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SPEAKER 2
Hey everybody, Tim Miller from The Bulwark here with my bestie JVL who wrote his triad newsletter, which you should be subscribed to if you haven't already. Go to thebulwark.com and subscribe right now. It's the best newsletter going. His article today was on Mark Andreessen, a guy that we were both kind of obsessed with, inventor of the internet,
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quasi, with some help from the government. Now he's one of the MAGA, you know, the tech libertarians who have turned into MAGA oligarchs. And there was a Washington Post story that revealed some of his private text messages that were just gobsmacking. So, JBL, why don't you kind of lay the predicate down for why these text messages mattered
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and what they said?

MAGA Billionaire Marc Andreessen’s Ugly White Grievance Rant

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Tim Miller and JVL discuss how Marc Andreessen unleashes a full-throated rant against DEI, immigration, the media, and what he sees as a cultural takeover by the left. Despite being one of the wealthiest and most influential people in tech, Andreessen frames himself as a victim of systemic bias—sparking a conversation about billionaire grievance, hypocrisy, and the broader culture war within Silicon Valley.

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Discussion about this video

User's avatar
Sue Corcoran's avatar

I believe our billionaires are saying what they have always believed. My Brother lives in suburbs outside chicago... Hinsdale. All his friends are insanely rich. They are the worst people I've ever met in my life. They have huge houses, belong to country clubs, own businesses and drink like fish and play golf. And they literally complain about being white all the time. They feel they shouldn't be taxed for some brown person's healthcare. Oh, and they all embrace Jesus but see zero connection to helping others. I had to sit at a dinner with these drunk jerks and listen. to them complain 10 years ago. It was hell and I left. I should have see how these rich privledged white men would manipulate the uneducated and pretend they are aligned with the common man. Their only common bond is the color of their skin to "real america". Look at the MAGA movement. They have the three branches of government and can't stop hating and complaining. The cruelty is the point and they won't stop. We have to stop them.

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CW's avatar

Victimhood x 10^17. That tribe has, over the past three or four decades, installed an Operating System in so many brains, and one of the primary functions of that OS is GET TO VICTIMHOOD IN 3 OR FEWER STEPS.

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Linda Pilgrim's avatar

Nice Supermanish attire JVL 😎

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Sarah Dobney's avatar

A wonderwall end ref... amazing!

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cclark's avatar

Mark Andreessen = Power and Greed

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Travis Cushing's avatar

(Different Travis then the one mentioned)

Totally agree with the point at the end about going to TPUSA and hiring those folks, but I would add what they really need to do is set up the Marc Andreesen Scholarship fund. If he's got enough money for mansions and servants and is worried about "his people" not getting into college he should drain his net worth setting up a fund to help those people get to college easier. Hell he could even open his own college and train them himself, free of charge of course to "his people"

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Bonnie's avatar

It's very confusing to me why these types of white men get this way--so successful, but not willing to acknowledge the help and privilege they had along the way. Is it really just that they can't stand to think that many people think that they do not automatically 'deserve' all their wealth and that they should be taxed A LOT more and income inequality does need to be addressed? Or is it just they are man babies with thin skins?

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CW's avatar

Man babies. If they've seen the Fred Rogers acceptance speech from 1997, I guess they imagine themselves.

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Kentuckistan's avatar

So much for Noblesse Oblige..whether you were conservative, liberal or non political. I'm old enough to remember growing up in the afterglow of the WW2 victory. For awhile there the rich felt some guilt for the Depression and the rise of totalitarian militaristic countries like Germany and Japan...that didn't last long and when Reagan came in it was all about the super wealthy taking back the reins and helping themselves. Someone asked Warren Buffet in 2010 if there was class warfare in America and he said...."hell no, the Rich have already won"!

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Raymond Van Cleve's avatar

This is great. The Marc Andressen Robert Moses comparison is SO GOOD. JVL - sometimes your cynicism is irrational and kind of annoying. But this is gold. This is excellent.

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Erin Bailey's avatar

So good JVL!

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rlritt's avatar

So is that why he has failed to achieve the success he wanted?

DEI does that mean women are being given an unfair advantage.

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JacquieCDV's avatar

Is he an "old guy" to everyone? He may be absurdly cranky but is he perceived as an old dude?

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Deirdre Browner's avatar

So completely disgusting. I can’t believe that the George Floyd backlash has come to this. Sorry Marc, but my three white daughters received college educations in blue California. One at a UC, though at a much higher percentage of our family income than mine some thirty odd years earlier. One at a small catholic college, after scholarship and student loans about the same cost as UC. And the third at a state college because she always wants to do things her own way. State universities are the best route to success for middle class kids even with the funding cuts that started here under Reagan. I always hired people who had different backgrounds than mine because intelligence and drive are not prerogatives of white people. We need all the smart ideas from all the smart people to make it to the next century, not the revisionist nonsense of MAGA. Also I really enjoy the Triad, so thank you JVL!

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LindaJ's avatar

All I could think after watching Andreessen spew was how utterly horrible he must be to live with. That made me feel so much better about my life, because I don't and never will have to live with him! Thank you, guys!

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Franklin Michaels's avatar

Feeling old here, maybe it’s that I’m the same age as Andreesen and from the same part of the Upper Midwest, but there’s a one-word code that’s not being picked up here, at least as to White people in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Bussing.

The original Kevin Phillips wedge issue. And his “Southern Strategy” having been good enough Richard Nixon break the Democrats 100+ year lock the Solid South in 1968, Andreesen and friends know how to play it today. As it was and ever shall be, it’s all about race.

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Sumita Segura's avatar

100 percent Andreessen means Indian/Asian when he is talking about immigration and DEI. The tech field is full of Indian Asian/other Asian immigrants and their native born children at high levels. THIS is why he wants to cut immigration. He's looking around his field and it doesn't look like what it did when he started out.

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Reldas's avatar

Howdy comrades. Y'all getting fired up to eat the rich has me grinning like the cheshire cat. Guillotines & socialism!!

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Audrey R Wagner's avatar

Great show guys! I was at U of I when Andreesen was, and so he has taken up space in my head since the 90's. My trajectory was not the same as his, but neither was anybody else's! I now teach at a second tier Illinois state university, and we'll take anyone who graduated college and at least find you a loan to churn you through! The problem is, the kids' K12 experiences are not preparing them for anything like getting something out of college, never mind becoming the next Andreesen. And now he thinks we should be spending billions getting rid of brown people, but also dismantling the Department of Ed? How is that going to help His People?

I could listen to you two rant on this all day <3

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Lara's avatar

Loved reading that Triad, and equally enjoyed listening to a conversation about it.

I just don’t get people who spend their whole lives with chips on their shoulders—especially the whiney, wealthy, privileged ones. 🤮

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cruxdaemon's avatar

Andreesen didn't even invent the internet. He helped build and commercialize the first widely available browser, but that work was on top of lots of work done by others.

Tim Berners-Lee created the open, standard technologies that still underpin the internet as the wider population uses it: Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Berners-Lee also founded and is emeritus director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body that still maintains web standards. An unreliable internet search tells me TimBL is worth about $10M. 🤷🏾‍♂️

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Nanalin's avatar

Billionaires like him are what’s preventing most people from getting a “good” education - not one taught in southern churches but in decent schools - the middle class is disappearing because of his “class” taking money out of people’s pockets and enriching themselves 🤨😡

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Jessica's avatar

Spot on, you could make this topic into a weekly podcast and I would be here for all of it! Love you, please bring Bulwark Live to Minneapolis!

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Leonore Phillips's avatar

Its amazing to me that some billionaires, like Andressen, literally think that their life is so hard... and the reason it is hard? Brown people. Like seriously? They have more resources than 99.9% of any of the humans that have ever lived. I realize that money doesn't make everything "easy" but this whole "poor me" thing is ridiculous.

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Kdog's avatar

You might be reading too much into this. The guy is a bigoted asshole and there are millions of them out there. The only reason it matters is that he is insanely wealthy. He (was) good at coding or something and now he thinks his opinions about social policy are worth listening to (they are not, sans the money).

His back story and how he came to be an unenlightened dick is actually very uninteresting. Something something affirmative action and hurt feelings nobody loves me as much as they should.

What immigration has to do with his butthurt is anybody’s guess. Too many foreigners at the elite academic institutions? In undergrad they are needed because they provide financial support. At the grad level because they are extremely talented and there aren’t domestic substitutes. So … best I can tell Andreeson is mad about a thing and it’s unconnected to anything tangible in our universe.

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Tonee G's avatar

He’s proud of his bigotry and joyful he is able to celebrate it out in the open with fellow bigots.

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Oregon Larry's avatar

Read the Triad, but that sure added a lot of visuals to my brain. Thanks for the fun too.

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Memo-55's avatar

If all we learned today from Timmy and JVL is that Marc Andreessen hired Daniel Penny, we now understand all we need to know about Marc Andreessen. All of his grievances are clearly understood. I suspect, deep down in the recesses of his racialist brain, he knows he got where he is through enormous gifts, of unearned advantage upon advantage. Basically, a leg up he may or may not have been fully worthy of. So he feels the need to jealously guard the myth of his own good fortune. And punch down at others moving towards their own upward path, as they come up.

This is a small, pathetic, pointy-headed man. As JVL brilliantly notes, like Robert Moses, Andreessen imagines he is owed respect and gratitude. In his heart, he knows he was given far more than his share to create whatever he did. So seeks a way to enlarge his sense of self worth. Which he knows isn't the whole of truth and merit he would wish.

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jane diaz's avatar

...just goes to show that money and career success don't necessarily make one happy.

Miserable motherfuckers.

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Jessica Margolin's avatar

Return-to-work is about how AI documents all the meetings now, in order to "improve operations." It's really hard to create your hostile work environment when AI is holding receipts. But they can't say that. So they talk about "productivity." (Also anyone can do this by just running their phone next to their computer on zoom. They get a sound file, and they can transcribe that verbatim when they document what's going on.)

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Aviva Patt's avatar

While there may certainly be some emotional insecurities demanding greater accolades to validate the morbidly rich's belief about their value to the world, I think the more likely explanation is as old as time: the wealthy pit the non-wealthy against each other to weaken them all so they can't rise in solidarity to claw back the fruits of their labor that were stolen by the plutocrats.

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Sara Smith's avatar

Let’s not ignore the effect of legacy admissions in Ivy League universities. If your parents and grandparents were excluded from admission to those institutions, either because of systemic racism or economic factors, you’re shut out of that particular form of affirmative action.

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Sara Smith's avatar

I was in high school in 1971. I can assure you that bigotry against blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities was alive and well then. (Opportunities for women of any race or ethnicity in employment and higher education were also more restricted then than they are today.)

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Robert J Danolfo's avatar

Tim & JVL, Entertaining diatribe on this baffoonish balloon. I'm in total agreement with both of you. Loved the picture of him. The only thing missing is the wooden basket and a tether rope. Someone should pull the plug and let the air out, I bet that makes quite the tsunami. This goof should be fined for exceeding the daily limit on

Big Mac consumption. I bet his cohort wishes he would work remotely. Imagine looking at this mug everyday. He maybe breathing but he's not human. He should spend some of his cash on a couple more college courses, he missed the ones about the human race.

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Rich Wingerter's avatar

If we actually cared about the cost of college, we could do something meaningful about that by adding to the supply and creating more competition.

The way to do that is with a national university. It should take the top qualified U.S. citizens at no cost to them. Free room, board, fees, tuition. Make regional campuses. Provide remote learning.

This would increase the supply of college education. It would also provide competition to existing colleges and universities, potentially getting them to operate more efficiently.

I don't take credit for this idea. The idea of a national university was first proposed, to my knowledge, by George Washington. I don't see why it's taken almost 250 years to get around to it.

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Sara Smith's avatar

I would like to see an option for two years of national service in exchange for two years of college education or four years for four years of college - sort of like the GI Bill.

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Jazzaloha's avatar

JVL: "And I just, there's something so weird about life's biggest winners in

thinking that they are the ones who are the most put upon people in the universe. It's like, I really, do you understand the psychology of this?"

I have a explanation for the psychology behind this. Whether it's correct or not I'm not sure, but it really does explain where Andreesen, and others like him, are coming from in my view.

To explain what could be going on, I'm going to rely on a hypothetical situation, involving 10 New Yorkers going to college in the South. During the four years there, 8 of the 10, in terms of socially and even culturally, enjoy themselves or have no problem. However, 2 of the 10 never really seem to fit in, and they really struggle with this. They're not mistreated at all, they financially comfortable and succeed at school, but the social mores and mindset is so different and they feel like outsiders, and they struggle with this feeling. The other 8 guys noticed differences, too, but it's not a big deal to them.

Now all 10 of these New Yorkers go back to their neighborhoods. Over time, for whatever reason, there's an influx of southerners in their neighborhoods--not enough to dominate--but enough where there are noticeable differences--maybe southern accents become more common, more southern restaurants, greater popularity of country music, whatever. The 2 that had problems down South really get annoyed and upset at these changes. The other 8 guys have no problems, and they don't really get why the 2 guys are so upset.

I'm suggesting Andreesen is like the 2 guys . (JVL are like the other 8 New Yorkers.) Some people don't like feeling like outsiders, culturally or socially. These type of people would be especially resentful if they began to feel that way in their hometowns.

Andreesen's rant about colleges, DEI, immigration--it's all safe cover to talk about the struggles I'm mentioning above--because if he openly talks about those struggles he'll be labeled a racist or bigot.

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Rich Wingerter's avatar

Probably Andreessen should thank Al Gore for his wealth. After all, Gore sponsored the High Performance Computing Act of 1991.

<<Gore's legislation also helped fund the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, where a team of programmers, including Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, created the Mosaic Web browser, the commercial Internet's technological springboard. 'If it had been left to private industry, it wouldn't have happened,' Andreessen says of Gore's bill, 'at least, not until years later.>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology

Republicans mocked Gore for being "the father of the Internet". But, in fact, it was Gore's work in Congress that led to the modern Internet, and helped change it from a military/research/educational network into a commercial powerhouse. That's why I call social media "Al Gore's Revenge". It allows people to pundit.

Problem is, after a few billion, oligarchs get cut off from the real world and their brains get a little addled. They don't have that understanding of life that comes from being born poor and not handed any opportunities.

Andreessen could just have easily ended up as a destitute farm worker in Iowa, dependent on Medicaid to survive. The fickle finger of fate could have indicated someone else.

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Truly North's avatar

Marc Andreessen is only saying what Republicans have been whispering for 45 years (Reagan 1980), if not 70 years (Civil Rights Act 1957). Same ol' same ol'. The difference is that Trump permits them to be loud and proud to be racists.

But yeah, it takes a special kind of asshole to be a billionaire and whine about how unfair the world is.

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Joan Mills's avatar

That was fascinating and crazy all at the same time.

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Albert K's avatar

Tim, the Packers have a historic legacy of standing up to racial prejudice going back to the early 60s.

https://www.packers.com/news/the-1960s-packers-a-product-of-vince-lombardi-s-prejudice-free-culture

"Lombardi refused to comply because of the South's Jim Crow laws. The Packers flew into Lawson Army Airfield the day before the game, stayed together – whites and blacks – at the bachelor officers' quarters at Fort Benning, a U.S. Army post located almost 10 miles outside Columbus, and held a practice and clinic there for the doughboys. As a result, the game drew a disappointing crowd of 18,000, about 6,500 below capacity.

After playing in Columbus and staying at Fort Benning again in 1962, Lombardi refused to approve a segregated seating plan at Memorial Stadium and canceled a third game in late July 1963. With Washington's approval, the game was moved on short notice to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Lombardi also stepped into Wisconsin's heated and prolonged political battle over a fair housing act. In 1960, when his Black players were having trouble finding places to live, Lombardi approached local real estate developer and human rights advocate Norman Miller in search of a solution to the problem. Both then worked together to get a fair housing bill passed in Wisconsin, despite fierce opposition from the real estate industry, Milwaukee-area Democrats and most Republicans."

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Terry Gill's avatar

The real why he is pissed is because he thinks that he and his billionaire friends own the United States as if it's a car or a house

So when the aee anything they don't like. Anywhere in the country. So if Biden added a new road, he did it on andreesen's property. I would be pissed too, if I owned America.

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Karolyn Albert Gallagher's avatar

I agree w JV, with a family member who through marriage came into a ton oh money and now maga they have a ton of grievances I don’t get it. Makes no sense to me who is of lower middle class working full time and paying bills.

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Jazzaloha's avatar

Trying to understand people like Andreesen via an economic lens really doesn't make sense. That suggests to me that the real explanation is something else.

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Julia Flanders's avatar

Love it! You guys really get to the core……and dig! Spot on!

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Kurt's avatar

We live in a grievance culture and it is killing us. And just for the record as a senior citizen straight white male - in all my life I have never ever been the victim of any discrimination whatsoever (and I spent most of my career in the military and government).

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Steven Insertname's avatar

Happy Terrible Tuesday to Tim! 😀

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Steven Insertname's avatar

C'mon, fellas, we all know that rich white men have had a pretty rough go of it these last few millennia.

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Rich Wingerter's avatar

The reason these people hate DEI is that it forces them to compete on an even playing field. It created a meritocracy, where their clan only gets what it deserves based on skills and hard work.

We should think of attacks on DEI as being a sign of racism. People who attack DEI mark themselves as racist.

Racism is a disease, both an individual one and a social one. On the social level, it is a kind of auto-immune disease, where the system misidentifies self as other and launches an attack.

At the individual level it is a kind of addiction, where the brain of the person suffering from racism is rewarded by racists thoughts. This creates a self-reinforcing prejudice, which is bad for others (because it arbitrarily discriminates against others), but also for the racists, because they slowly lose touch with reality. They come to believe that the people they target deserve it, which means they never deal with their own deficiencies.

You can see how Andreesesen has succumbed to this disease. And he's actively trying to infect others with it.

it is important for all Americans to shun racists and marginalize them. They should be pushed out of civilized society to fend for themselves. This is critical for the survival of the American way of life. Racism is a serious health problem for our body politic, and if we don't stamp it out, it could reach epidemic proportions.

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Jazzaloha's avatar

"it is important for all Americans to shun racists and marginalize them."

But determining who the racists are isn't always so easy to me. Personally, I can't say with confidence that Andreesen is a racist. I also don't think all of Trump supporters are racist.

Additionally, I do think that some people just don't deal with social and cultural changes/differences very well, and these things make them uncomfortable. I grew up in a very diverse community and I really like this. But I'm also the type of person that can be very uncomfortable unless the social mores and norms closely align with my own. So I can relate to people who have difficulty with this. I wouldn't automatically label these people as racist.

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Rich Wingerter's avatar

I have a fairly narrow definition of racist. To me, a racist is someone who uses the ancestry of people to classify them, thinks ill of that class, and wants to do people in it harm.

Simply noticing that some people have darker skin isn't racist on its own. It is the intent or desire to do harm, or to see harm done to them, that makes this racist.

There are other definitions that are more or less inclusive, but I used this definition because it is possible to observe whether someone fits the definition or not. That allows us to take practical actions.

I think all Trump supporters are racists. He was very clear about his racism. His embrace of birtherism clearly marked him as a racist. If a person supports someone explicitly racist like Trump, then that would make that person a racist because they support someone that does want to do people harm based on their racial classification of people.

People who are against DEI are racists. Or ignorant. It's possible they think DEI means that people who don't deserve it get ahead. That's not how it works. DEI allows people who would otherwise be disadvantaged because of racism, misogyny, or other similar prejudices to have a fair chance against those without those disadvantages. Anyone who promotes DEI is clear about the racism of it.

I don't think Andreessen can escape the judgement of racist as long as he's bitterly complaining about DEI.

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Jazzaloha's avatar

I appreciate your willingness to respond and provide a definition for racist, which is, to me, difficult and often can be a thorny subject to discuss.

Based on your definition--particularly about doing harm--I really have a hard time believing that all Trump supporters want to cause harm to people of a different race/ethnicity.

It's more believable to me that many of his supporters feel discomfort or resentment at the greater presence, influence, and rise in status of people of color. For some these feelings can lead to wanting to cause harm, but that doesn't have to happen. And I tend not to think all of them want to cause harm.

"DEI allows people who would otherwise be disadvantaged because of racism, misogyny, or other similar prejudices to have a fair chance against those without those disadvantages."

But couldn't someone be opposed to the way a DEI policy is written and/or implemented, without being a racist? As principles, I totally support diversity, equality, and inclusion. But I wouldn't necessary any and all ways an organization sought to achieve these things.

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Rich Wingerter's avatar

If you know someone is a racist, but support them, that implicitly means you want that person to do harm to the target group. It's not raving racism, like we had when people were lynching Black people. But it is still racism.

And the entire thing about deporting immigrants is also racism. They never talked about all the white people who came here and overstayed their visas. They talked incessantly about the "southern border". They talked about building a wall. That was all literally racist, classifying people by their heritage without regard to their individuality.

Of course, someone could oppose the way DEI is implemented. But that's not what they are doing. They are trying to destroy it outright, without any regard for how it is written or implemented. That attack on DEI is a racist attack.

I wouldn't support every way of implementing DEI, either. But these people are trying to destroy anything that brings equity to the system. This is reactionary. It's trying to restore white privilege. And it is trying to punish anyone who made our society fairer for everyone.

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Maxine Milner Krugman's avatar

It has reached epidemic proportions because racists are encouraged to spout their crap but for most of us, we’ve seen major progress and less us and them over the past 30 years. As we progressed, however slowly, the racists’ fear increased and rather than embracing opportunities for all, they have devoted their energy to reinforcing their bubble. In my view they blew it big time.

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Rich Wingerter's avatar

They aren't looking ahead, either. This country will, inevitably, be a majority minority country. What do these racists think will happen to them if racists run the country?

Just out of enlightened self-interest, maybe they ought to think how the rule of law is the better course.

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Steven Insertname's avatar

Love how the cover photo of the article is Adreeson indicating the reason why he's so uptight about everything.

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Beth Hogan's avatar

LOL - good Oasis reference JVL!

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Wendy E's avatar

Who knows what the hell Marc was talking about? Maybe he just meant he grew up in Iowa and Wisconsin and was just referring to his "cohorts" as the people growing up in these states now. Either way, I'm sure most people don't really give a shit what he's saying but thank you for the entertaining conversation. I can tell you that UW-La Crosse and UW-Madison are some of the hardest schools to get into here in WI!

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Rich Wingerter's avatar

He means that when he was coming of age, the country finally made actual racism and misogyny unacceptable in polite society and outlawed a lot of it. As a result, his age group couldn't take advantage of all the male white privilege of his parents. They had to play on a field that was only tilted in their favor, not rigged to exclude anyone not like them.

It's not hard to figure out what he's talking about. He doesn't like that the privileges old white guys had weren't being passed down to him and other white boys.

There's a place for complainers like him. Antarctica. He should befriend the penguins and see if they'll teach him how to catch fish.

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Hey Mama Warrior's avatar

Tim & JVL - Thanks for continuing to bring the plight of the poor white guy to our attention. Their main sport appears to be to see how quickly they can pull up the ladder behind themselves, and thoroughly destroy it. Enjoyed the full discussion.

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Tomás's avatar

great to have you back Tim!!!! and with JVL!

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Adam J Schmidt's avatar

This reminds me, I've had the Power Broker sitting in my Kindle library waiting to read. I need to get to that, and the LBJ series too.

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Kristy Schnabel's avatar

Could it be that these super rich guys need to justify their billionaire existence and need to cling to the notion that they did it on their own? To do that they need to burn down any institution that helps others be successful. Love you guys!!!

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Laurie's avatar

Daniel Penny's yearly review: He's killing it.

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Julie's avatar

You guys...what a great way to start my day.

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Mauricio Laos's avatar

What person, even a smart one, says their "cohort of citizens?" These tech bros even speak like fucking robots.

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Christopher Wood's avatar

The irony for the anti-DEIers is that elite colleges also look for the Cletuses and Lurleens from Idaho, Montana, Arkansas, and the Dakotas...to give rural white Americans an opportunity.🤣🫠

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Lawrence E Arendt's avatar

The Power Broker by Robert Caro is an amazing work. I'm beginning to think that the French had it correct for their revolution.

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Shana Heartsill's avatar

Thanks for changing the background on the text portions. So much better than the black static looking thing which flares my neuro issues. Thanks much.

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Robin Stroschin's avatar

JVL’s been waiting all week to drop the Oasis reference… chef’s kiss!

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

This was one of best Tim and JVL shows ever in history! Thank you. Now playing Wonderwall. Must have been AMAZING to see Oasis in their hometown! Lucky you Tim - and even better you appreciate how lucky you were to be there !

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Sheryl Marie's avatar

Ahh this Idaho dei admission to a top school feels seen!

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Christopher Wood's avatar

I went to a Catholic college (Erie PA) in the 1970s that accepted 80% of applicants becuase higher education was awash in federal dollars based on enrollment.

But here was a kicker...at freshman orientation we were told to look to our left and to our right --- metaphoricaly, those students wouldn't be there at graduation.

In those days offering opportunities to minority students was called Affirmative Action (today's DEI). Many of the white Cletuses from Central Pennsylvania were pissed that the ni*** got in and their clod-hopper buddies didn't.

The reality was that if a Freshman student didn't have a 1.00 GPA after one semester they were gone.

If they didn't have a 2.0 by the end of Freshman year they were gone...and if a student didn't have a 2.5 cumulative GPA by Senior year they didn't receive a diploma.

My point...Affirmative Action (DEI) gave students an opportunity not a guarantee.

Andressien is the asshole who got the golden opportunity because of government funding---then believed his narcissistic storyline, this wanting to "pull-up the ladder" as we said back in the day.

Classic example --- Clarence the Cross-Eyed Supreme Court Justice (aka House Nig***), who took advantage of all the Affirmative Action opportunities for his college years, subsequently beleived his success was based entirely on his genius.

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Robin Held's avatar

Thanks guys! I hate these fucking people too Tim!

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Maxine Milner Krugman's avatar

I really don’t understand this guy who only has to keep his mouth shut and think whatever he wishes. Many of us really have not given him one thought since Netscape. Who is his audience? Victim hood and insecurity, not attractive bud.

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Mike L's avatar

These guys are so insufferable with their zero sum game bullshit. "My people can't get into college! The only people that can get in are (other group)" Did they not take an econ class in their fancy colleges? The market has higher demand, instead of increasing prices why not increase the supply? These creeps have enough money to personally finance countless people's college and then use their copious power to push through policies to get free college for everyone, maybe increase their taxes to pay for it. Yet they don't. The only conclusion I can draw is that they want the disparity specifically because they want to use it as a lever hold down all the people they hate.

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Kim Z's avatar

The generous interpretation of his initial comment of “my people“ could be read as “middle America“ or “the Midwest“ or “working class”. But then he totally gives up the game when he notes that his people are now being “discriminated against“. That’s the telltale sign that he means white people

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keith's avatar

JVL, Tim, and all of us know all the ways that Andreessen and his ilk are wrong, wrong, wrong... and yet DJT is the president, Russell Voight is head of OMB, the Supreme Court is 6-3 imperial presidency curious, and ICE is looking like a cross between the brown shirts and the gestapo... is this a joke?

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Kris the Seed Lady's avatar

I got white-DEI'd at UC Berkeley because there are so many Asian students. :D

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Donna's avatar

Hey! Take it easy on Wisconsinites and Packer fans! Some of us are Bulwark members, not to mention smart and great company.

Keep up the good work, it helps our sanity.

Let's have drinks sometime

😎

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

They may be so aggrieved because they know they were lucky - not geniuses beyond measure or superhuman- luck and government help. He wants to burn it down so no one else gets lucky like him. What a humongous asshole.

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

They may never understand that the more people included at the table with the pie - the bigger the table gets and more pie enough for all of us - homemade pie with ice cream 🥧! Every flavor! Plain rhubarb even (my favorite)! Biggest table with the best pie for all!

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graceg's avatar

This is really insightful. I haven't heard that exact analysis before and I think you're 100% right.

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Karen's avatar

And Andreessen is one of the owners of Substack, isn’t he?

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Karen's avatar

As of today, Substack remains privately owned, with its original founders still steering the ship. The company has secured funding from major venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Y Combinator, allowing it to expand its offerings. Audio features, community tools, and even video capabilities have been introduced, turning Substack into more than just a newsletter service—it’s a full-fledged media ecosystem.

Source: https://www.thelongmemo.com/p/who-owns-substack

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Chantal Rabey's avatar

I watched all 24 minutes and was not disappointed by JVL's closing Oasis reference!

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

He knows he is a poseur 🤣

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Brad W's avatar

Tim, we Wisconsinites don't wear "coneheads" we wear cheeseheads!

Go Packers!

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

Go Wisconsin cheese!

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

White educated Gen-X ers like me - except he is an idiot.

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Kris the Seed Lady's avatar

What? I thought Al Gore invented the internet!

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

Think his cohort of citizens and people =

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Blanche Axton's avatar

Wah wah wah. Whine, snivel, snort.

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

What a loser douchebag 🤣

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graceg's avatar

Tim and JVL are such a strong duo on tech bro topics. The combination of expertise and comic relief is so enjoyable, even when the topics make me want to die.

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dean apostol's avatar

It goes way beyond this rich knucklehead. Right wingers don't seem to have any idea that they (most) had a public education, went to school on public streets, drank clean public water, had their shit cleaned up by public sewer systems, played in public parks, and on and on. They are just whiny little you know whats.

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PhemK's avatar

I think he might be interested in running for President

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Christina Ronnberg's avatar

🤣🤣🤣

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Jennifer M's avatar

To Mark Andreessen from this 1973-vintage Wisconsinite: Fuck all the way off with your bedwetting, boo-hooing, poor me I’m a billionaire, racist bullshit.

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Binky's avatar

I'm white and where's my billions?! Besides that Netscape sucked. All power to the telnet!

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Tam Doey's avatar

Great talk. Missed you Tim

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Shantha Smith's avatar

So weirdly, I know these people. Am I hanging out with Andreeson? No. But I am a child of Brahmins. My grandfather was friends with the Maharaja of Mysore and my great-grandfather's picture is still hanging in the Bank of Mysore. I grew up in the US, but every 4 years or so we would spend the whole summer in India. I remember my older uncle railing about how some third cousin scored 97% on an exam but didn't make it into IIT. Keep in mind that India actually has quotas to try to increase upward mobility for those born on the "lower" rungs of the caste system. When I asked how the guy was doing, my uncle said he was an electrical engineer and had studied at a private college set up by brahmins to educate brahmins. At age 11, I didn't have the chutzpah to ask him how anyone was harmed when the scion of a family that founded a bank is denied the best education available but still gets a great education. The grievances of the rich and powerful are not those of the real world. They do not live in the real world. They measure everything against power for themselves and their successors. Andreeson doesn't care about Trump voters. He wants to be able to make sure that rich white people stay on top exactly like my uncle wanted rich Brahmins to stay on top. He thinks he should have gotten into Harvard instead of the University of Illinois and that Stanford should make sure that white children get in instead of reaching out to brown and black kids no matter how well qualified. The only reason they don't complain about Asians is because there are so few of us. It will not last. Asians like me are over-represented but it's not just through hard work- it is also because so many of us come from privileged backgrounds in the old country even if we don't come from them here; look at the difference between representation of Indians and Chinese vs Filipinos, Vietnamese, Hmong.

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Shantha Smith's avatar

Amendment. They do complain about Asians; just at the local, not national level. When I got in the local paper as a National Merit Scholar, my biology teacher got a call asking when he was going to start helping "our kids". When my real estate agent who is an Indian immigrant hosted an open house for an Indian family's house, one of the attendants complained that the smell could never be removed. When an Indian man moved into his new house in Los Gatos, a neighbor told him he belonged in Cupertino. Guess how many non-whites live in Atherton?

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Jean Hunter's avatar

You are ignoring another group: women. They are not part of his "group" either. And they are taking places from men!

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Steve Spillette's avatar

Only because Andreesen didn't really mention them. That said, from what I've seen, there's lots of evidence that the Silicon Valley honchos feel pretty much the same way about women.

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APowell's avatar

Great episode! Lisa Su is the president and CEO of AMD and is killing it! Truly an inspiration. :)

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Tito Tinajero's avatar

Hey JVL, it is mystery. To understand the Matk and rest of the rich entitled has been studied. The monopoly game study is enlightening as why. https://www.marketplace.org/story/2021/01/19/why-rich-people-tend-think-they-deserve-their-money

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Shantha Smith's avatar

Thank you!

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Timothy M Dwyer's avatar

Here is the problem that these ‘gentlemen’ want to correct: The ‘homogenization’ of college universities with regard to racial makeup is compelling the smartest kids in America to discover- if they hadn’t already- that they have much more in common with people who aren’t the same shade of pale as them than there are differences between them. And that defeats their desire to eliminate said homogenization and restore the white supremacist fever dream of their “Merica”. With the Supreme Court Green-lighting the elimination of the Federal Government’s obligation to support public education on the grade 1-12 level, they can now move ahead in eliminating any kind of need to support higher education with the exception of maintaining a racially ‘pure’ university system for the privileged. By keeping us apart from one another, it furthers their goal and desire to recreate the white ethnostate. Mr. Andreessen likely didn’t get something (i will resist guessing here) he thought he deserved at college beyond the small gift of being positioned to become a billionaire by age 28, and ‘Merica. Needs to pay for it

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Heather Schlessman's avatar

Tim, I could have listened another 25 minutes:)

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Jennifer Anderson's avatar

Being called a real one by Tim made my night lol

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Ruthanne Roussel's avatar

This was a great one! Like a champagne supernova in the sky great!

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Kristen L's avatar

Listening to this it strikes me that although JVL and Tim say Andreessen has nothing in common with the white Trump voter’s son in Wisconsin, that must not be the way Marc Andreessen sees it. He must think of himself still as the kid born in Iowa and raised in Wisconsin, son of normal working parents. And maybe he thinks that if he made it, all the other white sons in Wisconsin should have what he has. But he doesn’t see himself in the young black woman coming from Detroit, or the brown kid from California. And that’s why he thinks and writes the way he does. He sees himself as his race and gender, and not just as a smart, hardworking kid who got the lucky breaks right when he needed them. So he doesn’t look around and see other smart, hardworking people rising up. He looks around specifically for the white kid from

Wisconsin, and if he isn’t finding that then he’s ready to toss the whole system.

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Lawrence Evers's avatar

Could also be he still believes that people can detect a faint odor of lower class on him. That, rather than being judged on his achievements, he still is thought of as a shit kicker from middle America. Similarly Judge Thomas and his bug about being a black man.

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Kristen L's avatar

Interesting, I hadn’t thought of that angle. I think you’ve got something there.

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Josh Berry's avatar

Adopting grievances does seem to be a popular habit that people have taken up. Ironically, it is not just anti DEI, at a very real level, it was also DEI.

That is, it seems that so many people that hate some of the more absurd left wing advocacy replace it with effectively the exact same thing, but for a different beneficiary.

What ever happened to the dream of living comfortably in non-interesting times? Why do so many crazy people insist on championing a cause that they don't understand or connect with?

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Kristen L's avatar

Sign me up for those non-interesting times, please.

And soon.

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Walter Ford's avatar

Andreeson should be forced to watch his own rant, until it get's thru his thick skull what an idiotic complaint it is. Truly a case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

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Heather Schlessman's avatar

I used to think I won the lottery being born in the US. I now think winning the lottery in that would have been a Northern European country, or Greenland. I think I matched some numbers so definitely won something, but not the big one.

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Drew Fields's avatar

Couldn’t agree more.

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Travis's avatar

Appreciate the telework shoutout. You also name-dropped my old hometown of Flushing, Queens :-)

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Amy R's avatar

I was born in 1970. Grew up in Iowa and Nebraska. I am not part of Andressons cohort of citizens. What a massive jerk. Sadly there is a cohort of a people in this country who believes this crap.

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Kevin Viveiros's avatar

My alma mater mentioned. Go Phoenix!

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and what they said?