The Billionaire Oligarch Who Finances Substack

Behind Substack's venture capital backers.

This article will test Substack’s commitment to free speech. It’s about a major financer of this platform who is a Silicon Valley oligarch.

That said, this is about a billionaire oligarch who is one of Substack’s major funders—Marc Andreessen.

(Let's get this out of the way up front: Yes, in some photos he does resemble a Conehead from an SNL skit)

Andreessen was the key programmer—thirty years ago—who created Netscape, the first graphical web browser that helped launch the web as we know it.

He made a fortune when Netscape the company was acquired by AOL. Netscape the browser, though, had a short life once Microsoft took over the browser market. That led to Microsoft being investigated by the Feds and found to be a monopoly.

What does that have to do with Substack?

After Andreessen started and sold other companies, he took his fortune and, in 2009, founded the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

AH Capital Management, LLC is the largest venture company in the industry, with managed assets of $42 billion.

In 2019 AH Capital provided $15.3 million to Substack, some of which was reportedly used to bring in high-profile writers. At the time, such writers were needed to attract an audience and give Substack credibility.

Substack's Nazi Problem

In 2023, the Atlantic reported that Substack had “become a home and propagator of white supremacy and anti-Semitism” and was hosting writers who “posted overtly Nazi rhetoric,” from which Substack was profiting.

Soon after, 247 Substack writers sent a letter to Substack asking for an explanation and threatening to quit Substack.

Substack then removed five offending newsletters, far short of the total number in question. That led at least one major writer to quit, taking with him his 170,000 free subscribers. Others have left since for similar reasons.

I myself have had one nationally known writer tell me that they would not share some of my Substack content with their followers specifically because it was on Substack.

I'm not saying that Marc Andreessen has any connection with Substack’s previous tolerance of white supremacist and anti-semitic content. But the site’s history does raise doubts about Substack management's commitment to decent and safe content.

And Andreessen’s philosophy raises its own issues…

Andreessen’s Philosophy

Andreessen subscribes to a philosophy known as effective accelerationism, which holds that unrestricted technological progress (especially driven by artificial intelligence) is a solution to universal human problems like poverty, war and climate change.

As Andreessen expresses his views, the emphasis is on unrestricted. He wrote in a 2023 manifesto: “We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.” A report in The Guardian describes his philosophy as the “deliberate propulsion of technological development without guardrails.”

The ideas that he considers “enemies” include sustainability, social responsibility, trust and safety, risk management, and the limits of growth. Vice summarized his beliefs as: “AI is good, fascists are saints, and anyone who stops rich people like him from funding, deploying, and doing whatever they want with tech is a literal murderer.”

His views might be dismissed as fringe, except that Andreessen is an insider—along with fellow broligarchs Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg—in the Trump administration.

In fact, last December, he disclosed that he had spent half his time, since the election, at Mar-a-Lago helping Trump on technology policy—especially artifical intelligence. One can only imagine what “interesting” unconstitutional legislation and executive orders might well come our way from such a collaboration.

What does this mean for Substack?

For one thing, it matters greatly who owns a social network. That’s why so many people fled Twitter. (Yes, I’m intentionally dead-naming Musk’s monstrosity.) And Facebook—now a gurgling cesspool of ’bots, fake news, bogus images, and Russian-supported propaganda—which is effectively owned and controlled by Mark Zuckerberg. Owners decide policy, including whose—and which—ideas get promoted or suppressed.

Second, as I’ve written before, venture capitalists care about one thing only: Making a profit on their investment. By either selling a company or having it go public. VC’s have already sunk millions into Substack. It is inevitable that they will force the founders to pump up revenue and profits regardless of the consequences.

How? Remember the day when advertising first reared its ugly head on Facebook? Or how Facebook hawked millions of users’ personal information to the highest bidders, even after getting slaps on the wrist from the Federal Trade Commission?

One can easily imagine the ways that Substack’s founders might choose to satisfy their venture capital masters. IMHO, Substack will follow its predecessor venture-backed tech startups down the road to perdition. And with effective accelerationist Marc Andreessen at the helm of its largest investor, social responsibility, trust, and safety are likely to take a back seat—if they are even permitted to come along for the ride.

So, no, I am not quitting Substack, as I wrote previously that I was considering. Yet. And I don’t think it is time for other writers to quit.

But I am exploring alternative publishing platforms such as Ghost. And I am regularly downloading my list of free subscribers, which contains their e-mail addresses. So that Substack cannot cut me off entirely from them. If you publish on Substack and have a reasonable number of subscribers, it would be prudent to do the same.