18 Posts found for Author: Marc Andreessen

I’ve learned that there are two kinds of mistakes in venture capital. There’s the mistake of commission, in which you invest in or go work for a company that fails. And then there’s the mistake of omission, in which you don’t invest in Google or don’t go to work at Facebook in 2005.

The longer you’re in this industry, the more you learn that the mistakes … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Succeeding as a start-up is as hard as it’s ever been, because the same fundamental dynamic is in play. You’ve got some idea of why the world should change, but the world doesn’t want to. People are too busy to hear another pitch from another start-up. People are happy in their jobs and don’t want to leave for your start-up. People are happy with the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Entrepreneurship

On a micro level, everybody likes a new product, a new TV show, new software, a new smartphone. At that micro level, people love change. At the macro level, we hate change. Big, new ideas that challenge preconceptions make people really angry.

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Customer Related, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior

In his conversation with YC Partner and COO Qasar Younis, Marc outlined two tests investors run on entrepreneurs before working with them. Later in the conversation Qasar asked Marc who he looks up to.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Marc Andreessen | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Do whatever is required to get to product/market fit. Including changing out people, rewriting your product, moving into a different market, telling customers no when you don’t want to, telling customers yes when you don’t want to, raising that fourth round of highly dilutive venture capital — whatever is required.

When you get right down to it, you can ignore almost everything else. I’m not suggesting … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: LinkedIn | Subject: Entrepreneurship

You can obviously screw up a great market — and that has been done, and not infrequently — but assuming the team is baseline competent and the product is fundamentally acceptable, a great market will tend to equal success and a poor market will tend to equal failure. Market matters most.

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: LinkedIn | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Management, Strategy

The caliber of a startup team can be defined as the suitability of the CEO, senior staff, engineers, and other key staff relative to the opportunity in front of them. You look at a startup and ask, will this team be able to optimally execute against their opportunity? I focus on effectiveness as opposed to experience, since the history of the tech industry is full … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: LinkedIn | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Marc Andreessen writes about the only thing that matters for a new startup – product/market fit.

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: LinkedIn | Subject: Entrepreneurship

A conversation with Marc Andreessen, co-founder and chairman of Ning and an investor in several startups including Digg, Plazes, and Twitter. Best known as co-author of Mosaic, and founder of Netscape. He is on the Board of Directors of Facebook and eBay.

Content: Multimedia Content | Authors: Charlie Rose, Marc Andreessen | Source: PBS | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, People

Charlie Munger is an 80-something billionaire who cofounded top-tier law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson and is Warren Buffett’s long-time partner and Vice-Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most successful companies of all time.

Some people consider Mr. Munger to be an even more interesting thinker and writer than Mr. Buffett. Mr. Munger’s magnum opus speech is The Psychology of Human Misjudgment — an … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subject: Organizational Behavior

One of the hottest of hot topics these days is the topic of Internet platforms, or platforms on the Internet. In this blog post, Marc Andreessen attempts to disentangle and examine the topic of “Internet platform” in detail.

Editor’s Note: I think this is a good read for both the technically inclined and technophobes…

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business

One of the most critical things a startup founder must do is develop a top-notch executive team. This is a topic that could fill a whole book, but in this post, Marc Andreessen provides specific guidelines on how to hire, manage, promote, and fire executives in a startup based on his personal observations and experiences.

Editor’s Note: another great post from Andreessen…

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Human Resources

Marc Andreessen offers a series of blog posts on venture capital.

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Marc Andreessen summarizes some research by Dean Simonton on age and creativity across many fields.

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Miscellaneous

Marc Andreessen discusses the difference between “spaces” (or trends) and markets, focusing on the Web 2.0 trend.

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Trends / Analysis

In this series of blog posts Marc Andreessen walks through some of his accumulated knowledge and experience in building high-tech startups.

Editor’s Note: I especially enjoyed Parts 1 and 4.

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Marc Andreessen takes a look at luck and the entrepreneur, focusing on the work of Dr. James Austin, who developed a theory of four kinds of luck (chance).

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Miscellaneous

Marc Andreessen summarizes and provides a copy of a 2007 paper in the Financial Analysts Journal by Tom Arnold, John Earl, and David North:

“Headlines from featured stories in Business Week, Fortune, and Forbes were collected for a 20-year period to determine whether positive stories are associated with superior future performance and negative stories are associated with inferior future performance for the featured company. “Superior” and … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Marc Andreessen | Source: Pmarca | Subjects: Finance, Miscellaneous