Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:18:23 · Marc Andreessen
[01:18:23] S0: Yeah. I mean, for us, yeah. For us, we obviously have a very deliberate strategy. One way to think about this the Peter Thiel... You remember the Peter Thiel formulation of... he said, "There's a two by two, there's optimism and pessimism, and then there's determinant and, is it indeterminate, and indeterminate." And so he always argued that Silicon Valley is characterized by too much what he calls indeterminate optimism. What he meant by that is basically, I think the way he would describe it is an indeterminate optimist who thinks the world is going to be better but can't explain why. Some combination of things is going to happen to make the world be better even if we don't know what those things are. I think he at least historically would say that's basically... that risks at least being just wishful thinking or delusional thinking. What the world needs more is determinant optimists, which are people who are like, "No, the world is going to be better because I'm going to do this specific thing." He would classify, for example, Elon, he would sort of maybe say VCs are indeterminate optimists and then he would say Elon is the determinant optimist where it's like, no, I'm going to build the electric car, I'm going to do solar, and then I'm going to do Mars and these very concrete things. I think there's a lot to Peter's framework, but the way I would describe it is I think maybe if he and I disagree with part of that it would be I think the indeterminate optimism is a stronger phenomenon than at least I think he's historically represented it as, and I would put myself firmly in the indeterminate optimist category, and that's the strategy that we have at a16z which is... and the reason for that is hopefully it's not so much wishful thinking. It's more, no, the indeterminate optimism of venture capital or the indeterminate optimism of a16z or Silicon Valley is actually very specific which is there are these extremely bright and capable people, like Elon and many others, who are founders and kind of product creators. Each of those individual people is a determinant optimist. Each of them individually has a very strong view of what they're going to do, but the great virtue of the capitalist system, the great virtue of the American economy, the great virtue of Silicon Valley is we don't just have one of those and we don't just have 10 of those.
01:20:27 · Marc Andreessen, Lenny Rachitsky
We have 100 and a thousand and then 10,000 of those. The way to optimize the outcome is to have as many of those as possible be as good as possible, run as hard as possible. And then just the nature of the future is like we just don't know all the answers and that's okay. And then the right way to deal with that is to run as many experiments as possible and have as many smart people try to do as many interesting things as possible. And so, yeah, I would put myself firmly on the side of the indeterminate optimistic. [01:20:55] S1: I'm wondering if the answer to the question of what you look for now more and more is this determinant optimistic founder that has this massive ambition and is- ... [inaudible 01:21:00] Optimistic founder- [01:21:01] S0: Yeah. [01:21:02] S1: ... and has this massive ambition and is actually working on achieving it.
01:21:02 · Lenny Rachitsky, Marc Andreessen
[01:21:02] S1: ... and has this massive ambition and is actually working on achieving it. [01:21:06] S0: Yeah, yeah. No, that's right, that's right. I mean look, the founders need to be determinate optimists. They need to have a very specific plan. And look, the critique always... The critique from the founders is, "Oh UVCs have it easy, because you don't actually have to commit, right? You don't actually have to, like, make... You have to make the bed you lay in, you can, like, place multiple bets you can have. Whereas a portfolio, you should have a lot more sympathy for us as founders, because we only get to make the one bet." And there's truth to that. The kind of argument on that is the founders get to run their companies, we don't. So, we don't get to put our hand on the steering wheel. And so, the great virtue of being a determinant optimist is you actually get to single-mindedly execute against that goal. And look, in the long run, who does history remember? History remembers Henry Ford, right, not whoever was, whatever the seed investor who seeded Ford Motor Company, and 10 other car companies have failed. Right? And so, the determinant optimist is the founder of the company builder and the engineer, and these are the people who actually use the sign, and deserve 99.9999% of the credit. But you know, having said that, I do think there is a role for having some indeterminate optimists in the background, no, helping along the way, and helping keep the whole cycle going.
01:21:06 · Marc Andreessen, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:21:06] S0: Yeah, yeah. No, that's right, that's right. I mean look, the founders need to be determinate optimists. They need to have a very specific plan. And look, the critique always... The critique from the founders is, "Oh UVCs have it easy, because you don't actually have to commit, right? You don't actually have to, like, make... You have to make the bed you lay in, you can, like, place multiple bets you can have. Whereas a portfolio, you should have a lot more sympathy for us as founders, because we only get to make the one bet." And there's truth to that. The kind of argument on that is the founders get to run their companies, we don't. So, we don't get to put our hand on the steering wheel. And so, the great virtue of being a determinant optimist is you actually get to single-mindedly execute against that goal. And look, in the long run, who does history remember? History remembers Henry Ford, right, not whoever was, whatever the seed investor who seeded Ford Motor Company, and 10 other car companies have failed. Right? And so, the determinant optimist is the founder of the company builder and the engineer, and these are the people who actually use the sign, and deserve 99.9999% of the credit. But you know, having said that, I do think there is a role for having some indeterminate optimists in the background, no, helping along the way, and helping keep the whole cycle going. [01:22:18] S1: Do you think about AGI in shifting your investment thesis? Like, as we approach AGI and hit AGI, as an investor, how do you think about your investment thesis changing?
01:22:29 · Marc Andreessen
[01:22:29] S0: Yeah, so I've always kind of had a little bit of an issue... I've always kind of struggled with the concept of AGI because at least... Well, let's put it this way. Let's define terms which is where I kind of struggle with it. Which is, there's like the prosaic definition of AGI, and then there's like the cosmic definition. And the way I describe it as, so let me start with the cosmic one. So the cosmic one is basically, is the singularity, right? And so, AGI is the moment where you enter the singularity which is to say where the world fundamentally changes. And the rules of the old world are gone, we're now operating in a new domain. And then the full definition of singularity is it's a world in which human judgment is no longer really relevant because you get this self-improvement loop, the AI is improving itself. In a sort of race circle takeoff scenarios, you could see if this takeoff thing, where the AI's improving itself, and the machines are making decisions so much faster than people, and people are just sitting there watching the machine do its thing. And I kind of described it, I don't really think we live in that world, whether they could call that utopian or dystopian, I don't think we're lucky or unlucky enough to live in that world. We could debate that, we could talk about that more. But the prosaic definition of AGI that at least I think the industry purchases but it's kind of conversed on, and tell me if you agree with this, is when the AI could do every economically-relevant task as good as a person.
01:23:47 · Lenny Rachitsky, Marc Andreessen
[01:23:47] S1: The way the co-founder of Anthropic put it is, like, "A basket of the most valuable economic tasks," so it's, like, 10, 15, not every single economically-valuable task. [01:23:56] S0: Okay, got it. Yeah, so it's maybe even a slightly reduced definition. And by the way, we're clearly getting close to that if we're not already there. And so on that one, I kind of feel like, so I kind of feel like the cosmic one overstates what's going to happen. And then I kind of feel like the kind of AGI definition that you just gave, I think it kind of understates what's going to happen. It's almost too reductionist. And the reason for that is, I don't think there's any reason to assume that human skill level is the cap on anything. Right? And so the way we say that is AGI always is the definition you gave, the definition I gave. It's always kind of relative in comparison to a human worker, right? And it's, like, I don't know, human skill level caps out at a certain point, but that's because of the inherent biological limitations of the human organism. Right? Human, I gave you an example. Human IQ, kind of what they call "fluid intelligence," or the sort of G factor of fluid intelligence, IQ I think tops out in humans as a species, it tops out around 160. Right? Where at like 160 it's like Einstein level, Einstein [inaudible 01:25:00]- [01:24:59] S1: In terms of IQ. Yeah.