Marc Andreessen

INDUCTED IN CLASS OF 2004

Notable accomplishments:

• Co-wrote (with Eric Bina) Mosaic, the first Web browser with integrated graphics (1993)
• Co-founded (with Jim Clark) Mosaic Communications (later Netscape) to support the first commercial Web browser (1994)
• Co-founded LoudCloud (later Opsware), one of the first companies to sell cloud computing as a service (1999)

Quotes:
“AI is a computer program like any other — it runs, takes input, processes, and generates output. AI’s output is useful across a wide range of fields, ranging from coding to medicine to law to the creative arts. It is owned by people and controlled by people, like any other technology.” (“Why AI Will Save the World,” June 6. 2023)

“A common criticism of software is that it’s not something that takes physical form in the real world. For example, software is not a house, or a school, or a hospital. This is of course true on the surface, but it misses a key point. Software is a lever on the real world. Someone writes code, and all of a sudden riders and drivers coordinate a completely new kind of real-world transportation system, and we call it Lyft. Someone writes code, and all of a sudden homeowners and guests coordinate a completely new kind of real-world real estate system, and we call it AirBNB. Someone writes code, etc., and we have cars that drive themselves, and planes that fly themselves, and wristwatches that tell us if we’re healthy or ill. Software is our modern alchemy. Isaac Newton spent much of his life trying and failing to transmute a base element — lead — into a valuable material — gold. Software is alchemy that turns bytes into actions by and on atoms. It’s the closest thing we have to magic. So instead of feeling like we are failing if we’re not building in atoms, we should lean as hard into software as we possibly can. Everywhere software touches the real world, the real world gets better, and less expensive, and more efficient, and more adaptable, and better for people. And this is especially true for the real-world domains that have been least touched by software until now — such as housing, education, and health care.” (Interview with Noah Smith, June 21, 2021)

Suggested reading:
“Netscape Time” by Jim Clark and Owen Edwards (1999)

“Speeding the Net” by Joshua Quittner and Michelle Slatalla (1998)

Learn more:
Biography at Andreessen Horowitz