To anyone who has worked or wishes to work with a16z
There is no way to "miss" where a16z now stands.

Thanks to everyone who subscribed to the newsletter this week. If you're new here, this message almost certainly doesn't apply to you. The next post will be an update on some of my creative endeavors. Regardless, if you read this and feel similar to how I do, I suggest channeling that feeling toward helping an organization like The Legal Aid Society or the Legal Defense Fund.
Jordan Neely was killed on a New York City subway train on May 1, 2023 by his assailant Daniel Penny. You no doubt heard about Neely's death–it was all over the news, and like so many fatally violent episodes where a white man killed a Black man, the facts of the case were quickly distorted by America's political right wing to render the story of a senseless killing as one of justice delivered.
While progressive officials and citizens lamented the societal shortcomings that led to the then-unhoused Neely's criminal record and his struggles with mental illness, the powerful propaganda machine made up of actors like Fox News, The New York Post, and nearly every registered-Republican politician in the country set about smearing the man who was killed and praising his killer.
Can you guess which response Marc Andreessen aligns with?
From Olivia Reingold at The Free Press, Daniel Penny Gets Hired by Andreessen Horowitz:
Announcing the hire, [a16z general partner David] Ulevitch did not shy away from the May 2023 incident—in fact, he cited Penny’s actions that day when explaining the hire.
“I believe, as I know many of you do, that Daniel acted with courage in a tough situation,” he wrote. “He was acquitted of all charges. Beyond that, it has always been our policy to evaluate the entire person and not judge them for the worst moment in their entire life.”
The transformation of a16z and its chief decision makers from good ol' fashioned Silicon Valley libertarianism to "dark enlightenment" fascist flame-stoking has been completely doused in daylight, just as the firm's many asinine venture bets on technologies like cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and generative AI have. There is no way to "miss" where a16z now stands.
Marc Andreessen is so personally into roleplaying as a 20th century industrial giant and Nazi collaborator that–while Penny was awaiting trial on a charge of negligent homicide for which he was eventually found not guilty–Andreessen was laying the groundwork for his current cheerleading of the Trump administration by releasing his "Techno-Optimist Manifesto."
From Elizabeth Spiers, in an Opinion piece at The New York Times, A Tech Billionaire’s Case for Why Tech Billionaires Should Rule the World:
Neoreactionary thought contends that the world would operate much better in the hands of a few tech-savvy elites in a quasi-feudal system. Mr. Andreessen, through this lens, believes that advancing technology is the most virtuous thing one can do. This strain of thinking is disdainful of democracy and opposes institutions (a free press, for example) that bolster it. It despises egalitarianism and views oppression of marginalized groups as a problem of their own making. It argues for an extreme acceleration of technological advancement regardless of consequences, in a way that makes “move fast and break things” seem modest.
We are seeing, as I write this, how this neoreactionary strain of thought manifests in action once a complicit executive branch hands over the reins of government: Former Tesla and Thiel portfolio interns have been barging into sensitive US government data centers for the past week to scoop up information on you and your loved ones (read all about it in WIRED if you haven't). It is very likely the case that, if you are a US citizen, some utterly unqualified college-age bro has illegally accessed a database with your SSN stored in it in the past few days, all because Elon Musk and his ilk said he could.
Also, if you're one of the techies reading this, just the cybersecurity implications of letting dorks who likely have ChatGPT do most of their programming touch a federal database should alone make you scream bloody murder.
If you have worked with a16z in the past, currently have a relationship with them, or have the faintest hope of securing funding from them in the future, that is what you are supporting.
If you think I am being unfair to a16z as an organization, you are taking the side of a giant VC firm that just made a huge show of hiring a white man with zero investment experience, a decision made based on the fact that Penny killed an unarmed Black man in front of multiple witnesses and got away with it.
If you support a16z, you support a company that is openly signaling its allegiance to fascism by hiring a killer.
And if you think that this post was imbalanced or that I should have painted the killing of Jordan Neely in more gray, ambiguous terms, then I politely request that you fuck off forever and unsubscribe.
