There is a lot to appreciate in the two bold cases for constructive confidence and confident construction that Marc Andreessen has put forward over the past half-decade.
“It’s Time to Build,” an article published on his website in April 2020, was an argument for recognizing the sources of our society’s material strength and returning to the work of producing the infrastructure for a prosperous future. “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” published in October 2023, was a more abstract statement of principles, seeking to articulate a worldview friendly to technological innovation yet (mostly) resistant to utopian temptations.
What the future needs first isn’t technology — it’s people.
These are both denunciations of despair and rejections of passivity, and in that respect they are much-needed antidotes to the willful paralysis that oddly passes for sophistication in our elite culture now. But Andreessen’s diagnosis of the problem at times mistakes the deepest roots of our lethargy, and therefore undersells his case for the future. What the future needs first isn’t technology — it’s people.
