Silicon Valley icon Marc Andreessen explores investing, decision making, and the art of solving unsolvable problems. In this discussion, Andreessen reveals why the internet has become the conduit for some people to disrupt traditional power structures and for others to enforce them, optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the future of the internet, assessing judgment, and the books he turns to for insight. Andreessen is a co-founder and general partner at the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and has invested in companies such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Skype, among others. He co-created the highly influential Mosaic internet browser and co-founded Netscape, and has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time.It's like, the way that power has been exercised in our society through these decades of mass systems has been basically people in conference rooms arguing with each other over control basically of these mass mechanisms. And part of it is kids now are growing up on the internet in some fundamental way. And so we see kids now from all over the world who walk in and they are far more educated and skilled already to be able to do a startup or create new software or do any of these things than I was at their age, because they've learned on the internet. I used to say this to try to exaggerate to make the point, but now I don't think I'm exaggerating, which is I no longer think there are any bad ideas.What each of the top venture capitalists of all time has in common is each of them missed almost all of the great deals of their generation.The books recommended by Marc Andreessen in this episode are: - The WEIRDest People in the World, by Joseph Henrich

- The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom, by James Burnham

- The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, by Martin Gurri

- The Ancient City, by Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges 

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