually started 300 years ago.”