Andreessen's Secret Plan To Find the Next Netscape 130
Hugh Pickens writes "CNN reports that Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen has raised $300 million to launch a new venture capital firm that aims to reinvent the way money is doled out in Silicon Valley while reflecting Andreessen's unwavering view that the Internet will soon take over all aspects of our lives and that online services won't merely supplement your TV viewing or newspaper reading, but will replace those activities altogether. Andreessen, on the board of Facebook and an angel investor in Twitter, says that technology moves so quickly that only the young can keep up with what the latest stuff can do. 'So the 24-year-old coming out of Stanford will have a view of technology that the 29-year-old — who was 24 just five years ago — would never think of,' say Andreessen. 'We love that kind of thing.' Andreessen thinks that when companies are acquired too quickly, innovation slows down, and he says that YouTube might have come up with a path to profitability faster if it wasn't a part of Google. 'It is hard for big ones to out-execute up-and-comers,' Andreessen says. 'Our secret plan is to watch what gets acquired and fund the next company. A good template is to fund companies doing whichever the next-generation product would have been.'"
obsolete already (Score:4, Informative)
online services won't merely supplement your TV viewing or newspaper reading, but will replace those activities altogether.
Will replace?
For me, at least, it has replaced already.
Many years have passed since I bought my last newspaper, and I only watch TV for live football games.