Prioritize high-growth over startups
LearningEarly in a career, join a proven high-growth company to gain skills and reputation before taking the higher risk of a raw startup.
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Hall of Masters
Marc Andreessen
마크 앤드리슨
Investing and capital allocationBorn 1971
Co-creator of the Mosaic browser, co-founder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
941 records in all
- Principles 403
- Episodes 235
- Quotes 303
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Principles
60 basic records of 403
Principles are our summary of their public statements.
Avoid Managerial Stagnation
StrategyLarge organizations naturally drift toward a managerial class that prioritizes running things over inventing new things, which inevitably leads to stagnation.
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The Need for Bourgeois Capitalism
MindsetStartups must act as the 'bourgeois capitalists' of the modern era to poke, prod, and disrupt stagnant systems into action.
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Validate Markets with Paying Customers
CustomersTo reduce market risk, founders should move beyond research and acquire actual paying customers or credible prospects to prove demand exists.
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Value High Potential Failures
FailureOne should pay attention to works or projects that fail if they demonstrate extraordinary creativity and high potential for future success.
Supporting quotes
Thirteen is undoubtedly Morgan's best-written novel so far - this is an author whose skills are growing rapidly, and this book shows it.
Source Marc Andreessen Top 10 science fiction novelists of the ’00s—so far (opens in a new tab)
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Optimize for Flow Over Structure
ProductivityAvoid committing to future meetings to ensure the freedom to work on whatever is most important or interesting at any given moment.
Supporting quotes
By not keeping a schedule, I mean: refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day.
Source Marc Andreessen Guide to Personal Productivity, 2007 (opens in a new tab)
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Verify with Cash or Ink
NegotiationTreat every corporate interaction as non-binding until a legal contract is signed or funds are transferred to the bank.
Supporting quotes
The inside of any big company is a very, very complex system consisting of many thousands of people, of whom at least hundreds and probably thousands are executives who think they have some level of decision-making authority.
Source Marc Andreessen Part 5 The Moby Dick theory of big companies (opens in a new tab)
2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.
Be Unabashedly Optimistic Publicly
BrandInstead of following the industry norm of opacity, a leader should stand on a soapbox and loudly preach about how cool the future will be.
Leverage Personal Brand for Launch
BrandUse a known personal name to gain immediate traction and credibility, even if the long-term goal is to build a separate institutional brand.
Build hype before the launch
MarketingUse high-profile media appearances and strategic storytelling to establish a brand identity before the official product launch.
Champion a contrarian narrative
StrategyTake a strong stand on a positive outlook when the general market sentiment is pessimistic to position yourself as a leader.
Software Eating the World
StrategyTraditional industries are increasingly being replaced or managed by software-driven online services.
Adapt to regulatory shifts early
Capital allocationInvesting in the legal and operational overhead to handle complex assets like crypto tokens provides a significant competitive advantage over traditional firms.
Prioritize consumer abundance
WealthTrue economic progress is measured by the abundance and low cost of goods for the consumer, not by the preservation of difficult labor.
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Wrangle resources without authority
LeadershipInnovation often comes from mobilizing underutilized talent and resources even when you do not have formal power.
Triangulate your position through extremes
MindsetExperiencing both extreme success and failure allows a founder to better understand their current situation and the reasons behind it.
Identify Accidental Breakthroughs
Finding ideasValuable inventions often emerge as side effects of other work; founders must be alert to recognize these opportunities when they appear.
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Build From Scratch to Avoid Legal Risk
RiskWhen intellectual property disputes arise, it is safer to rewrite the code from the ground up than to reuse existing assets.
Treat Funding as Insurance
RiskStartups should raise more than their default plan requires to survive unexpected setbacks like product delays or market downturns.
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Stop Revisiting Old Decisions
DecisionsDwelling on past choices is unproductive because reality is a complex system where the same starting point can lead to wildly different outcomes due to randomness.
3 more supporting quotes are in the member records.
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