????雖然不少人認為硅谷正在重蹈覆轍，21世紀初的互聯網泡沫有可能重現。但風險投資人馬克?安德森可不這么認為，在他看來，當今的科技完全不同：它正在從全行業的低迷中實現復蘇。

????“我認為，我們正在從低迷中復蘇，我想我們對于硅谷的低迷感受非常真切，”安德森-霍羅維茨風險投資公司（Andreessen Horowitz）的聯合創始人安德森本周在參加高盛(Goldman Sachs)于加州舊金山舉行的科技與互聯網會議的小組討論時表示。他所謂的“低迷”指的是2001年后眾多互聯網初創企業倒閉衰落的很多年。“這是一段非常痛苦的時期：全球很多地方都轉向了房地產和其他激動人心的事情。”

????但安德森解釋稱，互聯網的發展曲線同樣遵循著汽車、鐵路和蒸汽機等老一代技術的老路——卡洛塔?佩雷茲2003年出版的書《技術變革和金融資本：泡沫和黃金時代的動力學》（Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages.）描繪了這樣的路徑。安德森說：“一開始，根本沒人拿新技術當回事。后來，它又太被當回事了，而且速度太快了。所有人都激動過頭。然后，巨大的災難襲來，然后才會迎來真正的開始。”

????安德森在小組討論中也談到了比特幣，這種頗具爭議的數字貨幣可以實現全球任何地點的匿名即時支付交換。不管現在外界怎么看比特幣，什么“黑客、罪犯和硅谷人”的“癡人說夢”等等，安德森依然認為它是一項根本性的技術突破，指向他所謂的“分配信任”問題。“比特幣是首個互聯網層級的、達到互聯網規模并由互聯網打造的用于處理貨幣和交易的方法，”他說。“我們認為，這項科技本身帶來了很多其他的交易類型，很多其他人們能信任的事物形式：數字股票、數字債券、數字鑰匙、數字合約、數字簽名、數字投票等。”

????隨著各方試圖將比特幣合法化，比特幣前所未有的多樣性可能帶來監管機構之間的“爭搶”。但安德森表示，比特幣已經幫助人們重新設想了未來金融系統的運作方式，而這對于特別是除發展中世界以外的國家可能是一件好事。正如他所提到的，有些國家仍困擾于糟糕的央行體系、糟糕的貨幣以及巨大規模的偷盜貪污。安德森的總結是：“因此，這項事實上完全在軟件中運行、獨立于任何國家政策，同時允許資金自由跨境流動的新科技一旦離開西方，前景不可限量。”（財富中文網）

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????Contrary to arguments that Silicon Valley is repeating the same process that led to the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, Marc Andreessen argues tech is doing something entirely different: emerging from an industry-wide depression.

????"I think we're recovering from a depression, and I think we felt the depression very acutely in the Valley," said Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, during a panel at Goldman Sachs' Technology and Internet conference in San Francisco, Calif. this week. By "depression," he refers to the years following 2001 when many Internet startups crashed and burned. "It was a very miserable time: a lot of the rest of the world moved on into real estate and all these other exciting things."

????Instead, Andreessen explains that the Internet is following the same trajectory that older technologies like cars, railroads and steam engines followed -- a path illustrated in Carlota Perez's 2003 book, "Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages." Explained Andreessen: "First the new technology is not taken seriously at all. Then it's taken way too seriously way too quickly. Everybody gets too excited. Then there's a gigantic catastrophe, and then stuff actually starts happening."

????During the panel, Andreessen also weighed in on Bitcoin, the controversial digital currency that allows anonymous, instant payment exchanges anywhere in the world. Despite how it's currently perceived -- that it's primarily the stuff of "nerd fantasy" for "hackers, criminals and Silicon Valley guys" -- Andreessen views it as a fundamental technological breakthrough that addresses the problem of what he calls, "distributed trust." "Bitcoin is the first Internet class, Internet scale, Internet-made approach to dealing with money and transactions," he argued. "We think the technology leads itself to many other kinds of transactions, many other forms of things you can trust: digital stocks, digital bonds, digital keys, digital contracts, digital signatures, digital voting."

????Bitcoin's unprecedented versatility will likely lead to a regulatory agency "food fight" for instance, as parties attempt to legitimize it, but Andreessen argues Bitcoin is already helping re-imagine how the financial systems works and that it's potentially a good thing in particular for countries outside the developing world. As he reminded, some countries remain saddled with poor central banking systems, bad currencies, and theft and embezzlement on giant scales. Summed up Andreessen: "So the prospect of a new technology that literally runs entirely in software completely independent of any national policy, lets money travel freely across borders is actually a pretty big deal once you get out of the West. "

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