Saturday, 28 December 2024

Marc Andreessen Gives Insider Peek At DOGE Decisions, Helping Trump Pick The Next Administration

ZeroHedge
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Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen gave a wide-ranging interview to Free Press’s Bari Weiss, confirming his involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and sharing behind-the-scenes insights on working with President-elect Donald Trump. Andreessen discussed his role in assisting Trump with assembling the next administration and provided a glimpse into what it’s like to spend time with the incoming commander-in-chief. During the two-hour conversation, Andreessen also revisited his experience with Biden administration officials, claiming the government expressed the orwellian desire to take "complete control" over AI development in the United States. 

“I’m an unpaid volunteer,” Andreessen said when asked by Weiss about his reported involvement. A recent report from The Washington Post revealed that Andreessen, along with fellow Silicon Valley titans Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, is contributing to the ambitious program. Andreessen outlined DOGE’s two chief objectives: slashing spending and reducing regulations.

“There's basically two big parts to it,” Andreessen explained. “One is they're going to do a top-to-bottom review of government spending, and they're going to cut as much cost as they possibly can. They have a whole theory and strategy on that.”

“In conjunction with that and related to it, they're going to do the same thing for regulations,” the billionaire continued. “They're going to do a top-to-bottom review of the regulatory—what they call the regulatory state or the administrative state.”

“The connective tissue there, that they don't talk about in public, is actually quite important. A lot of the reaction of the Doge from institutional Washington is like, well, that's impossible, you can't do that; there are all these laws, statutes, and regulations,” he added.

Andreessen, along with his A16z co-founder Ben Horowitz, endorsed Trump during the final stretch of the 2024 election. Since Trump’s victory, Andreessen revealed to Weiss that he has spent a great day of time at Mar-a-Lago and the Palm Beach area, assisting the 47th leader of the free world with assembling his administration.

While Andreessen said he has spent “maybe half [his] time” at Mar-a-Lago since the election, he is quick to clarify his position:

"I’m not claiming to be in the middle of all the decision-making, but I’ve been trying to help in as many ways as I can,” the tech titan told Weiss. Andreessen explained that his contributions focus on areas where his expertise aligns with Trump’s agenda, including tech policy, business, and economic development. “When I talk about these things, it’s around, as I said, tech policy, business, economics, and then, you know, the health of the country, the success of the country,” he noted.

Andreessen shared his observations of Trump’s warm personal approach, highlighting qualities that he believes are often overlooked by his Democrat critics.

“Everybody says this who meets with him, but he’s an incredible host,” Andreessen remarked. “For however people think, whatever, he’s an incredible host. He runs his own private worlds.”

What stood out most to Andreessen was Trump’s ability to connect with people from all walks of life.

“He treats everybody the same and talks to everybody,” Andreessen said. “He will happily talk to distinguished visitors about who the Vice President should be, and then he’ll ask the caddy.”

Reflecting on his involvement in the transition process, Andreessen noted the exceptional caliber of candidates he encountered. “The caliber of a lot of the people that I’ve met has been very high,” he said, adding that recent appointments, particularly at the next level down in staff positions, have included “very impressive people.”

Addressing concerns about whether qualified individuals might hesitate to join a Trump administration due to the controversies surrounding his previous term, Andreessen said he has observed the opposite trend: “I think the flow of qualified people from outside the system now is actually much stronger.”

Yet another mainstream media narrative busted.

Addressing also reiterated that his support for Trump stemmed from a series of “horrifying” meeting in which Biden officials expressed plans to control AI.

"They said, look, AI is a technology basically that the government is going to completely control," Andreessen revealed. The officials explicitly discouraged the idea of entrepreneurial ventures in AI, stating, “Don’t start, don’t do AI startups... it’s not something that we’re going to allow to happen.”

According to the billionaire, the officials conveyed that AI innovation would be concentrated among “two or three big companies... working closely with the government,” with startups effectively barred from the space. “We’re going to basically wrap them in a government cocoon, protect them from competition, control them, and dictate what they do,” Andreessen paraphrased, highlighting the stark divergence from the open-market approach that has historically driven tech innovation.


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