Marc Andreessen sued Warren Buffett this week. The legendary venture capitalist blew investor bitcoin views in 2014.
What are you saying Marc?
Marc Andreessen revealed in a recent Bloomberg interview that his favorite investment advice is: "Put all your eggs in one basket and take a closer look." The legendary venture capitalist attributed that quote to Warren Buffett (it appears to date back to Andrew Carnegie in 1885), which is surprising as Andreessen blew up Berkshire Hathaway's CEO in the past, and Buffett doesn't exactly follow that mantra.
Buffett warned investors to avoid bitcoin in 2014, labeling it a "mirage" and describing the idea that it is inherently valuable as "just a joke." He likened cryptocurrency to a check or money order, dismissing it as another method of transmitting money.
Andreessen, the cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, shrugged off Buffett's critique of bitcoin as ignorant at a CoinSummit event that year. "The historical track record of old white men not understanding technology and shitting on new technology is 100%," he said, according to his interviewer.
Buffet has been saying exactly the opposite since 2005
The venture capitalist came up with his thoughts on Twitter shortly thereafter. He described Buffett as his "personal hero" and a "world-class expert in many areas," CNBC reported, but did not evaluate the Berkshire chief's uninformed opinion on bitcoin.
"I don't know anything about railways," he added, probably referring to the Berkshire ownership of the BNSF Railway. "Correspondingly they have no sight."
Both Andreessen and Buffett make bets focused on the companies they prefer, whether it's a top-tier tech company like Facebook or Airbnb in the case of the VC, or like Geico and Bank of America for Buffett.
Although Buffett owns more than 99% of his fortune in Berkshire stock and 5 shares make up 75% of his portfolio value, he rejected the idea of betting on a single company at Berkshire's 2005 shareholders' meeting.
“Since we own Berkshire, we don't think all our eggs are in one basket, because we have a lot of good deals,” Buffett said, noting that Berkshire has dozens of branches including See's Candies and PacifiCorp.
However, Buffett would no doubt agree with Andreessen's recent recommendation of an S&P 500 index fund on something "fanciful". Buffett encouraged the vast majority of people to invest in tracker funds for years and ordered that 90% of his assets be invested in an S&P 500 index fund for his wife upon her death.
