Marc Andreessen covered 1,001 topics with Charlie Rose. Of interest to me was his take on newspapers.
Charlie Rose:
All right. Let me talk about where this — this whole thing in the world is going in terms of Facebook. Newspapers.Marc Andreessen:
Yep.
I’ve heard of them.Charlie Rose:
What is it between you and the New York Times?Marc Andreessen:
You want to know what really pushed me over the edge?Charlie Rose:
What?Marc Andreessen:
Judy Miller.Charlie Rose:
Really?Marc Andreessen:
Just —Charlie Rose:
Explain who Judy Miller is.Marc Andreessen:
Technology. She’s the national security reporter who covered the run up to the Iraq war and the WMD topic. And I just — I took —Charlie Rose:
She was wrong on the question of WMD and people thought her sources —Marc Andreessen:
Completely, completely incorrect. And I would normally cut somebody slack for something like that, but then the folks at Knight Ridder at the time, Knight Ridder, now McClatchy got it completely correct.Charlie Rose:
Right, they did.Marc Andreessen:
So I actually got to know a couple of those folks, and I asked them like what was the difference, how did you get it right? They said, oh, we talked to the colonels. The Times had access to all the generals and all the politicians. We talked to the colonels. We talked to the guys that were actually in the field doing the work. They said, we don’t see any of this. We don’t understand what these guys are talking about in Washington. We don’t see any of it. So they said to us was totally obvious. So like at that point –Charlie Rose:
At that point what?Marc Andreessen:
At that point, I didn’t know this at the time, like a lot of people, so I read the Times, and I said, hey, you know, war with Iraq, great idea. Right? Existential threat, weapons of mass destruction. He wants to kill us. We have to go kill him first. So, okay. I’ll give somebody one shot at that but not two.Charlie Rose:
And then?Marc Andreessen:
And then –Charlie Rose:
That happening turned you against the New York Times because you created a thing called New York Times death watch.Marc Andreessen:
In fairness, I’ve actually totally dropped that. I think at this point it’s become unfair.Charlie Rose:
To the New York Times?Marc Andreessen:
Well, because –Charlie Rose:
Your sense of fairness overwhelms me.Marc Andreessen:
I know. Things — events are playing out.Charlie Rose:
So you’ve got the New York Times death watch is no longer there.Marc Andreessen:
That was a blog post that I did. A blog post that I did that I was kind of — it was a little bit tongue in cheek and a little bit serious. But with an underlying point.Charlie Rose:
Here is where you go — what’s the under underlying point?Marc Andreessen:
Well, the underlying point is fundamentally, there is a structural change happening in that business, so –Charlie Rose:
In the newspaper business.Marc Andreessen:
In the newspaper business. Well, in the entire media business. In all branches of the media industry, but the newspapers are sort of front and center topical. And the reason I bring up Judy Miller is because the typical — there are exceptions to this. There are friends of mine who are trying very hard to grapple with this. But the typical sort of newspaper industry response is, you know, we just got to figure out a way to kind of gut through it, like if we can — if we can get through the advertising recession, if we can downsize the paper, if we can downsize the news room –Charlie Rose:
I don’t think that’s what their idea is, but go ahead.
[NE] .Marc Andreessen:
Start returning ads on the front page, if we can just figure out some kind of combination of things, then we can keep printing the paper and delivering it as a physical medium, and this Internet thing will kind off stay off to the side.Charlie Rose:
No, I think that’s not true. I think they’re trying to survive until the Internet thing pays off. That’s how they’re doing it.Marc Andreessen:
But this is — this is playing offense versus playing defense. Their revenue today is still, in most cases, 90 percent print.Charlie Rose:
Right.Marc Andreessen:
10% online.Charlie Rose:
Right.Marc Andreessen:
That means they spend 90 — I can tell you. I have been involved with a lot of companies, right? Ninety percent — if 90 percent of your revenue is coming from something, 90 percent of your time is being spent on that. So they’re spending 90 percent of their time –Charlie Rose:
And the future 10 percent –Marc Andreessen:
Future 10 percent, and spending very little time playing offense. For the most part, they’re Internet divisions have been off to the side, often with different news rooms. I mean just like bizarre separation.Charlie Rose:
So to play offense for a newspaper for you means what?Marc Andreessen:
Oh, you got to kill the print edition.Charlie Rose:
You would stop the presses tomorrow?Marc Andreessen:
You have to kill it.Charlie Rose:
Stop the presses tomorrow.Marc Andreessen:
You have to kill it.Charlie Rose:
Stop the presses tomorrow.Marc Andreessen:
Stop the presses tomorrow. I’ll tell you what. The stocks would go up. Look at what’s happened to the stocks. This investors are through this. The investors are through the transition. You talk to any smart investor who controls any amount of money, he will tell you that the game is up. Like it’s completely over. And so the investors have completely written off the print operations. There is no value in these stock prices attributable to print anymore at all. It’s gone.Charlie Rose:
So you would recommend to the owners of the New York Times, stop printing papers.Marc Andreessen:
Yeah, absolutely. You have to. You have to –Charlie Rose:
And take your losses –Marc Andreessen:
Yeah. You have to.Charlie Rose:
Like a courageous person.Marc Andreessen:
Chronic pain? Acute pain. How many years — music industry, same thing. How many years of chronic pain do you want to take to avoid taking a year of acute pain?Charlie Rose:
Right.Marc Andreessen:
And by the way, the acute pain would be acute. Like this is a big deal. I’m not saying that this –Charlie Rose:
[talking simultaneously] revenues have gone away, then you’ve got a problem.Marc Andreessen:
You’ve got a problem. But you have to build for the future. I mean if you’re — if you’re the guy delivering ice to people’s ice boxes, at a certain point, you better go into the refrigerator repair business or you’re going to have an issue. If you’re the village blacksmith and a model T comes along, you better become a mechanic. People’s lives are better when they get news online versus having to wait for the morning paper. It’s a lot more efficient, a lot more real time, a lot less waste. It’s actually — like everything about the airline experience is better. And at some point, you have to — I believe, as a responsible manager, reorient –Charlie Rose:
Do you read anything on paper?Marc Andreessen:
Well –Charlie Rose:
Anything.Marc Andreessen:
I’m weird. I read everything. So I subscribe — I’m a huge consumer of media.Charlie Rose:
You’re just like me. I go online. I get it — I touch it, I want this, I want this.Marc Andreessen:
I tell my friends, I own 6,000 CD’s, like music CD’s. Like I buy CD’s all the time. I love CD’s.Charlie Rose:
I do too, yes.Marc Andreessen:
All they need are another million people like me.Charlie Rose:
I know. I know.Marc Andreessen:
And there aren’t enough of me. And, you know, DVD’s –Charlie Rose:
I buy DVD’s, too. I thought I was the only one. I kept beating myself up because I thought there is no one like me, an how stupid. I’m just stupid.Marc Andreessen:
Exactly. I have a huge collection of DVD’s, and it’s essentially –Charlie Rose:
Exactly.Marc Andreessen:
I got on [talking simultaneously]Charlie Rose:
This is no reason to buy DVD’s?Marc Andreessen:
So DVD sales are collapsing. DVD sales are caving in. So yeah. We need more of me and you.Charlie Rose:
All right. Exactly.Marc Andreessen:
We’re all set.Charlie Rose:
We’d have a –
[talking simultaneously]
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/andreessen-on-charlie-rose-i-am-creating-a-fund-full-video/
