Self-recommending. I was talking last night with Steve Teles about personality and executives. Think in terms of OCEAN. Which personalities are likely to like to take risks? I think of high O (openness) and high E (extraversion) as positive toward risk taking, with high N (neuroticism) and high A (agreeableness) negative toward risk taking. Teles and I agree that the market tends to select for CEO’s men with high O, high E, and low N and somewhat low A, thus creating a bias toward risk-taking among CEOs. I think that Andreessen exemplifies that. He is much more struck by the mistakes venture capitalists make in missing out on the big hits than the mistakes they make in backing losers.

I think that his attitudes toward risk are probably really a good fit for venture capital. I think they are a terrible fit for being a banker backed by deposit insurance. That is why I think that regulators should be concerned about the personalities of bank CEOs. Teles thinks I ought to write up my theories on that. I think I would have to do a lot of empirical research first.

Andreessen says that journalists are nostalgic for an era of oligopoly, and now they face an era of intense competition. I think that is correct. Even if he is correct that the market is big, that does not mean that there are easy profits in it. Think of a sort of California Gold Rush, with enough miners competing to drive profits near zero. You want to figure out how to be Levi’s.