"Techno-optimism" is a sign of V.C. crisis - by Max Read

I would say my main question about “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” an essay by the prominent venture-capitalist Marc Andreessen, is whether or not the goatse was intentional. The manifesto, published to the website of Andreessen’s fund a16z on Monday (it currently occupies the entire front page of the fund’s site), was originally accompanied by the following digital illustration, which many readers will recognize immediately: Does this image of a cyber-sphincter, pulled apart by two strong hands, revealing a pixellated heaven inside, look familiar? Did Marc Andreessen--a man who certainly would like to be known as a funny online guy, familiar with the folkways of the internet, able to cut it up with regular shitposters on the e-streets--mean for his grand statement of purpose to be illustrated by an abstract version of the internet’s most famous and beloved shock image? Sadly, probably not. The image has since been changed, the hands removed, the resemblance gone. It’s too bad, becaus

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• Elizabeth Dorman