The American Prospect magazine published the article ‘My Dinner with Andreessen’ written by historian/journalist Rick Perlstein in April 2024. The dinner described is with billionaire Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape (the first commercial web browser) and co-founder of the famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, took place in 2017.
(The article’s title is a play on the famous Louis Malle film, My Dinner with Andre, starring André Gregory and Wallace Shawn.)
Perlstein, the author of the books Nixonland and Reaganland, explained that he wrote the article “because you really need to know how deeply twisted some of these plutocrats who run our society truly are.”
Quotes from the article are resurfacing this week and being circulated on social media including one where Perlstein claims the Trump supporter Andreessen said (regarding small town America): “I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.”
Perlstein added: “I’m taking the liberty of putting it in quotation marks, though I can’t be sure those were his exact words. Marc, if you’re reading, feel free to get in touch and refresh my memory. Maybe he said ‘quiescent,’ or ‘docile,’ or maybe ‘powerless.’ Something, certainly, along those lines.”
Perlstein added: “He was joking, sort of; but he was serious—definitely.” (That phrase is also an analog in the MAGA position that Trump be taken seriously, but not literally.)
I am admittedly biased, but I’m biased because Marc is a good dude.
I don’t believe Pearlstein’s slander for a second. https://t.co/PSs4eUpJAs
— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 31, 2024
Andreessen replied to the article on X this week: “In 2017, I invited author Rick Perlstein to dinner at my home, as a fan. I realized during the conversation that he is an actual communist–he demanded that I justify a moral defense of capitalism. True to form, he is now slandering me with fake quotes. Par for the course.”
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance replied to Andreessen’s response: “I am admittedly biased, but I’m biased because Marc is a good dude. I don’t believe Pearlstein’s slander for a second.”
YESSSSSS!!! I made the enemies list.
(Hopeful the mispelling of the name will save me from the storm troopers, like Mr. Tuttle in Terry Gilliam’s Brazill.) pic.twitter.com/d885xnQZ3k
— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) December 31, 2024
Perlstein has replied to Vance’s defense of Andreessen by writing: “YESSSSSS!!! I made the enemies list. (Hopeful the mispelling of the name will save me from the storm troopers, like Mr. Tuttle in Terry Gilliam’s Brazill.)”
Note: Gilliam’s 1985 film Brazil is about a low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) who dreams of saving a beautiful damsel but along the way gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies. Robert De Niro — who has some strong opinions about MAGA too — plays Tuttle. Trailer below.