Get the latest tech news How to check Is Temu legit? How to delete trackers
TECH
Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreessen gives $500,000 to diversify high tech

Jessica Guynn
USA TODAY
Marc Andreessen and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, are giving $500,000 to non-profits working to close the gender and racial gap in the high-tech industry.

SAN FRANCISCO — Influential Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen and his wife, philanthropist Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, are giving $500,000 to three non-profits working on the front lines to bring more diversity to the high-tech industry.

"Tech is not yet inclusive enough," Andreessen said in an exclusive interview. "There is no question that there is a huge opportunity to make it more inclusive and open it up to traditionally underrepresented groups, such as women and underrepresented minorities."

The grants send a strong signal about the growing momentum in Silicon Valley to close the gender and racial gap in the high-tech industry.

Andreessen is one of high-tech's best-known investors and entrepreneurs. He was one of the developers of Mosaic, the first widely used Web browser. And he co-founded Netscape Communications, the company that developed one of the first commercial Web browsers.

He now runs one of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture capital firms, Andreessen Horowitz, and sits on the boards of three of high-tech's biggest companies: Facebook, eBay and Hewlett-Packard.

His wife is a prominent philanthropist and author of Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World.

They are backing three non-profits — Code2040, Girls Who Code and Hack the Hood — that have sprung up to increase the ranks of women and blacks and Hispanics in the high-tech industry and help them plug into Silicon Valley through valuable connections to companies and investors.

Blacks and Hispanics are largely absent and women are underrepresented here — from giant companies to start-ups to venture capital firms. Recently released numbers from major high-tech companies show their workforces are overwhelming white, Asian and male.

"Laura and I basically set out to identify three groups doing an effective job," Andreessen said. "These grants are intended to boost their capabilities and help them scale for the next several years."

A big chunk of the money is coming from the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (known as the QEPrize) which Andreessen and four other innovators shared last year. Andreessen was recognized for his work on Mosaic.

Rather than attend the ceremony himself, Andreessen asked two students from Code2040 to accept the prize from Queen Elizabeth II on his behalf. The objective of the prize is to inspire young people to become engineers.

In giving away the money, Arrillaga-Andreessen said she and her husband want to help create a "new generation of prize winners."

Philanthropist Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen and her husband Marc Andreessen are giving $500,000 to nonprofits working to close the gender and racial gap in Silicon Valley.

"Diversity and innovation go hand in hand, in my opinion; you can't have one without the other," she said.

Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani said the Andreessens are making a "real commitment to parity in tech."

She says the grant will help her organization build out its own technology platform, including an alumni network.

"This is not a token donation. This is really an investment and a partnership," Saujani said. "We see their grant not as an investment in our program but an investment in our future."

Code2040 founder Laura Weidman Powers says her organization — which helps top Hispanic and black engineers land internships with Silicon Valley companies — will set up an alumni program so that graduates can stay connected to Code2040 and the cause of diversifying the tech industry.

"The groundwork that we as an organization will lay over the coming year will have a huge impact on the students and on how they think of themselves as being part of the Silicon Valley network and ecosystem," Powers said.

Hack the Hood trains underprivileged kids to build websites for local businesses and supports them as they launch careers in tech. Google recently awarded Hack the Hood a half-million dollars in a San Francisco Bay Area non-profit competition.

The grant from the Andreessens will help Hack the Hood develop evaluation metrics to show funders their progress in expanding throughout the Bay Area and across the country, said founder and CEO Susan Mernit.

"We are busy planning our expansion in 2015 to make good on the promise to reach a greater number of kids," Mernit said. "We are working so hard; we are just so fortunate to have this kind of opportunity to keep building our program."

Featured Weekly Ad