Why Marc Andreessen was ‘very scared’ after meeting with Biden administration about AI

Celebrity investor Marc Andreessen was “terrified” last May after meeting with government officials about the future of technology, calling the meetings “absolutely terrifying.” Those meetings played a key role in why he supported Trump, he told journalist Bari Weiss on his podcast this week.

What scared him the most was what some said about the government’s role in AI and what he described as a “radicalized” and “out-for-blood” young cadre whose policy ideas would be “harmful” to his and Silicon Valley’s interests.

He came away believing that only a few companies that cooperated with the government supported government control of artificial intelligence to the point of being market makers that allowed it to thrive. He felt his investment in AI was being held back. “They clearly told us don’t do AI startups, don’t fund AI startups,” he said.

Obviously, we don’t know how the other people at the meeting would remember such discussions, or even who he was meeting with. But we can understand why such ideas are especially scary for Andreessen: His company has backed AI startups like Elon Musk’s xAI, Mistral AI, and Character.AI.

It should be noted that in June 2023, long before these meetings, Andreessen published In his AI manifesto, “Why AI Will Save the World,” he warned against AI regulation. So it’s an area that’s been on his mind for a while.

Clearly, the administration has taken less drastic measures around AI than Andreessen recalled. In October 2023, President Joe Biden issued an executive order containing a number of voluntary obligations for AI companies. That includes asking companies to share the results of security tests with the government and calling on Congress to assess how AI companies collect data.

The order from Silicon Valley received mixed reviews at the time. OpenAI’s Sam Altman tweeted that while there are “some great parts” to the initiative, “it will be important not to slow down innovation by smaller companies/research groups.”

The next administration is already showing plans to play especially nice with AI startups. Earlier this month, Trump announced that he is an investor VC David Sacks would be his AI and crypto czarafter that, both Altman and Perplexity confirmed they would donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of artificial intelligence, and I stand ready to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” Altman said. Bloomberg news.

Andreessen himself has spent about half of his time at Mar-a-Lago since the election. He confirmed this hypothesis to Weiss He was involved in Elon Musk’s DOGE initiativedescribed himself as an “unpaid volunteer”. He also said he was “participating in some of the interview processes for some of the incoming officials” at Mar-a-Lago.

Andreessen said he felt hopeful about Trump’s approach to technology, saying Trump told him, “I don’t know a lot about technology, but I don’t need to because you know a lot about it. You should build technology companies. “American technology companies must win.”