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[Andreessen Horowitz private @Andreessen2700]

Helping founders scale from idea → revenue
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[a16z @a16z]

Marc Andreessen: The most memorable first founder meeting I've ever had was with Mark Zuckerberg.

"Mark's like 19, and it was Mark and Sean Parker."

"Sean literally talked the entire time."

"Mark didn't talk, so Sean and I talked the whole time, and Mark sat and listened."

"I was like—one of two things has happened here. Either he's completely unsuited for the job because he literally doesn't talk, or he's listening and absorbing everything that people are saying around him, and he's going to be on a vertical learning curve like crazy, because he doesn't have the ego need to just say things."

"Of course, it turned out to be number two."

"I've never told that story before, but that was memorable."

"The second meeting, I got him to talk. And by the way, everything Sean said was right—and it was all genius."

@pmarca with @HarryStebbings

[a16z @a16z]

Marc Andreessen says AI is the "silver bullet excuse" for companies laying people off, but most layoffs are actually due to higher interest rates and overstaffing during COVID:

"This entire labor displacement thing is 100% incorrect. It's completely wrong. It's classic zero-sum economics."

"It was the combination of the two—interest rates going to zero during COVID, and then the complete loss of discipline at all these companies when they went virtual and when employees just became an icon on a screen."

"What you have happening right now is that essentially every large company is overstaffed. We could debate how much—it's at least overstaffed by 25%. I think most large companies are overstaffed by 50%. A lot of them are overstaffed by 75%."

"And now they all have the silver bullet excuse—it's AI."

@pmarca with @HarryStebbings