The Powerless Rich

On billionaires who play visionary

This Friday, The Atlantic reporter Jerusalem Demsas revealed that venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and his wife helped torpedo the development of multifamily housing in their extremely expensive Bay area town. In most circumstances, a rich resident of a zip code where rich residents reside seeking to keep it that way would hardly be newsworthy, much less so for a Bay area zip code. But Andreessen caused a bit of a splash in 2020 with a post called “It’s Time to Build,” much discussed in certain circles. Though there were many sorts of things Andreessen wanted us all to be building more of, buildings was certainly one. One of his observations, much quoted in the last few days, was that “We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities with surging economic potential — which results in crazily skyrocketing housing prices in places like San Francisco[.]”

At the end of the day, hypocrisy is neither surprising nor, truth be told, very interesting. The only thing that distinguishes a hypocrite from a true believer in this instance is that Andreessen actually says the correct things to larger publics. I largely agree with the goals trumpeted in his post, and definitely agree that we need to make it much easier to build housing in this country.

What is more interesting to me is this class of extremely wealthy, extremely connected persons who assume a stance of powerlessness. Earlier this year Andreessen argued that our “elite ruling class” is “based on power, way more than money.” Money is, of course, nothing but a very specific form of social power. It is not the only form, and it is not necessarily the most decisive form; laws and administrators may regulate its legitimate uses. When Russia shows up on your doorstep, it’s far more valuable to have weaponry on hand rather than money to make or buy more of them. But it is, in very many circumstances, quite potent, and most of all quite flexible.

With a portion of just his own personal fortune, Marc Andreessen could have an enormous influence on the housing politics of the Bay area. Were he to draw more of his peers into it, they could completely transform the housing dynamics of the region. Housing politics, after all, is more or less just land owner politics⁠—the people who block new development are not renters, but home owners and landlords. His wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen⁠—likely the author of the public comment that Demsas discovered⁠—should know this very well, given that her father was one of the largest land holders in Silicon Valley for many years.

If not housing, of course, Andreessen could flex his financial muscle and work his connections for any one of the laundry list of things he mentions in his post. Near the end of it, he issues a challenge: “Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own!” Personally, I am quite happy with his ideas of what to build. I just wish he had given some thought about how to build them—any of them—and then attempted to do so himself.

Instead, Andreessen and his peers write and read posts, posts that are bold in tone but nonspecific in practical detail. They share these posts with one another, they enjoy the mild acclaim they receive, and then they go and invest their time in what really matters to them: lobbying to make the world a safer place for cryptocurrency, and to keep everyone else priced out of their neighborhoods.