A version of this article appeared in the May 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review.
In Search of the Next Big Thing
Photography: Timothy Archibald Marc Andreessen knows both sides of the start-up game. As freshly minted university graduates in the 1990s, he and his partners went hat in hand to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley to fund their new project, the breakthrough web browser Netscape Navigator. Within 18 months the enterprise had gone public and Andreessen […]
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In the 1990s, just out of college, Andreessen went knocking on VC doors in Silicon Valley, looking to fund what became the breakthrough web browser Netscape Navigator. Within 18 months the company had gone public and he’d become a symbol of the internet generation. Now he’s a cofounder and partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital fund that looks for smart tech start-ups. In this edited interview he talks with HBR’s editor in chief about what kind of entrepreneur his firm likes to fund, why start-ups are still feeling the effects of the last boom and bust in tech stocks, what they should do to prepare for an IPO, the role of hedge funds, and more.