Marc Andreessen, co-author of the first widely used web browser and Netscape, says we should rethink our post-COVID-19 future in an essay. (Source: Wikipedia)

Andreessen Advocates Rebooting the American Dream with New Goals

Few Americans have experienced anything remotely like the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown since the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. As a result, some, like Marc Andreessen, the tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, are rethinking society, government and the way the country operates. An article on Techcrunch.com on an essay by Marc Andreessen conveys a positive outlook for the future.

“Don’t give up,” says Marc Andreessen in a thoughtful new essay published on the website of his venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. In it, he advocates for creating a new society.

“He writes to ‘reboot the American dream’ we need to ‘demand more of our political leaders, of our CEOs, our entrepreneurs, our investors. We need to demand more of our culture, of our society. And we need to demand more from one another. We’re all necessary, and we can all contribute, to building.’ “

Andreessen says much of the tech and many of the tools we need to build a better world are already available now. He highlights housing, education, manufacturing and transportation, observing that each could be retooled in a better way. However, he points out it’s easier to stick with the systems that once served us well than join together to replace them. We need a “collective desire” to take the stage front and center, demanding an end to the failed products and the failed delivery for some services worldwide.

Andreessen talks about how current technologies can be used to serve pressing needs now, including how to get money into the hands of people who need it faster, use business intelligence to gather information from ER doctors in how they are managing COVID-19 patients and help the country’s governors with supply chain management.

One major issue is that the United States has the highest income inequality of all the G7 nations, with more wealth accruing to a a fraction of 1% of people every year, an ever-shrinking middle class and growing poverty.

In his essay, Andreessen states it’s not about politics of blaming one political party laying the blame on the other:

“Many of us would like to pin the cause on one political party or another, on one government or another,” Andreessen wrote. “But the harsh reality is that it all failed — no Western country, or state, or city was prepared — and despite hard work and often extraordinary sacrifice by many people within these institutions. So the problem runs deeper than your favorite political opponent or your home nation.

He elaborates that a lack of will has held the country back:

“The problem is desire. We need to *want* these things. The problem is inertia. We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things. The problem is regulatory capture. We need to want new companies to build these things, even if incumbents don’t like it, even if only to force the incumbents to build these things. And the problem is will. We need to build these things.”

In his essay, he addresses transportation, education, medicine as well as the other pillars of our society that have failed to protect our way of life.

read more at techcrunch.com