Serial Entrepreneur
Marc Andreessen is perhaps best known for being the Co-founder of Netscape Communications Corp. He has also served as Chief Technology Officer of AOL (after AOL acquired Netscape).
In addition, he is Co-founder and Chairman of Ning and an investor in several start-ups, including Digg, Plazes, and Twitter. He is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and Andreessen sits on Facebook's board of directors.
Born in rural Cedar Falls, Iowa, in 1971, Andreessen has always had a deep interest in computers. By the sixth grade, he'd created a virtual calculator to do his math homework. By seventh grade, he was writing his own games for his family's Commodore 64 computer.
In 1992, while working at the the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Andreessen developed Mosaic, a visual browser to help navigate the emerging volumes of information available on the young Internet. Later, Mosaic changed its name to Netscape and became one of the most popular Web browsers to date.
Andreessen holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Last Updated: Wed, May 12, 2010
Serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen offers the Stanford audience a rare opportunity to pose open questions. Topics addressed include everything from the state of VC and the stock market, to Facebook's market dominance, to the rebirth of consumer electronics. In addition, Andreessen offers ground rules for the start-up, including tips on attracting top talent. 
Serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen offers the Stanford audience a rare opportunity to pose open questions. Topics addressed include everything from the state of VC and the stock market, to Facebook's market dominance, to the rebirth of consumer electronics. In addition, Andreessen offers ground rules for the start-up, including tips on attracting top talent. 
Netscape Co-founder (and current serial entrepreneur) Marc Andreessen speaks candidly about Netscape's necessary pivots when it was threatened by Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the late 1990's. He recalls that making the browser free, as well as focusing on the website and business applications, propelled the company's success in a turbulent market. 
The best entrepreneurs know how to talk about and sell their company, and the way they define their enterprise can often be a polarizing sport. Essentially, propelling a young company - either to investors or to talent - is a sales job, and one that a company founder must find compelling. Marc Andreessen, serial entrepreneur, speaks at length about the necessity of a founder to define their company and to establish early on what it is, and what it is not.
In the age of the lean start-up, one of the greatest advents a fledgeling company can take advantage of is cloud computing. Both viable and cost-effective, paying only for back-end, readymade services as needed, young companies are able to grow faster without the pressure of raising additional dollars to launch, observes Marc Andreessen, technologist and serial entrepreneur. Andreessen goes on to comment and rate the current cloud computing services available.
Successful user-generated Web plays "tend to harness peoples' passions, rather than harness peoples' greed," says serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen. He points out that any user-centric Web vehicle that has tried to share revenue with its content-producing audience has failed - and spectacularly. It's not money that motivates people to share their ideas and opinions, says Andreessen. The platform for sharing one's own personal expression is its own reward.
The "venture capital industry" does not exist, says serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen. Rather, the landscape is a loosely-affiliated network of over 600 investment organizations, with only about 30 firms performing well and returning profit overall. In parallel, there is a rise in seed funding for new ventures and a rise in latter-stage investing for established companies as well.
Many of the most successful technology enterprises were launched as products, observes Marc Andreessen, serial entrepreneur, including Facebook, Twitter, and others. He states that tools created this way are based purely on market demand, making these applications much more compelling. To the contrary, companies that establish themselves first and then work to craft an application have their achievements, but they are more likely to plummet into failure. Entrepreneurs approaching from this angle can too often fool themselves into believing they have a tool of value.
Citing as example handheld innovations such as Flip video cameras and Jawbone headsets, serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen claims that as of Spring 2010, consumer electronics are hot and viable in Silicon Valley once again. He argues that many of the devices in this most recent wave utilize existing chips and applications, but the market innovation comes from repackaging the technology with value-added software and services. He and his investors are very excited by the current state of possibilities.
Seasoned serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen shares his three criteria for a successful start-up. He states that there must be a substantial market opportunity, a product that's a 10x better solution, and an outstanding team. Andreessen goes on to state that there can be some compromise in the product area, but that the other two legs of a burgeoning business must stand firm.
Is an operations background a mandatory prerequisite for running a start-up? Not necessarily, but it helps, says serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen. While nearly anyone with any experience can manage a successful enterprise, it helps to have had hands-on experience in the event of layoffs, restructuring, and the like.