Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future
modelrepublic.org
August 24, 2026
93 min read
70/100
Summary
Andreessen Horowitz is expanding its influence over U.S. AI and technology policy while backing companies accused of deceptive marketing, regulatory evasion, consumer harm, or illegal conduct. The Midas Project says a16z helped launch the $100 million Leading The Future super PAC in August 2025, backed the American Innovators Network, and supported efforts to preempt state AI laws. Former a16z general partner Sriram Krishnan became the White House senior policy adviser on AI in December 2024, while former Zenefits executive David Sacks serves as the White House AI and crypto czar. The report surveys 18 a16z investments. It says Speedrun invested $1 million in Doublespeed in October 2025; leaked data reportedly showed the company operated more than 1,100 phones and 400 TikTok accounts used to make AI advertising appear human-generated. A16z led Cluely’s $15 million Series A in June 2025 after the company promoted an AI tool as a way to “cheat” in interviews and other settings. A16z-backed Character AI faces lawsuits over alleged harmful chatbot interactions with minors, and Civitai disclosed 178 reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children involving confirmed AI-generated child sexual abuse material. The portfolio also includes fintechs and gambling platforms that have faced regulatory actions, lawsuits, or allegations of circumventing consumer-protection rules. A16z did not respond to the report’s request for comment.
Key Takeaways
- The Midas Project says Andreessen Horowitz is using political spending, lobbying, and former partners’ government roles to favor a less restrictive U.S. AI regulatory environment.
- A16z’s Speedrun program invested $1 million in Doublespeed in October 2025; the company sells phone-farm infrastructure designed to operate fake social-media accounts that mimic human behavior.
- A16z led Cluely’s $15 million Series A in June 2025 after Cluely marketed an AI tool around cheating, though the company later repositioned it as an AI meeting assistant and notetaker.
- Character AI, backed by a16z in a $150 million Series A in 2023, faces lawsuits alleging its chatbots exposed minors to harmful content and contributed to self-harm risks.
- Civitai disclosed 178 reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for confirmed AI-generated child sexual abuse material, while an Oxford Internet Institute study counted more than 35,000 deepfake models on the platform.
What the discussion said
Commenters treated the article less as a complaint about one venture fund than as evidence of an AI startup culture willing to turn vulnerability, deception, and surveillance into product strategy. The sharpest alarm centered on companies that reportedly target older people because they are easier to mislead with AI: readers saw the explicitness as a sign that growth metrics have displaced even basic restraint. Automated outreach also drew criticism. A reported conversion rate from phone-farm direct messages impressed some as unusually strong, but others argued that the tactic succeeds only while recipients have not learned to treat the channel as synthetic spam; once copied broadly, it degrades trust for everyone. There was little confidence in grand AI-benefit rhetoric. Several readers called cancer-curing claims a familiar bubble-era sales pitch, while one respondent pushed back that AI-assisted medical progress should not be ruled out categorically. The larger concern was that consumer-facing manipulation may be the mild end of the portfolio: AI-enabled surveillance was described as more dangerous because users can decline a predatory app but cannot easily opt out when monitoring becomes civic infrastructure. A small minority defended the investing as normal early-stage risk-taking or argued that consumers choose these tools, but that defense did not persuade most participants.
Where opinion split
The main dispute is whether these AI investments are ordinary venture bets on tools people voluntarily want, or deliberate backing for harmful systems. Defenders say a broad startup portfolio will inevitably include controversial products and that adoption signals consumer demand; critics argue the reported marketing and surveillance strategies show that exploitation is not an accidental edge case but an investment thesis.
Community Sentiment
Positives
- AI-assisted medical research should not be dismissed outright; commenters noted that claims of progress against cancer may be ambitious rather than impossible.
- The reported direct-message conversion rate, if genuine, suggests AI-driven outreach can outperform conventional cold outbound by a startling margin for marketers.
Concerns
- Targeting older adults precisely because they are easier to fool with AI looks like vulnerability exploitation dressed up as product-market fit.
- Phone-farm outreach may produce an early spike, but scaling synthetic persuasion trains people to ignore private messages and poisons a communication channel everyone relies on.
- Cancer-cure promises were attacked as bubble marketing: invoking AI without demonstrated clinical capability can keep capital flowing while overstating what models can deliver.
- AI surveillance was judged more threatening than manipulative consumer apps because it can remove freedom from people who never chose the system or its risks.
