Marc Andreesen Goes Direct

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In 2011, Marc Andreesen published a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled Why Software is Eating the World. It’s probably the most influential business essay written this century. 

It’s certainly the biggest thing Andreesen has written. It contributed to helping his venture capital firm, A16Z, become a dominant player and shaped how many view the tech industry.

Andreesen said the piece was written in a mood of frustration that the rest of the world couldn’t see what seemed so clear: that tech was on the verge of an extraordinary period of growth.

Almost a decade later, similar emotions prompted him to write another essay, Time to Build. It came out as the pandemic raged and served as an indictment against our collective failure to invest in infrastructure, education, housing or modern systems to address many societal failings. 

Seeing it as another manifesto-level piece of thinking, he went back to the Journal and asked them if they wanted to publish it. The editors did not. He shopped it to other big media outlets and who also turned it down. 

So instead, Andreesen posted on his firm’s site and distributed it via social media. It garnered broad media coverage and marked a turning point in how he and others thought about their reliance on the media to communicate. 

Being turned down was a “catalyzing moment,” Andreesen told David Perell on the How I Write podcast last year. He said that no longer regarded the Journal as “the venue for serious thought” and realized he should have done more to build an independent distribution network earlier. 

The story reminds us how much the landscape for media and communications has changed. 

That value and need to “Go Direct” was recently spelled out by PR veteran Lulu Cheng Meservey in her own “manifesto” encouraging executives to leverage social media to bypass reporters.

“For too long, founders have yielded control over their narratives to media and middlemen.

Before the internet, it was by necessity. The way to reach large audiences was through the media, and the way to get media coverage was through professional publicists.

Today, most of the planet is directly reachable by social media or email. There’s no longer a need to go through traditional gatekeepers of information and brokers of reputation — especially as their own credibility has plummeted.”

It would be a misunderstanding to view this trend mainly as an effort to dodge “hard-hitting” questions from reporters. It’s more about building a direct connection and communication with stakeholders. 

Meservey argues CEOs and founders “need to take their narrative as seriously as they take the rockets or robots. They would never outsource their product — and when it comes to convincing others to support the mission, the story is the product.”

Writing and publishing online will give them “a massive edge in recruiting, fundraising, selling, and shaping the information environment needed for their companies to thrive.”

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

GOING DIRECT: Mercury is a good example that “going direct” doesn’t require you to write long narrative. Sometimes it’s just communicating basic details.,

INCENTIVES SHAPE YOU: Great perspective and insight from Katherine Boyle.

RESEARCH: In addition to essays, A16Z also posts some high-quality research. This piece by Joe Schmidt caught my eye because I know the industry and it had a lot of great details.

CHANGES: It’s hard to believe this happened during my lifetime.

PERSPECTIVE: My brother came to visit and couldn’t stop taking photos of Harlem, saying it was all so different than where he lived.