Marc Andreessen says self-driving cars will create more jobs than destroy

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Marc Andreessen, famed investor and the co-founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Andreessen Horowitz proclaims that more jobs will be created through self-driving cars than destroyed. Many have been fearing the dawn of autonomous vehicles as the risk for job loss is extremely high in the trucking and driver related industries. “It’s a fallacy,” said Andreessen at the Code 2017 conference. Conversely, Goldman Sachs said last week that self-driving cars could eliminate 300,000 jobs per year at its peak saturation.

It’s unclear whether either scenario will play out in whole, but it’s important to fully underestimate the full extent of the threat self-driving cars pose to the economy. Arguably, it will be one of the biggest advancements in the 21st century, and the automotive industry is already feeling the effects. Ford replaced their CEO last week, replacing Mark Fields with a self-driving executive, and is expected to invest heavily into self-driving technology.

Self-Driving cars will rapidly expand the transportation as a service (TaaS) industry

Self-driving cars don’t just imply that owners won’t have to focus on the road anymore, self-driving cars eliminate the real need to own a car. The future that Uber, Lyft, Tesla, and GM see is focused on TaaS (Transportation as a service). People will be able to launch an app on their phone and order a car. It’s the future that Uber is envisioning. Why own a costly car when you can use a TaaS whenever you need one? Ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft in some cases are already cheaper to use than owning a vehicle, with the average cost per mile approaching $1 with some services. So, with the elimination of a driver and the electrification of the vehicle, the cost to ride-share will nosedive far lower than the cost of ownership.

Where is the job creation?

If truck, taxi, and delivery drivers face the possibility of massive job loss, then where is the so-called “job-creation” coming from for self-driving cars? Andreessen argues that cities could see exurbs, an additional layer beyond suburbs for people to work in. Additionally, he states that the increase in productivity from not driving will help move the economy forward and decrease the number of automotive-related deaths. Andreessen points out that the invention of cars didn’t just create driving and manufacturing jobs, but rather jobs paving roads, motels, restaurants, and the idea of a suburb.

“It’s a recurring panic. This happens every 25 or 50 years, people get all amped up about ‘machines are going to take all the jobs’ and it never happens.” – Marc Andreessen, Code Conference 2017

Recently, Andreessen also stated that “In 10 years, the winning car company is going to be the company that makes the best software…. The entire experience in a car will be defined by the software.” As the race to put the first production autonomous vehicles onto roadways continues, we have an opportunity to stop and think about the number of jobs that could be created in new industries.

You can listen to Andreessen’s comments from Code 2017 here:

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