In a 5,200-word manifesto published by venture capitalist and billionaire Marc Andreessen on Monday, he ripped into tech skeptics and what he calls the “lies” they feed to society about technology. Broken into 15 parts and written with frequent line breaks (like a poem), the manifesto lists what techno-optimists believe about the world around them, including that technology is the solution to environmental degradation and that artificial intelligence is a “philosopher’s stone” that can cure illnesses and stop pandemics. In the manifesto published on Substack and on Andreessen Horowitz’s website, he repeats the phrase “We believe” 113 times.
Andreessen rails against social responsibility, trust and safety measures, sustainability, and tech ethics—what the investor calls the enemies of techno-optimism. He scoffs at the idea that technology takes jobs, hurts the environment, or corrupts children in any way. The manifesto lists many enemies, ranging from victim mentalities to cartels to communists, with many more listed besides.
“This upward spiral [of innovation] has been running for hundreds of years, despite continuous howling from Communists and Luddites,” he writes. “Indeed, as of 2019, before the temporary COVID disruption, the result was the largest number of jobs at the highest wages and the highest levels of material living standards in the history of the planet.” In other words, the combination of technology and free markets has worked throughout history, he argues. While he doesn’t mention libertarianism in the essay, he appears to be advocating for a similar philosophy of minimal intervention. For America’s liberal democracy, he says, it is technology that safeguards liberty and peace.
“Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential,” Andreessen writes. In short, skeptics need to step aside and let technology transform the world. The only time he mentions regulation is when he claims that “our enemy is corruption, regulatory capture, monopolies, cartels.”
The manifesto is wide-ranging, discussing the energy sector, chatbots, and the very meaning of life. But it also touches on markets and finance, emphasizing the belief that free markets can lift people from poverty while centralized systems don’t look out for the individual, because they don’t have to. Free markets are also the most effective way to support technology, according to Andreessen. “We believe the techno-capital machine of markets and innovation never ends, but instead spirals continuously upward,” he writes, without mentioning hundreds of years’ worth of market crashes, except to note the “COVID disruption” mentioned above.
AI can save lives if people allow it to, according to the investor. But he also goes as far as saying, “Any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.”
Combating the idea that technology will take jobs, Andreessen says it can create more work by broadening the scope of what people are capable of. It is the lack of work that threatens humanity, according to the venture capitalist. “We believe a universal basic income would turn people into zoo animals to be farmed by the state,” Andreessen writes. “Man was not meant to be farmed; man was meant to be useful, to be productive, to be proud.”
He also has unorthodox feelings on the state of the global population. Despite a wealth of researchers agreeing the Earth is facing an overpopulation problem—which contributes to global warming, pollution, and overuse of natural resources—Andreessen says the planet is actually “dramatically underpopulated.”
“We believe the global population can quite easily expand to 50 billion people or more, and then far beyond that as we ultimately settle other planets,” he writes. For the venture capitalist, the question of settling on other planets isn’t “if,” but “when.”
All in all, Andreessen believes in the power of humans and of innovations that come from them. “We are not primitives, cowering in fear of the lightning bolt,” he writes. “We are the apex predator; the lightning works for us.”
At the end of his manifesto, Andreessen offers an invitation to join him in a techno-optimist mindset. “The water is warm,” he writes.
