Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of one of the most prominent venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, says he’s been a Democrat most of his life. He says he has endorsed and voted for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
However, he says he’s 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 is choosing Trump over President Joe Biden boils down primarily to one major issue – he believes Trump’s policies are much more favorable for tech, specifically for the startup ecosystem.
Andreessen explained his reasoning and how the two presidential candidates’ programs stack up against each other in the latest “The Ben & Marc Show” episode, a podcast that 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 tech prowess is one of the three pillars – along with economy and military might—that allowed the U.S. to be the most successful country in the world over the last century. American dominance in these three areas helped the U.S. to peacefully defeat one of the biggest threats of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union ended the Cold War because it couldn’t keep up with the U.S. technologically, the a16z co-founders said.
“Why is tech important? It’s because if you don’t have the tech part of that triangle, you’re not going to have the economy part, you’re not going to have the military part,” Andreesen said.
The pair listed several reasons they believe the Biden administration is stifling startups through overregulation and potentially needless taxation, while Trump would help innovation flourish.
Among other things, the co-founders explained that they don’t agree with the current White House plan to “overregulate” artificial intelligence.
“Any limitations we put [on] ourselves are going to disadvantage the US versus the rest of the World,” Andreesen said.
They also discussed Trump’s view on AI at a recent dinner they recently had with the former President. “What he said to us is, ‘[AI] is very scary, but we absolutely have to win because if we don’t win, China wins,’” Horowitz said.
Additionally, Andreesen said that, unlike the Biden administration, Trump’s crypto regulation plan is “a flat-out blanket 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 current president to voting for Trump. If the unrealized capital gains tax goes into effect, startups may have to pay taxes on valuation increases. (Private companies’ appreciation is not liquid. However, the US government collects tax in dollars.)
“If you’re a venture firm, you’re getting strips of your portfolio pulled away from you every year. You’re out of business,” Andreesen said. “This makes startups completely implausible.”
Andreessen has been vocal about the importance of tech to society in the past. Last October, he published a “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” that called for technologists to ignore critics and pessimists and embrace tech as “the only perpetual source of growth.” The firm is one of the largest venture investors in Silicon Valley, with more than $42 billion in assets under management, according to Pitchbook.
