I have enormous respect for Andreessen when he's talking on topics of his expertise, as in the first half of the article. And it's not just his talk, either; A16Z is a deeply impressive operation. But so far I find his take on Piketty shallow and unpersuasive; it strikes me more as the view that is convenient for him to have, rather than one of deep study and experience. I'd rather he stuck to what he knows.
I follow Andreessen and a few of the other a16z folks on twitter, and every day they are tweetstorming what appear to be very insightful opinions and predictions on a whole slew of industries. And then I wonder if these guys are actually orders of magnitudes more intelligent than me and others, and have truly valid and well thought-out opinions, or if a good amount of what they say is nothing more than speculative bullshit that's hardly contested due to their reputation and success.
I've got enormous respect for them, too, but I'm beginning to think that the breadth and depth of expertise and foresight they display shouldn't be taken too seriously.
That's pretty much the case for any sort of punditry, particularly on the Internet. It doesn't matter what you say or how good your information is, as long as you say it with confidence. Because everybody else's information is just as bad, anyway, and people remember your predictions that come true, not the ones that don't. Particularly if your predictions are bold and unlikely.
In my experience, people who have done actual, rigorous firsthand research usually keep quiet about it unless they are trying to alter the general public opinion, in which case they'll throw out the minimum amount of information necessary to give credence to their unfounded and self-serving speculation. Why? Because solid, accurate information is very valuable in business, and why give it to your competitors for free?
no doubt andreessen is smarter, both in raw intelligence and financial wisdom, than you or i or the next guy, but the billions of dollars at his command to assist in manifesting his will helps quite a bit.
and so does being at the nexus of the tech industry and seeing the entire ecosystem from the inside-out, "behind the curtain" so to speak. they have a lot of insider information, not the least of which is basically every single pitch that comes across every other VC's desk in town, and the actual financial health of funded companies operating in the marketplace. they all share information, that's why they don't sign NDAs.
I always wonder, assuming a person had all the benefits, the perfect genetics, the perfect upbringing, the perfect luck in industry, how much smarter or better informed, or capable could they be than the average person?
We have the meme that a great programmer is 10x better than a lacking peer. I think that is the absolute maximum upper bound on how much better someone can be, and that is in a limited, specific pursuit.
When it comes to predicting the future shape of society, we're talking about the average of many, many disciplines- not a discrete thing like programming ability. So I really think at best it'd be like a 2x-3x factor of improvement.
And with something as difficult as understanding the future, 2-3x isn't much, because you're multiplying a standard ability of near 0.
I try not to buy too much into what he says. What he says is usually too philosophical, so the reader is making their own sense of what he says and gives him credit. He is almost a dictator the power people give him.
He actually went as far as to tell investors beware of investors not from the valley. So people don't steal in the valley as they do anywhere else?
Regarding the last bit, it's not terrible advice. One of the big differences between Silicon Valley and elsewhere is that there's a much bigger focus on positive-sum activities here. (That's in contrast with Wall Street, which has a zero-sum focus, or places like Florida, where it shades negative-sum.) It's a useful attitude when you're trying to create monster new businesses from scratch, because it's much easier to disrupt an industry or create a new one if you're creating massive value.
Google's a great example of that. They have made the world enormously better, and profited greatly thereby. Their profit is a small fraction of the value they've created. And that's why they won. Their competitors got greedy, and wanted a much bigger share of the total value created.
> so far I find his take on Piketty shallow and unpersuasive
I feel like he alluded to critiques that have been handled with far more depth by economists, but he was talking in a medium that doesn't really permit much more than a shallow, abbreviated treatment.
> it strikes me more as the view that is convenient for him to have
Some of the economists pushing the second critique Marc uses, that recent data doesn't line up with Piketty's model, aren't just complaining out of convenience or self-interest.
Peter H. Lindert writes in the NBER review "Making the Most of Capital in the 21st Century,"[1]
"Oddly, however, for the twentieth century trends that he and his collaborators have documented so well, the relevance of the wealth/income and capital/income ratios for the income distribution is less compelling. Across countries, the levels and movements of this ratio do not correlate well with those in income inequality."
Before dismissing Lindert as a right-wing partisan, check out some of Lindert's other work, where he argues that social programs don't have as large an impact on GDP as most people claim,[2] or his arguments in favor of progressive taxation.[3] [4]
Matt Rognline also has strong critiques of Piketty's reasoning and data,[5] even while emphasizing that he believes inequality is still a hugely important concern.
It's possible to worry about Piketty regardless of what's in your wallet.
Regardless, even if Andreessen's motivations were suspect, it doesn't actually tell you anything about the truth or falsity of his claims. "Bad faith" isn't sufficient to make an argument invalid, anymore than good intentions can make something true. Andreessen and these economists' reasoning might be poor, or Piketty might be able to salvage his model by convincing everyone that recent trends really are an aberration. More analysis will be useful to be sure. But questions about motivations or who is arguing in good faith or out of self-interest won't really have any impact on the outcome of those discussions.
> It's possible to worry about Piketty regardless of what's in your wallet.
Sure. I think professors duking it out in their field of expertise is a big part of how human knowledge advances. And I love it when people with deep experience give their take on things within that realm. Andreessen on Piketty is neither.
> Regardless, even if Andreessen's motivations were suspect, it doesn't actually tell you anything about the truth or falsity of his claims.
That's both wrong and irrelevant. Statistically, what people will find convenient or profitable to believe tells me a fair bit about what they actually believe. And therefore, the average correctness of their claims in those areas.
It's irrelevant because although that's a good rule to apply in debate or in formal analysis of an argument, that's not what's going on here for me. Full analysis of an argument as complex as this is a lot of work, and that work has to be earned by the speaker. Andreessen, of course, understands this: A16Z throws away pitches every day without granting them the work of formally analyzing their arguments. They don't have the time for that, so they employ heuristics like, "not an expert in the domain."
