Marc Andreessen: Bitcoin Is A “Very Important Idea”

Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer.

 Born July 9, 1971, Andreessen received a degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used Web browser; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard. Andreessen is also a co-founder of Ning, a company that provides a platform for social networking websites. He sits on the board of directors of Facebook, eBay, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, among others. Andreessen was one of six inductees in the World Wide Web Hall of Fame announced at the First International Conference on the World-Wide Web in 1994.

After his graduation from UIUC in 1993, Andreessen moved to California to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Then Andreessen met Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, who had recently exited the firm. Clark believed that the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet software company. Soon, Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen as a co-founder and vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company’s use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its flagship Web browser was the Netscape Navigator.

Netscape’s IPO in 1995 put Andreessen into the public eye. He was featured on the cover of Time and other publications.

Netscape was acquired in 1999 for $4.3 billion by AOL. Andreessen was hired as its Chief Technology Officer. The same year, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

Between 2005 and 2009, Andreessen and longtime business partner Ben Horowitz separately invested a total of $4 million in 45 start-ups that included Twitter and Qik. Both of them became well — known as super angel investors. On July 6, 2009, Andreessen and Horowitz announced their Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The firm had been scrutinized among several other venture capital firms for lack of diversity in its workforce. The Information’s Future List 2015 & 2016 ranked Andreessen Horowitz 55th and 47th, respectively, based on their ethnic and gender diversity as well as the age of people on their investment teams. According to the data, the firm’s senior investment team was 94% male in 2015, scoring 0.0 for gender diversity in 2016 and April 2018.

Begun with an initial capitalization of $300 million, within three years the firm grew to $2.7 billion under management across three funds. Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio holdings include Facebook, Foursquare, GitHub, Pinterest, Twitter, and Honor, Inc.

On September 1, 2009, an investor group that included Andreessen Horowitz acquired a majority stake in Skype for $2.75 billion, which was considered risky. The deal paid off in May 2011 when Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion. Additionally, Andreessen and Horowitz made personal investments in headset maker Jawbone in 2006. In 2010, the firm assisted Silicon Valley attorney Ted Wang in creating the first free standardized seed round financing documents, the Series Seed Documents. The firm announced a $49 million investment in Jawbone in March 2011. In February 2011, Andreessen Horowitz’s $80 million investment in Twitter made it the first venture firm to hold stock in all four of the highest-valued, privately held social media companies (at that time): Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, and Zynga.

Nowadays he is a personal investor in companies including LinkedIn and boutique bank Raine.

Andreessen serves on the board of Facebook, eBay, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Kno, Stanford Hospital, Bump Technologies, Anki, Oculus VR, Dialpad, and TinyCo.

He serves as advisor to Asana and director of CollabNet.

Andreessen is a proponent of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Andreessen serves on an advisory board for Neom, the Saudi Arabia’s plan to build a futuristic “mega city” in the desert.

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