Marc Andreessen is the co-founder of Netscape and co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the venture capital firm that has backed companies like Airbnb, Facebook, and Coinbase, and helped shape the modern startup ecosystem. His episode on Inflection Moments explores how a self-taught programmer from the Midwest helped ignite the commercial internet, and then reinvented himself as one of Silicon Valley’s most influential investors.

Andreessen’s story runs from building Mosaic, one of the first widely used web browsers, to co-founding Netscape and taking it public in a landmark IPO that signaled the arrival of the internet era. After Netscape’s eventual sale to AOL, he transitions from operator to investor, co-founding a16z with Ben Horowitz and reimagining venture capital as a platform: offering founders not just funding, but recruiting, marketing, and strategic support at scale.

This story is worth studying because it shows how to recognize and ride technological waves early, and then evolve your role as those waves mature. For founders, the takeaways include how to build at the edge of paradigm shifts, how to move fast in winner-take-most markets, and how to reinvent yourself as your industry evolves. For investors, Andreessen’s arc is a playbook in conviction investing, demonstrating how bold theses, concentrated bets, and deep ecosystem support can turn emerging technologies into generational companies.

Chapters

(00:00) Intro

(02:15) Inflection Point #1: The Browser

(10:08) Inflection Point #2: Founding Netscape

(17:18) Inflection Point #3: Internet Explorer

(24:29) Inflection Point #4: 1999-2001

(31:01) Inflection Point #5: Founding a16z

(38:19) Common Threads

(42:58) Closing Thoughts

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