Marc Andreessen, partner at Silicon Valley venture capital fund a16z, said remote working could cause an “earthquake” in the way people live their lives.
During audio notation The billionaire investor discussed with economist Taylor Coen how the rise of remote work in the era of a pandemic could change civilization, an idea he’s talked about before.
“For thousands of years, if you were a sharp and ambitious young man – which is true of the Medici, that is true of the Greeks – you had to go into town for a basic opportunity,” Andreessen said on the show.
But as many companies have been maintaining hybrid and remote work policies since early 2020, unrestricted employees are now free to leave big cities for more affordable and previously less densely populated places, like Kansas City, Missouri, which was recently named the place. No. 1 in the United States. United States to live and work remotely.
“It’s probably an earthquake,” Andreessen told Quinn. “One of those things would probably be that in a hundred years, people could look back and say, ‘This was a real turning point for how society evolved.'”
The investor said he’s excited about the idea, adding that “if everyone can still access great online knowledge work jobs, maybe that’s basically a better way to live.”
Andreessen wrote on his blog in mid-2021 that remote work could end up being more important than the internet and would constitute a “lasting cultural shift.”
“Maybe the most important thing that happened in my life, as a result of the internet is probably more important than the internet,” he said.
Major American cities such as San Francisco and New York have seen a steady stream of departing workers fleeing rising housing costs in less expensive locations, including Austin, Texas.
According to a March study from flexible job platform Upwork, about five million Americans have relocated due to remote work policies since 2020.
