Author: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, a16z; Translated by: 0xjs@Golden Finance
Translator's note: Silicon Valley, as the main beneficiary of globalization, has always been a "hard fan" of the Democratic Party of the United States. But now Trump is conquering Silicon Valley. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the two founders of a16z, a well-known Silicon Valley VC company, publicly announced on July 16 that they would switch from Democratic Party Biden to Trump. As for the reasons behind their switch, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have jointly written an article and published it on the a16z official website on July 5, 2024. The title of the article is "The Little Tech Agenda". a16z hopes to support politicians who support small technology companies to ensure that the 21st century continues to be the American century. The article points not only to the US election, but also to the national competition between China and the United States. The following is a joint article by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz:
We call technology startups “Little Tech,” as opposed to big tech companies.
Throughout our career, Little Tech has remained independent of politics. But, as an old Soviet joke goes, “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.”
We believe that bad government policy is the biggest threat facing small tech businesses right now.
We believe that America’s technological hegemony, and the critical role that small tech startups play in ensuring it, is a first-rate political issue on par with any other.
Now is the time to stand up for small tech companies.
As a company, our political efforts are focused entirely on defending small tech companies. We will not engage in political fights except on issues directly related to small tech companies. But we will fight for small tech companies with all our might — for the freedom to research, invent, create jobs, and build the future.
We found three types of politicians:
Those who support small tech companies. We support them too.
Those who are against small tech companies. We are against them too.
Those who are in the middle - they want support but have concerns. We work with them in good faith.
We support or oppose politicians regardless of party or their stance on other issues.
We are in this for the long haul.
USA
America led the twentieth century because we were leaders in three areas:
1. Technology - The United States drove the Second Industrial Revolution in the 1930s and the computer revolution starting in the 1940s.
2. Economy - The free market system of the United States has created huge social wealth and significantly improved the people's quality of life.
3. Military - America’s military strength drove victory in World War I and World War II and catalyzed the unilateral surrender and disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Each dimension reinforces the other two:
Our technological advantage powers our economy and our military.
Our economic growth has rewarded our huge investments in technology and the military.
Our military superiority protects us from foreign threats and hostile ideologies that could destroy our technology, economy, and people.
Moreover, America’s success has had positive spillover effects on much of the rest of the world. American technology is the global standard. The U.S. economy is the primary production and consumption partner for many other countries. And since World War II, the U.S. military has kept the world generally peaceful and prosperous to a level unprecedented in world history.
Opponents say that America's golden age is over and that its role in all three areas will diminish in the 21st century. We disagree. There is no reason why America's technological, economic, and military leadership cannot continue for decades to come. There is no reason why the 21st century cannot be the second American century.
Startup company
America’s technological leadership is the result of a complex system built over the past 150 years, including our pioneering spirit, our work ethic, our rule of law, our deep capital markets, our higher education system, and our government’s long-term investment in scientific research. Universities, government, and corporate labs have all played key roles. But the vanguard of America’s technological supremacy has always been startups. From Edison and Ford to Hughes and Lockheed to SpaceX and Tesla, the road to greatness began in a garage.
A startup is a group of brave outcasts and misfits who come together with a dream, ambition, courage, and a special set of skills to create something new in the world, to build a product that improves people's lives, and to create a company that may continue to create more new things in the future.
The great advantage of any startup is a blank slate—a chance to imagine and realize a different and better world.
But startups are at a disadvantage from the start. Specifically, they must compete with incumbents that have overwhelming brands, market positions, customer bases, and financial muscle—incumbents that try to stifle startup competition before it can even begin.
Incumbents often have another huge advantage — the ability to pit government against startup competitors.
Dominant companies don’t start out that way. In fact, they start out as startups, fight their way to a position of power, and then seek to lock in gains, pulling on the ropes behind them. They embed themselves in the political system and seek regulatory capture — a wall of laws and regulations that protect and entrench their position, while making it impossible for new startups to scale.
Historically, the result of market regulatory capture has been government-enforced monopolies and cartels.
The motto of all monopolies and cartels is: "We don't care because we don't need to."
When this cycle continues, when large corporations can wield the weapon of government against startups, the result is stagnation and then decline.
Today’s U.S. economy shows many signs of stagnation and decline. Economists use productivity growth to measure the rate of technological progress in an economy. And today’s productivity growth, after 50 years of extremely powerful technologies like computers and the internet, is lower than it was before the 1970s.
The real-world consequences are staggering:
Low productivity growth means low economic growth.
Slow economic growth means that the quality of life of ordinary people improves slowly or even regresses. For example, prices soar, and the quality of education, health care, and housing stagnates—a sure sign of regulatory capture.
Low economic growth also means the rise of zero-sum politics, because the benefits of one group of people must come at the expense of others.
Zero-sum politics corrodes the nation's spirit of opportunity and growth. We can feel this corrosion all around us.
The way to prevent this outcome is to encourage new startups—driving innovation, competition, and growth—and to prevent large corporations from using the weapons of government to crush them.
question
The U.S. government is now far more hostile to emerging startups than it used to be.
For example:
Regulators have been given the go-ahead to use forceful investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to stymie the development of emerging industries like blockchain.
Regulators are approving the same for AI in real time.
Regulators are putting direct pressure on banks to keep unloved startups and founders out of the financial system.
Regulators are punitively blocking startups from being acquired by the big companies that the government favors in many other ways.
As a customer in key sectors such as defense and intelligence, the federal government is more inclined than ever to favor large incumbents over innovative startups.
Moreover, the government is currently proposing a tax on unrealized capital gains, which would absolutely kill startups and the venture capital industry that funds them.
The increasingly pervasive anti-startup bias in the U.S. government poses a clear and present threat to the health and vitality of American technological success—and therefore to the American economy, the American military, and the American people.
Why is this happening? Partly because of clear decision-making. Partly because of accumulated inertia. But also because tech startups, as an industry, don’t show up in Washington, D.C., and in the political system the way big companies do. As long as this imbalance persists, the war on tech startups, and the resulting threat to the United States, will persist.
Hence the need to defend small tech companies politically.
opportunity
Reversing destructive policies is only one side of the coin. We can also envision proactive policies that encourage tech startups to flourish—benefiting those startups and their customers, and forcing large companies to stay vibrant and alive amid the startup competition.
For example:
Carry out regulatory reforms in important industries such as health care, education, and housing to deprive existing regulators of regulatory capture and achieve higher quality services at lower prices.
Policies that rebuild American manufacturing around automation and AI, bringing entire industries back home and creating millions of new middle-class jobs.
Emerging companies are building defense systems at the forefront of autonomy and AI, reshaping the U.S. military-industrial base.
Environmental reforms encouraged the development and deployment of nuclear power to enable unlimited clean energy production.
Expand high-skilled immigration to encourage foreign graduates from U.S. colleges and other schools to come to the United States and start new companies and industries.
There is also a whole-of-government plan to promote the global success of American technology companies to counter a hostile China and a regulation-crazy European Union.
We have no doubt that a U.S. government that truly wants startups to succeed and new industries to thrive will significantly improve the living standards of ordinary Americans and ensure that America’s technological, economic, and military power remains strong for decades to come.
The glory of the second American century is before us. Let us seize it.
