Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer. He is best known as co-authoring Mosaic, the first widely used web browser, and co-founding Netscape Communications Corporation.
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer. He is best known as the co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation, the first widely used web browser, and as the co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Andreessen was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa in 1971. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied computer science and was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. After graduating in 1993, he worked at Enterprise Integration Technologies and then at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). While at NCSA, Andreessen co-authored Mosaic, the first widely used web browser.
In 1994, Andreessen and Jim Clark co-founded Netscape Communications Corporation, which released the Netscape Navigator web browser. The browser quickly became the most popular web browser in the world, and Andreessen was named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential People on the Web” by Time magazine in 1996.
In 1998, Andreessen left Netscape and co-founded Loudcloud, a web hosting and services company. In 2001, the company was renamed Opsware and went public in 2002. Andreessen served as the company’s chairman until its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard in 2007.
In 2009, Andreessen co-founded venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz with Ben Horowitz. The firm has invested in over 200 companies, including Airbnb, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype.
Andreessen has also served on the board of directors of several companies, including Hewlett-Packard, eBay, and Facebook. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a trustee of the X Prize Foundation.
In addition to his business ventures, Andreessen is an active philanthropist. He has donated to a number of causes, including the Andreessen-Horowitz Foundation, which supports education and technology initiatives. He is also a member of the Giving Pledge, a commitment by the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.