Author: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, a16z; Compiler: 0xjs@黄金财经
Translator's Note: Silicon Valley, as the main beneficiary of globalization, has always been a "hard fan" of the US Democratic Party. But now Trump is conquering Silicon Valley. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the two founders of the famous Silicon Valley VC company a16z, publicly announced on July 16, 2024 that they would switch from Democratic Party Biden to Trump. As for the reasons behind their switch, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have co-authored an article and published it on the a16z official website on July 5, titled "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 to not only the US election, but also the national competition between China and the United States. The following is a joint article by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz:
Our name for technology startups is "Little Tech," as opposed to large tech companies.
Throughout our careers, Little Tech has been 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 now the biggest threat facing small tech companies.
We believe that America's technological hegemony, and the key role that small tech startups play in ensuring that hegemony, are first-class political issues on par with any other.
Now is the time to stand up for small tech companies.
As a company, our political efforts are entirely focused on defending small tech companies. We will not engage in political fights except on issues that are directly related to small tech companies. But we will do our utmost to fight for small tech companies - for the freedom to research, invent, create jobs, and build the future.
We find three types of politicians:
Those who are for small tech. We are with them.
Those who are against small tech. We are against them.
Those 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.
United States
The United States led the 20th century because we were ahead in three areas:
1. Technology - The United States promoted 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 tremendous social wealth and significantly improved the quality of life of the people.
3. Military - The United States' military strength promoted 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 dimensions:
Our technological advantage powers our economy and military.
Our economic growth rewards our huge investments in technology and military.
Our military superiority insulates 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 leading production and consumption partner for many other nations. Since World War II, the U.S. military has kept the world generally peaceful and prosperous to a level unprecedented in world history.
Naysayers say America’s golden age is over and that America’s role in all three areas will diminish in the 21st century. We disagree. There is no reason America’s technological, economic, and military leadership cannot continue for decades to come. There is no reason the 21st century cannot be the Second American Century.
Startups
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 path 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, 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 seek 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 positions of power, and then seek to lock in gains and pull the strings behind them. They embed themselves into the political system and seek regulatory capture—a wall of laws and regulations that protects and entrenches their position, and makes it impossible for new startups to scale.
Historically, the result of regulatory capture of markets is 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 companies can use the weapons 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 productivity growth today, after 50 years of the spread 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 slow improvements in the quality of life for ordinary people, or even a complete regression. 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 gains for one group of people must come at the expense of taking away things from another group of people.
Zero-sum politics corrodes the nation’s spirit of opportunity and growth.
The way to prevent this outcome is to encourage new startups—driving innovation, competition, and growth—and prevent large corporations from using the weapons of government to crush them.
The Problem
The U.S. government is now far more hostile to emerging startups than it was before.
For example:
Regulators have been given permission to use heavy-handed investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to stymie the development of emerging industries like blockchain.
Regulators are getting the green light to do the same for AI in real time.
Regulators are putting direct pressure on banks to exclude unloved startups and founders from the financial system.
Regulators are punitively blocking startups from being acquired by the same large companies that the government favors in so many other ways.
As customers in key sectors like defense and intelligence, the federal government is more inclined than ever to favor large incumbents over innovative startups.
And the government is currently proposing a tax on unrealized capital gains that would absolutely stifle both 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 U.S. economy, the U.S. military, and the American people.
Why is this happening? Partly because of clear decisions. 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 same way that large 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.
Opportunities
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 startup competition.
For example:
Regulatory reforms in important industries such as health care, education, and housing that strip existing regulators of regulatory capture and enable higher quality services at lower prices.
Policies that rebuild American manufacturing around automation and AI, moving entire industries back home and creating millions of new middle-class jobs.
Emerging companies building defense systems on the frontiers of autonomy and AI, reshaping the U.S. military-industrial base.
Environmental reforms that encourage the development and deployment of nuclear power to enable unlimited clean energy production.
Expand high-skilled immigration to encourage foreign graduates from U.S. universities and other schools to come to the United States and build new companies and industries.
And 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 upon us. Let's seize it.
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