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Tech News
Andreessen Horowitz has boosted its fifth growth-stage fund by $1.75 billion, bringing its total to $8.5 billion after launching in January at $6.75 billion. The expansion comes just days after the firm closed a separate $1.1 billion 'Machine Age Fund' targeting AI hardware startups working on chips, memory, networking, and storage.
Build American AI, a new group tied to the super PAC Leading the Future, plans a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in Kansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin to build public support for local data centers. Leading the Future was seeded with over $50 million from investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, and has mainly spent that money backing pro-AI candidates and opposing those skeptical of the technology.
A wave of essays from figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Marc Andreessen, Leopold Aschenbrenner and Palantir's Alex Karp have set out sweeping visions for AI and technology's future. Despite their companies' enormous resources and influence, these authors cannot unilaterally dictate outcomes and instead use these writings to try to shape public opinion and expectations.
A report from The Midas Project examined 18 startups backed by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, finding a pattern of investments in companies accused of running fake-account bot farms, hosting deepfake models used to sexualize minors, operating gambling platforms that skirt consumer laws, and building AI companion apps linked to suicide and troubling behavior toward children. The firm, led by Marc Andreessen, is simultaneously spending heavily on political influence, including a $100 million super PAC and lobbying that helped produce an executive order aimed at weakening state AI regulations. Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to a request for comment.