Person
1 episodes · 23 quoted claims
Marc Andreessen said his Miller Lite commercial with Norm MacDonald was shot in a hot warehouse in California's Inland Empire with no air conditioning, to protect the sound.
“it was like 110 degrees outside. It was like 130 degrees inside. There was no air conditioning because it would screw up the sound.”
Marc Andreessen said a Barron's columnist named Abelson wrote essentially the same bubble warning for about 40 years.
“There was a columnist for Barron's, something, Abelson, Ellen Abelson, and literally he wrote the same column for 40 years.”
Marc Andreessen recalled that 1998 brought an international crisis and the collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management.
“So yes, there was a blowup in 1998. There was an international crisis. And then there was a collapse of a big hedge fund at the time called Long Term Capital Management.”
Marc Andreessen said his company Loudcloud went public in September 2000, and during the three-week IPO roadshow the NASDAQ fell by half.
“we took our company, Loud Club Public, in September 2000. And while we were on the road, we were on the road for three weeks. And while we were on the road, the NASDAQ fell in half.”
Marc Andreessen said that by 2003 the joke was that B2B meant 'back to banking' and B2C meant 'back to consulting'.
“by 2003, the line was B2B meant back to banking and B2C meant back to consulting, right?”
Marc Andreessen said early Hollywood filmmakers moved west partly to evade Thomas Edison's patent enforcers, since Edison held the patent on film cameras.
“one of the reasons they wanted me to get so far away is they were trying to evade Thomas Edison's patent enforcers. Because Thomas Edison owned the patent for the film cameras”
Marc Andreessen, citing Steve Blank, said Silicon Valley's real history began with defense tech startups in the 1920s and 1930s.
“The real history was actually defense tech startups in the 1920s, 1930s. And you still see remnants of that if you drive around Sunnyvale.”
Marc Andreessen said people in Boston point to Mark Zuckerberg's failure to raise venture capital there, and his move west, as the final blow to Boston's tech ecosystem.
“they'll say that the final blow was probably when Mark Zuckerberg could not raise venture capital for Facebook and had to leave and come West.”
Marc Andreessen said IBM's team visited Microsoft in Seattle because of a connection between Bill Gates's mother and IBM's CEO, who served on a board together.
“there was a network connection with Bill Gates's mother and the CEO of IBM and they were on a board together and it resulted in the IBM team coming out and going up to Seattle”
Marc Andreessen said Bill Gates licensed QDOS from Tim Patterson for a $50,000 flat fee and resold it to IBM, creating MS-DOS.
“licensed what at the time was called a QDOS, Quick and Dirty Operating System, which is the true name of DOS, for a $50 ,000 flat fee, turned around and sold it to IBM.”
Marc Andreessen said Digital Research founder Gary Kildall died years later after being knifed in a bar fight.
“30 years later, Gary Kildall was knifed to death in a bar fight.”
Marc Andreessen said IBM in the mid-1980s accounted for about 80 percent of the market capitalization of the entire tech industry.
“IBM in the mid-'80s was 80 % of the market capitalization of the entire tech industry.”
Marc Andreessen estimated the entire internet market in 1999 at no more than about 50 million people.
“the total market size in like 1999 for Internet anything was like 50 million people total max, maybe.”
Marc Andreessen said Global Crossing founder Gary Winnick was a 1980s bond financier who applied debt-market skills to building fiber networks.
“He was a Bond guy from the 80s, a Leverage Brown guy. And he just figured out, like, oh, we know how to put buildings in the ground. We know how to build fiber.”
Marc Andreessen told a story in which Alan Turing and Claude Shannon argued about machine intelligence at lunch at AT&T in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, around 1943.
“Alan Turing and Claude Shannon are having lunch at the AT &T executive dining room in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, in like 1943.”
Marc Andreessen said IBM's Thomas Watson Sr. reportedly thought the world market was for five computers.
“Thomas Watson, Sr., who ran IBM in the 1950s, said he thought there was a world market for five computers.”
Marc Andreessen described the second industrial revolution as running roughly from 1880 to 1930 and said it involved prolonged deflation as technology made raw materials cheap.
“the so-called second industrial revolution. So, the time in which our entire modern world was built with everything from airplanes to the freeways and everything else, 1880 to 1930.”
Marc Andreessen said John Law introduced paper money in France and that it sparked an early financial bubble.
“John Law invented paper money in France about 360 years ago and it immediately sparked what became the South Sea bubble.”
Marc Andreessen said junk bonds were discredited after Michael Milken went to jail, yet a decade later that market was much larger and respected.
“A decade later, that market was much larger than it ever had been in the 80s and was extremely well respected and played a huge role in the build out of everything since.”
Marc Andreessen said backtesting suggests top venture firms would have done best holding public stock indefinitely, and that Sequoia is trying to hold more of its positions.
“the best strategy, if you backtest over 50 years, the best strategy, at least for the top firms, probably would have been to hold everything in perpetuity. And so Sequoia, notably, is trying a strategy where they're trying to do more of that.”
Marc Andreessen said Yahoo was heavily involved in mobile between 2002 and 2006 but got burned and was too late when the iPhone arrived.
“Yahoo, by the way, Yahoo had mobile early. Yahoo was all over mobile between 2002 and 2006.”
Marc Andreessen said Alfred Sloan, who built General Motors, wrote an influential management book that Intel's Andy Grove learned from.
“Alfred Sloan famously wrote a book that people like Andy Grove learned from that basically said, here's how you build a large multinational, multi-product line industrial company.”
Marc Andreessen cited Marshall McLuhan's concept of the global village, which he said McLuhan meant as a warning about dysfunction.
“Marshall McLuhan had this concept he called the global village.”