Marc Andreessen

About

I’m Marc Andreessen, software builder turned venture investor, and an unapologetic believer that most industries eventually become software problems. I helped commercialize the web, built companies through multiple platform shifts, and now spend my time backing founders who are trying to do the same at larger scale. My interests are straightforward: ambitious technical products, durable platforms, and strong opinions supported by shipping velocity.

Experience

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  Co-Founder & General Partner

  Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

  2009 - Present · 17 yrs 4 mos

  Menlo Park, California

  Built and scaled a software-first venture platform backing ambitious founders across consumer, enterprise, and infrastructure

  • Raised and deployed $45B+ across 1,100+ startups, contributing to 47 unicorns and 18 IPOs.
  • Helped define the firm's software thesis, later distilled into "Software Is Eating the World" and repeated back to me for over a decade.
  • Generated headline returns strong enough to make every subsequent fund launch easier and every benchmark conversation more annoying.
• 

  Board Director

  Meta Platforms, Inc.

  Jun 2008 - Present · 17 yrs 11 mos

  Menlo Park, California

  Provided board-level guidance during multiple platform transitions, including mobile, metaverse, and AI

  • Supported governance for a product ecosystem serving 3.1B DAUs under intense regulatory and public scrutiny.
  • Advised leadership on maintaining product ambition through cyclical market skepticism and narrative volatility.
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  Co-Founder & Chairman (fka Loudcloud)

  Opsware

  1999 - Sep 2007 · 8 yrs 8 mos

  Sunnyvale, California

  Helped pivot Loudcloud into an enterprise automation company built for operational scale

  • Grew ARR from $0 to $100M in under five years by aligning product around automation instead of pure hosting.
  • Led a $1.6B exit to HP after proving that infrastructure software could become a category-defining asset.
• 

  Co-Founder & Chief Browser Evangelist

  Netscape Communications

  Apr 1994 - Mar 1999 · 4 yrs 11 mos

  Mountain View, California

  Helped launch the browser that brought the commercial web into mainstream use

  • Grew Netscape Navigator to roughly 90% browser share in 18 months.
  • Took the company public at a $2.9B valuation, helping define the commercial Internet era.
  • Also approved at least one HTML decision I would not defend as aggressively today.
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  Software Engineer & Mosaic Co-Author

  NCSA

  1992 - Dec 1993 · 1 yr 11 mos

  Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

  Co-authored Mosaic and helped make the web visually usable for normal people

  • Worked with a small student team to ship one of the first successful graphical browsers in months, not years.
  • Helped trigger the usage curve that turned the web from an academic curiosity into a mass platform.

Education

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  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