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I follow Andreessen and a few of the other a16z folks on twitter, and every day they are tweetstorming what appear to be very insightful opinions and predictions on a whole slew of industries. And then I wonder if these guys are actually orders of magnitudes more intelligent than me and others, and have truly valid and well thought-out opinions, or if a good amount of what they say is nothing more than speculative bullshit that's hardly contested due to their reputation and success.

I've got enormous respect for them, too, but I'm beginning to think that the breadth and depth of expertise and foresight they display shouldn't be taken too seriously.

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That's pretty much the case for any sort of punditry, particularly on the Internet. It doesn't matter what you say or how good your information is, as long as you say it with confidence. Because everybody else's information is just as bad, anyway, and people remember your predictions that come true, not the ones that don't. Particularly if your predictions are bold and unlikely.

In my experience, people who have done actual, rigorous firsthand research usually keep quiet about it unless they are trying to alter the general public opinion, in which case they'll throw out the minimum amount of information necessary to give credence to their unfounded and self-serving speculation. Why? Because solid, accurate information is very valuable in business, and why give it to your competitors for free?

no doubt andreessen is smarter, both in raw intelligence and financial wisdom, than you or i or the next guy, but the billions of dollars at his command to assist in manifesting his will helps quite a bit.

and so does being at the nexus of the tech industry and seeing the entire ecosystem from the inside-out, "behind the curtain" so to speak. they have a lot of insider information, not the least of which is basically every single pitch that comes across every other VC's desk in town, and the actual financial health of funded companies operating in the marketplace. they all share information, that's why they don't sign NDAs.

I always wonder, assuming a person had all the benefits, the perfect genetics, the perfect upbringing, the perfect luck in industry, how much smarter or better informed, or capable could they be than the average person?

We have the meme that a great programmer is 10x better than a lacking peer. I think that is the absolute maximum upper bound on how much better someone can be, and that is in a limited, specific pursuit.

When it comes to predicting the future shape of society, we're talking about the average of many, many disciplines- not a discrete thing like programming ability. So I really think at best it'd be like a 2x-3x factor of improvement.

And with something as difficult as understanding the future, 2-3x isn't much, because you're multiplying a standard ability of near 0.

>no doubt andreessen is smarter, both in raw intelligence and financial wisdom, than you or i or the next guy,

What kind of evidence could you ever collect for this statement?

> no doubt andreessen is smarter, both in raw intelligence and financial wisdom, than you or i or the next guy

Nope nope nope. Money does not make you instantly smarter than everyone else.

Not sure why this is my craw... but everytime I see andreessen mentioned I always end up thinking of the crazy "Snowden is a traitor" bit. ah well.

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