Marc Andreessen's writing process
Most of you already know of Marc Andreessen. For the uninitiated, he’s co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He’s one of the key people who shaped the internet. He co-created the Mosaic internet browser and co-founded Netscape, which sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. He also comes up with gold like “software is eating the world.”
Andreessen recently described his writing process in a recent podcast with David Perell, a writer and podcaster. The 60+ minutes podcast is a great listen for anyone who wants to get good at writing. But here are some writing tips and takeaways from it.
Write how you talk. Don’t make it different just because you’re writing.
Start with an outline and then fill in.
Think about a topic for a long time, read, and write when it hits critical mass.
Read every day. While driving. While waiting. Whenever you get time.
Audiobooks are great (while driving).
Talk to interesting people, people who are on the cutting edge of something.
Here’s a link to the podcast. He starts describing his process around 1:07:00.
Think for a long time. Read a lot. Get my head organized around it. Fill in the structure. Then start drafting point by point.
Marc’s Twitter is here in case you don’t already follow him.
Also, check out my previous post that has advice from Stephen King to become a better writer.