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Comment by tsunamifury | Hacker News Reader

I suspect this is aimed more at the Saudis and his need to raise funds to compete with the big four in LLM tech, something he likely doesn't have the capital for right now.

This reads as crazed rambling to many of us here, but to the ME capital scene it might be read as a 'strong vision of the future' and telling 'the little people to work harder.'

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I've come across his twitter feed a few times, I suspect it's not some 4D chess move but a lot of things he sincerely believes, and an advertisement for his firm (as all blogposts are). There's a lot of twitter brained "tech thought leaders" out there and they finally try to write something coherent for normies and it comes out like that nonsense.

Yes, his rants about the PMC a while ago were near inscrutable (not that I think PMC is an inscrutable/useless category), but after reading a lot of it, seemed to expose him as someone prone to self-serving delusions. I think there are interesting conversations to be had about elite cultural and academic production, as a side-channel to traditional control by capital. However, I don't think I'm being too uncharitable when I say that he was primarily frustrated at his own perception that he was being held back from his ubermensch pretensions.

What's amazing to me is the explicit positive references to actual Fascist and/or "Dark Enlightenment" thinkers (Marinetti, Nick Land) as "Patron Saints."

Either Andreesen actually has no idea what he's referring to and is just pretentious name-dropping stuff he thinks is "kinda cool", or he's explicitly endorsing anti-democratic authoritarianism. Either alternative is rather disturbing -- though maybe not surprising.

In any case, it kinda explains some of the dreck they've funded.

I think they’ve made it pretty clear they believe in techno authoritarianism. Listen to Theil Altman or AH. Same stuff.

Certainly. And I'll be downvoted to oblivion for this (if anybody is still watching this thread), but to me that's the actual philosophical endpoint of so-called libertarian capitalism.

When you abdicate all decision making authority to the market, you also suppress the non-market community/social dimension in society, and you end up in a might-makes-right ethical model; and along with it comes a need to suppress the inevitable resistance to that (unions, left wingers, perhaps minorities, etc.)

The classical liberal individual rights stuff ends up being window dressing and justification for a far darker end result. Yes, nobody cares who you have sex with or what drugs you take or what porn you watch -- as long as wealth and control remains unchallenged.

All watches over by machines of loving grace…

Multiple audiences is not 4D chess. Have you ever worked in marketing or PR? It’s bog standard stuff.

I don't know that Andreessen is going to compete in building AI technology; I suspect he is looking at applying it to the military and defense industry.

Andeessen Horowitz has been noted as moving into the defense contracting arena over the last few years.

https://a16z.com/announcement/anduril/

https://a16z.com/building-american-dynamism/

https://a16z.com/how-the-u-s-can-rewire-the-pentagon-for-a-n...

Anyone looking forward to our new LLM-powered Unmanned Combat Systems era?

Well yeah, specially if endorsed by Andeessen!

Who better than this selfless, always right, tech visionary. He is not about some shady hustle to make quick money.

> he is looking at applying it to the military and defense industry

The Investment Partners in the Enterprise and American Dynamism portions of A16Z are working with a significant amount of autonomy. I don't think he has much day-to-day involvement there. I think it's another Board Partner that manages that portion

> I suspect this is aimed more at the Saudis

A16Z is a solid fund, but they are definitely mimicking Softbank hype-train wise now.

Their Enterprise and Gaming portfolios are solid, but that's largely devolved to some very competent partners.

Tbh, idk how much day to day impact Andreessen has at A16Z anymore. I think he always wanted to go the thought leadership route, but also wanted to still be in the game.

As a marketing pitch it is too poorly structured.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're right. The ME seems to be investing very heavily in AI right now, and many of those nations have extremely deep pockets and favorable conditions for data center creation.

so your take is that it's saying to increase pressure, exploit harder, and get more even more faster?

I think that is the not-so-hidden subtext yes.

Absolutely. Regardless of the true virtue of Andreessen's idealism, his marketing aim is functional and mostly signaling. It's about congealing the buzz and hype over AI into a pithy thesis that is moth paper to the semi-moral bigwigs of global finance.

yeah but he presumes they're undiscerning?

Have you seen NEOM?

Yep but the free spending heavily oil funded Saudi mega project doesn't necessarily go to Andreessen Horowitz.

Have you seen SoftBank?

Also NEOM original vision was a free tech utopia... AH is deeply interested in that. And the associated spend.

Softbank is a curious company for sure!

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