Marc Andreeson RAVES about Obama

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

Marc Andreeson is the guy who founded Netscape, the first real web browser. ( you can read more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen )

Anyway, in 2007, he spent some time with Barack Obama and was blown away. He reports on it now:

First, this is a normal guy.

I've spent time with a lot of politicians in the last 15 years. Most of them talk at you. Listening is not their strong suit -- in fact, many of them aren't even very good at faking it.

Senator Obama, in contrast, comes across as a normal human being, with a normal interaction style, and a normal level of interest in the people he's with and the world around him.

We were able to have an actual, honest-to-God conversation, back and forth, on a number of topics. In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, Youtube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics -- with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more. We also talked about a pretty wide range of other issues, including Silicon Valley and various political topics.

With most politicians, their curiosity ends once they find out how much money you can raise for them. Not so with Senator Obama -- this is a normal guy.

Second, this is a smart guy.

I bring this up for two reasons. One, Senator Obama's political opponents tend to try to paint him as some kind of lightweight, which he most definitely is not. Two, I think he's at or near the top of the scale of intelligence of anyone in political life today.

You can see how smart he is in his background -- for example, lecturer in constitutional law at University of Chicago; before that, president of the Harvard Law Review.

But it's also apparent when you interact with him that you're dealing with one of the intellectually smartest national politicians in recent times, at least since Bill Clinton. He's crisp, lucid, analytical, and clearly assimilates and synthesizes a very large amount of information -- smart.

Read the whole thing:

http://blog.pmarca.com/2008/03/an-hour-and-a-h.html

[Altair]

1. Anyone who graduates magna cum laude from Harvard Law School is incredibly smart

I'm talking top .0001% of the population smart.

[Frank Booth]

25. Correct.

That's why those "empty suit" attacks are plain ridiculous. You've got be extremely smart to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard and be law review editor (which is a very time-consuming job). People seem to automatically assume that Hillary's smarter than Obama, but I don't see any proof of that at all.

It's quite an amazing package to have someone this smart, who's a great speaker, who's comfortable in his own skin, and who seems like just a regular guy (which explains why people feel they relate to him so well).

[depakid]

30. LOL.

Apparently, you don't have much appreciation for intelligence....

Law School deals with but a few aspects of intelligence and analytical skills. It's largely devoid of maths (not to mention those who are polymaths) and it doesn't involve speaking foreign languages or computer science and modeling.

Then there are visual arts and music- and engineering.

There are those who have far broader (and deeper) minds -and they're the one's you'll find at 3 to 4 standard deviations from the norm on a Stanford Binet.

Not to say Obama's not a bright guy -but, please -some perspective here.

[zulchzulu]

2. I once ran his Powerpoint presentation at a conference

Marc Andreeson is an absolute genius. I think he was 24 at the time I was doing work for Netscape and he was truly an amazing character. He'd be a great cabinet member in the Obama administration on technology issues.

[40ozDonkey]

3. B-b-but

As of Feb 1st AOL stopped supporting Netscape, so this doesn't matter.

(or something)

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

4. lol

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Steve Balmer of Microsoft loves Hillary

He evens credits her campaign and experience
for inspiring the Vista Operating System.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. LOL

[IDemo]

20. The Blue Screen of campaign death:

[BringBigDogBack]

36. LOL.

[grantcart]

6. From the link great article

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven't had meaningful experience as an executive -- as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign -- you'll see my leadership skills in action.

At the time, I wasn't sure what to make of his answer -- political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama's opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win -- and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

This speaks well to the Senator's ability to run a campaign, but speaks even more to his ability to recruit and manage a top-notch group of campaign professionals and volunteers -- another key leadership characteristic. When you compare this to the awe-inspiring discord, infighting, and staff turnover within both the Clinton and McCain campaigns up to this point -- well, let's just say it's a very interesting data point.

[VolcanoJen]

8. "Watch how I run my campaign."

When that thought actually took a temporary hold within the media narrative, I was pretty impressed that we were going to have a substantive discussion about political management and its relation to managing a Presidency.

Then the kitchen sink hit. They're running out of parts, if you ask me.

[grantcart]

18. after Mississippi's big win for Obama the polls in PA will start to

get closer and closer and the pressure on the superdelegates to move will increase day by day. I expect some big super endorsements in the next 2 weeks.

[krkaufman]

31. Yep. Obama's DAMN ready, if campaign managment is a consideration.

And Hillary and McCain need to be kept away from the White House at all costs, based on the same criteria. (Yikes!)

[fadedrose]

7. God I hope he makes it ...he seems nice to be around....nt

[cooolandrew]

10. Fantastic this is what we need let's just stick to positive stuff, keep it up beat and on the street

[cooolandrew]

11. Barack knows the internet community counts, he believes in us first, great person.

[cooolandrew]

12. Barack knows the internet community counts, he believes in us first, great person.

[cooolandrew]

13. Also addded to this his millions havent stopped him being down to earth.

[splat]

14. Why am I not impressed? Another young man for Obama

[Cha]

17. 'Cause the only thing that impresses you, splat,

is hilary letting us know how experienced mccain is..I know you're just falling all over yourself about that, splat.

[Cha]

15. Thanks..I like different perspectives

of those who have learned what Obama is really about..

"We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven't had meaningful experience as an executive -- as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign -- you'll see my leadership skills in action.

At the time, I wasn't sure what to make of his answer -- political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama's opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win -- and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns."

Obama inspires respect not "loyalty" or jumping ship.

[Tennessee Gal]

16. Am I supposed to care what this guy thinks?

I don't.

[scheming daemons]

19. He's the main reason you are typing in D.U. on a web browser..... but ...

..no, you can ignore the creator of the "www" if you want.

[Tennessee Gal]

21. There were many before him.

He just got rich off the internet.

Suggest you do a little research.

[scheming daemons]

24. I didn't suggest he invented the internet.... he invented the WEB BROWSER.....

...that tool that USES the internet to display these words I am typing to you in a nice graphical way.


He wrote the first web browser..... and didn't even copyright it. It was called "Mosaic".



the HTML programming language that we all use to make our comments bold or italic or big or small...


...yep... originally created by Andreeson.


I was on the Arpanet in college in 1986, long before you likely even heard of computer networks.... I work for a DOE research site as a Linux admin. I don't need to do my research.... YOU DO.

[krkaufman]

33. Well, it depends on how you define "invent" and "creator"

Andreessen definitely developed the first widely-used integrated web browser implementation, Mosaic (at Illinois' NCSA), but it was based on the standards developed by Tim Berners-Lee, the true "creator" of "HTML" and the "www."

(TN Gal was *WAY* wrong, of course.)

[krkaufman]

32. You're very incorrect. (You're both wrong, really.)

Andreessen was a co-developer of the UIUC's NCSA/Mosaic web browser, the browser that drove the initial explosion of the Internet. The "inventor" of the "www" (not the "Internets") was Tim Berners-Lee, upon whose standards Andreessen based his "browser."

Andreessen *later* went private, heading out to Silicon Valley, founding Netscape, as the next generation of the Mosaic web browser -- where he made his first big money.

[thoughtcrime1984]

22. Very informative and interesting

Great insight on an outstanding candidate.

[KaryninMiami]

23. Great piece. Thanks!

[milkyway]

26. Thanks, this supports a post I made tonight about the managerial skills of Obama vs. those

of Clinton. A very good read, and not an uncommon reaction of those that have had discussions with Obama.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4996432&mesg_id=4997951

[WinkyDink]

27. Who cares? Obama supporters don't care what Wes Clark thinks.

[FrenchieCat]

28. Yeah....we care, but just like we don't think obama

is infallible, neither is Wes.

[WinkyDink]

29. My point: Obama supporters show disdain for respected Democrats (Clark, Wilson), but

love their own rich supporters (this guy, Oprah).

Obama supporters don't think he's infallible? Bwahahahaha!!

[cali]

34. Wrong. At least about this Obama supporter

I've posted plenty about where I don't agree with Obama and criticized him. I have no disdain for Clark. Though I've never been a Clarkie, I respect him and his right to his opinion. That doesn't mean I worship what Clark says and take every word as gospel. He's a strong Hillary supporter. His criticism of Obama should be seen through that lens. And there are people I admire more than Clark- like Pat Leahy who endorsed Obama.

[SunsetDreams]

35. Very nice article, thank you for posting it