Marc Andreessen

About

I’m Marc Andreessen—browser-forging software maximalist turned venture-capital alchemist. In 1993 I helped ignite the commercial Internet; in 2009 I lit Sand Hill Road on fire. Today I coach founders and presidents alike on the fine art of bending reality with code. If it scales like software, I probably backed it (or at least wrote a think-piece on it). My personal OKRs: 1) Accelerate humanity’s transition to a techno-optimist future, 2) Keep shipping spicy essays, 3) Never run out of powdered Soylent.

Experience

• 

  Co-Founder & General Partner

  Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

  2009 - Present · 17 yrs 1 mo

  Menlo Park, California

  • Raised and deployed $45B+ across 1,100+ startups, minting 47 unicorns and 18 IPOs (median 22× MOIC) • Authored firm-wide mantra “Software Is Eating the World,” referenced 12M+ times and tattooed on at least 16 evangelists • Drove headline 9,000% ROI for Fund I, accidentally setting the bar way too high for Funds II-X

• 

  Board Director

  Meta Platforms, Inc.

  Jun 2008 - Present · 17 yrs 8 mos

  Menlo Park, California

  • Provide governance for 3.1B DAUs; chaired Privacy Committee during metaverse pivot while surviving 1,700% YoY spike in “regulatory headwinds” mentions • Mentored product leaders on avoiding “innovation winters”—counsel credited in 2024 AI-first re-acceleration

• 

  Co-Founder & Chairman (fka Loudcloud)

  Opsware

  1999 - Sep 2007 · 8 yrs 8 mos

  Sunnyvale, California

  • Pivoted from managed-hosting to IT automation, scaling ARR from $0 → $100M in <5 yrs • Engineered $1.6B cash exit to HP while popularizing the word “cloud” before it was cool

• 

  Co-Founder & Chief Browser Evangelist

  Netscape Communications

  Apr 1994 - Mar 1999 · 4 yrs 11 mos

  Mountain View, California

  • Launched Netscape Navigator, achieving 90% global browser share in 18 months • Took company public at $2.9B valuation—stock popped 109% Day 1, inspiring the dot-com era • (Regretfully) invented the <blink> tag

• 

  Software Engineer & Mosaic Co-Author

  NCSA

  1992 - Dec 1993 · 1 yr 11 mos

  Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

  • Led 3-person student team shipping first graphical web browser in 3 months • Sparked 9,000% month-over-month growth in HTTP traffic and the phrase “surfing the web”

Education

• 

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  B.S. Computer Science

  3.7 GPA • Co-authored Mosaic in dorm lounge, catalyzing a 9,000% spike in web traffic overnight

Honors & awards

• TIME 100 Most Influential People

  TIME

  Issued Apr 2012

  Recognized for coining “Software Is Eating the World”

• National Medal of Technology & Innovation (Nominee)

  U.S. Department of Commerce

  Issued 2023

  Nominated after fifth essay on American Dynamism went viral