Andreessen Says America Is Developing an Urge to Level Anyone Who Stands Out
Andreessen says a push for equality can turn into pressure for no one to be special.
mondaymorning.substack.com · Tall PoppyMarc Andreessen, the software engineer, Netscape co-founder, and venture investor, speaking about Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder, in remarks quoted by a founders newsletter, was describing a phrase he had heard abroad.
“There’s a concept in some countries called the tall poppy syndrome, where everybody has to be average,” Andreessen said.
By his account, sameness itself is treated as a cultural duty, and if anyone sticks a head up and says, “I can do something special,” that person gets it chopped off.
The image is a farming metaphor for a human habit. Just as the tallest poppy in a field is the one that gets cut, the person who claims to be special is the one who gets brought back down to size. The pressure is to avoid rising above everyone else.
Then Andreessen turned the idea on the United States. In his telling, America is now developing its own version of that leveling urge.
“There’s a major urge in American society today to implement the tall poppy syndrome,” he said. He described that urge as a movement in politics and economics, built around “this purported ideal that everybody ought to be equal,” “which is to say, for nobody to be special.”
Jobs represented the opposite approach, in Andreessen’s view. “The whole point of Steve, and the whole point of Apple, was to be special, was to be the tall poppy,” he said. “It’s not just Apple that can do this. It’s everybody. It’s a question of expectations. It’s the difference between good enough and great.”
He added, “Good enough was good enough for a long time, but thanks to Steve, it isn’t anymore.”
Questions people ask
Where does the phrase tall poppy syndrome come from?
The image comes from farming. If one poppy grows taller than the rest of the field, cutting it brings the field back to a uniform height. As a social metaphor, it describes envy or conformity that punishes visible success rather than celebrating it.
Who is Marc Andreessen?
He is a software engineer, web browser pioneer, and venture capitalist. He co-created Mosaic and Netscape in the 1990s and later co-founded the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed companies including Facebook, Airbnb, and Coinbase.
What does Andreessen mean by equality in this argument?
In the source, he is using equality to mean sameness of outcome or status, where no one is allowed to stand out. That is different from equality of opportunity or equality before the law, which can coexist with very different results for different people.