Marc Andreessen tells Joe Rogan that Silicon Valley is divided in two after Trump’s win: ‘There are two kinds of dinner parties now’
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is no longer on the guest list of every dinner party in Silicon Valley, a move he said is punishment for abandoning the Democratic Party for supporting Donald Trump.
The co-founder of venture capital firm a16z, also known as Andreessen Horowitz, said social isolation is a common punishment for those who think differently from certain left-wing circles in the tech mecca.
Andreessen said the same rifts that have divided the country this year have also caused cracks in the once-monolithic Democratic bastion, as nearly every demographic group has abandoned the party to varying degrees.
“We’re going through a profound political realignment for the first time probably since the 1960s,” Andreessen said in an interview with Joe Rogan posted Tuesday, arguing that Republicans are now the party of common sense, no war and the working class.
The co-creator of the world’s first mainstream internet browser said he feared he would be dismissed as a “crazy right-winger” because he dared to celebrate that it was “morning in America” now that Trump had won the election. He said he – like many other constituencies that traditionally support Democrats – had actually been alienated from the party.
“I was a good Democrat,” he said, having previously supported Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama.
He also recalled the shock and sadness he felt at dinner with other Silicon Valley friends shortly after Trump’s first win. They all voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 – including Andreessen himself. Despite a long-standing voting record, his decision to support Trump instead of Kamala Harris in this year’s race has resulted in doors closing in his face. “It’s actually true: There are two kinds of dinner parties in Silicon Valley now — they’ve split in two,” Andreessen told Rogan in a three-hour podcast interview.
On one hand, there are gatherings he can still attend where he can meet other first-time Trump supporters like Elon Musk.
But his presence is no longer welcome among those he labeled the “coastal elite.”
There are “parties where every person believes every single thing that was printed in the New York Times that day … and that’s all they talk about at the dinner party,” Andreessen claimed. “And I’m not invited to them anymore, nor do I want to go to them.”
