Andreesen on Chrome, Obama, and Investing in Start-ups

Blaise Zerega wishes Chrome were available for the Mac.  According to Marc Andreessen, Google's Chrome browser is " an extraordinary event and an extraordinary product."  And because it is so fast -- "10, 20, 30 times faster than IE and significantly faster than Firefox," Chrome wil force other web browsers to become as fast, accelerating the trend of pushing all computing into the browser. "The barriers to doing everything in the browser are falling fast," crowed Andreessen.

Andreessens's comments were part of a rollicking interview conducted by Portoflio's Kevin Maney last night at a members-only gathering of The Churchill Club in Palo Alto.

Given what happened to Andreessen's Netscape at the hands of Microsoft, Maney asked Andreessen how big a problem Chrome presented Redmond and whether he wasn't a bit gleeful about it. "Microsoft can in fact build good software when they want to," he replied. And later in the conversation, of Microsoft? "I am a Facebook 'friend'" of Ballmer,  Andreessen said holding up both his hands and curling his fingers to indicate qoute marks around 'friend.'

When Maney asked who he favored in the upcoming presidential election, Andreessen declared, "I'm hugely pro-Obama." He added that he hoped people supporting John McCain  -- like Meg Whitman, would give him good advice.

Andreessen explained that he stays busy with Ning, his non-profit work on behalf of Stanford Hospital and Room to Read, and investing/advising start-ups. He spoke glowingly of Facebook where he is on the board, and praised young entreprenuers in Silicon Valley, those between 22 and 29 years of age who were not present for the dot-com bust.  "They have no psychic scars, no baggage. They're completely fearless," he said, describing them. 

At 37 years of age, he admitted that he likes playing the role of a big brother to entreprenuers. As an angel invetsor he typically invests between $25,000 and $100,000 in a company. The key to maintaining good relations in this capcity is to "have [the investment] be a small enough amount of money so that if [the start-up] fails, I can still talk to the founder."

For more coverage: See GigaOm and ValleyWag.