# Startup failures often begin when the team breaks apart

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/startup-failures-often-begin-when-the-team-breaks-apart/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Marc Andreessen](https://realalpha.app/people/marc-andreessen/) · Marc Andreessen is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz. · Co-founded Netscape and co-created Mosaic, then co-founded a16z, a venture firm backing AI, crypto and frontier tech.
- Host: [Chris Williamson](https://realalpha.app/people/chris-williamson/) · Host, Modern Wisdom
- Show: Modern Wisdom
- Episode: [Elon Musk, The Changing World Order & America’s Future - Marc Andreessen](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/), Dec 14, 2024
- Moment: 37:22 to 41:02 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/startup-failures-often-begin-when-the-team-breaks-apart/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2242

## Quote

> “the founders turn on each other or the **management team dissolves**.”
> — [Marc Andreessen](https://realalpha.app/people/marc-andreessen/) at [40:25](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2425) · Modern Wisdom

## Takeaways

1. VC work reveals how founders respond under extreme stress.
2. He describes Zuckerberg as unusually calm in crises.
3. Team fractures often precede a company’s failure.

## About this segment

Marc Andreessen says investors see founders at their most stressed, and that emotional steadiness varies widely. He argues many business problems are fixable if the team stays together.

From “Elon Musk, The Changing World Order & America’s Future - Marc Andreessen”, Dec 14, 2024. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[37:27](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2247) the taste of their own blood. Do you feel more like a therapist than an investor sometimes? So it really depends. I think there are certain fields in which you really get to see somebody's core personality and you get to see their kind of core attributes and their core virtues and their core vices and their core weaknesses. And it's really only people under situations of extreme stress where you really see that. And so part of it is like we see that. We see people when they're at their most dressed and when they're when they're at their worst and then you know then there are you know i would say many cases where we're you know one of their only remaining allies you know kind of at that point so that that's a not uncommon thing um and you know there there is you know sort of a there's a coaching component to it and a therapeutic and a just a general you

[38:11](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2291) know kind of being a friend you know being an ally component to it um but i also say the other thing you see is just like you know there are very specific personality types um and you know there are certain people um where i'll just give you an example mark zuckerberg um you know a great superpower that Mark Zuckerberg has that probably is not well understood enough, which is he does not get emotionally upset in stressful situations. He is able to maintain an analytical frame of mind even when other people would be, you know, literally bursting into tears and hiding under the table. And I've seen that many, many times. It's just like, you know, the company's been through a tremendous amount of both good and bad, you know, things over the last, you know, I've been involved almost for 20 years and, you know, we've been through almost everything good

[38:50](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2330) and bad. And, and I've literally not once seen him raise his voice. Um, you know, he's, he's always been, you know, and he's, he's very sympathetic and he's very, you know, when somebody has a personal crisis, you know, it's not, it's not that he's not emotional. Like he, he engages emotionally with people and he's very supportive of people when they have issues. And he, you know, he feels things very deeply like, like everybody does, but you know, he just, he has a level of emotional self-control, you know, psychologists would say, you know, 0% neuroticism. Um, he just doesn't respond emotionally. And as a consequence, he can keep his head right. When, when everybody around them is losing theirs. And so you've got that. Having said that, we also work with a lot of people who are, let's say, higher in neuroticism. And in particular, often the more creative,

[39:27](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2367) you know, people who are super creative are often high in neuroticism. And so sometimes you get the, you know, we get the artist type where they're like incredibly creative and they're a fountain of new ideas. And they just have a much more, let's say, direct engagement with their emotions. And they feel things, you know, I would say more directly or kind of in a more raw way. And so, when things go bad, it really comes down to them emotionally. I was, frankly, myself, probably more on that side of things. And so, yeah, there's a therapeutic aspect to that.

[39:56](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2396) The good news, I would say, is generally in business... So a couple of things. So one is, um, it's not in our world, it's not a 90% failure rate. It's about 50%. Um, and, and 50, 50% is still high, but you know, you have a reasonably good shot. And then I think most problems in business are fixable, um, as long as you can keep the team together. Um, I think usually when companies crack and go down, it's usually not, sometimes it's catalyzed by something that happened from the outside, but generally the thing that actually happens before a company goes down is the internal, the team cracks, the, the, the, the team itself cracks internally and the founders turn on each other or the management team dissolves.

[40:33](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2433) And so a big part of it is just with these things is just like, can, can, can you keep the team together? If you can keep the team together and, you know, we're happy to be a part of it, you know, we're thrilled, you know, our job is to be part of that team. Then, you know, most of these companies can battle through most things. And so, and so I've said, I've said, I've seen like, I've seen, you know, just as many like incredible last minute saves and rescues and turnarounds as I have, you know, screaming disasters.

[40:55](https://realalpha.app/v/gn9YZP_Zm50/?t=2455) So, you know, there is reason for optimism going into even the dark times.