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Andreessen Horowitz is done being another innocuous techie brand. Gone are the sans serif minuscules (lowercase letters) of its old a16z logo that tried to blend in, apologizing for their own presence. In their place is a flourished, Art Deco-style wordmark, alongside a giant gold coin featuring what looks like a female Hermes, the Greek messenger of the gods associated with trade and wealth. The imagery, part of an ongoing rebrand that kicked off earlier this year, visualizes a marked shift at the investment firm. With cofounder Marc Andreessen’s 2023 Techno-Optimist Manifesto as its guiding ethos (“It’s time the build”), the firm has spent the past year cozying up to Donald Trump and growing its investments in companies that its sees as essential to the future of America, many of them defense tech and security startups. It’s now pairing this new perspective with visuals that seem straight from Objectivism, the 20th-century philosophy developed by author Ayn Rand. My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute,” Rand wrote in the appendix to her novel Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957. No wonder the philosophy resonates so deeply with entrepreneurs and investors; these are creators who need to tune out the naysayers of the world in order to change it. But, of course, the flip side of Objectivism is that it prioritizes the individual at the expense of everyone else. Charting a16zs shift toward Objectivist principles For years, a16z was, like most of the Valley, liberal-leaning in both its endorsements and in its donations. More recently, though, cofounders Ben Horowitz and Andreessen have backed the Trump agenda, supporting his reelection with $5 million in donations and celebrating his ensuing win. Andreessen called the new administration a boot off the throat for him and his companies. Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, served as a keynote speaker at the firms recent American Dynamism Summit. Their reasoning has been that the country needs unbridled investment in technology above all elseand needs a federal government that will leave these companies and their founders unmolested by regulation. In a January interview with Ross Douthat of The New York Times, Andreessen described his growing frustration with the Biden administration’s regulatory approach to crypto, AI, and DEI issues. The Biden administration turned out to be far more radical than even we thought they were going to be, he said. But in Trumpwith his vocal support of crypto, AI, and military might, and his vows to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusionthe firm sees opportunity. Even, apparently, if it comes at the expense of free speech and other fundamental human rights. Where most of us might see deep moral conflicts, an Objectivist wears blinders, cropping out anything but their own vision. Perhaps that’s how Marc Andreessen can comfortably make proclamations like AI will eliminate most jobs but his own. And how Andreessen Horowitz can justify welcoming Daniel Penny to its investment team, who last made headlines when he choked to death a homeless man named Jordan Neely on a New York City subway. (Penny was acquitted on charges of criminally negligent homicide.) Another Objectivist tendency: to honor the singular visionary above all else. Perhaps that’s why were seeing a16z deliver unprecedented voting power for its own founders, like Mira Murati, who now leads AI company Thinking Machines Lab. The Strong Form of the argument, action or aesthetic is almost always better than the weak form. Yet for decades weve been told the opposite is true, argued a16z partner Katherine Boyle in a post on X earlier this year. Were entering an era where the Strong Form is now prized and on display all the time. Its going to be jarring to see this way of being in government and business but the good thing is, the strong form becomes infectious once it becomes acceptable to implement. You could almost imagine the same words on the back of a book by Ayn Rand. [Images: Nick Gatano] Why we equate Art Deco with Objectivism in the first place Rands The Fountainhead, the story of individualism triumphing over collectivism, was published in 1943, trailing the Art Deco movement by a few years. But Rand, Objectivism, and Art Deco are associated thanks to the work of illustrator Nick Gaetano. In 1981, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Rand’s second iconic Objectivist novel, Atlas Shrugged, Gaetano created new illustrated covers for 10 of Rand’s books, featuring heroic statues carved in simple, fluid lines. These guys are naked and statuesque,like Greek gods. I meant for them to be icons, he said in a 2011 interview. Ironically, Gaetano viewed The Fountainhead as anti-capitalist, and he likened the visionaries in Rands books to the writers and artists he knew, rather than captains of industry. I saw the capitalists as the enemy, he noted in that 2011 interview, adding, I see heroism as creative. I know that capitalism is their church, but I dont know what their vision of heroism is. When you get a project like this, you have to try to distill some kind of visual direction that gives meaning to the cover. Gaetano might have been only an accidental Objectivist (as Interview magazine once called him). But he nevertheless created an indelible visual link between Rands egoistic philosophy and the aerodynamic forms of Art Deco. And its that connection, it seems, that a16z picked up on. Im a fan of a lot of what a16z has helped usher into the world, from Instagram to Airbnb to Figma to Krea. But Ill never be a fan of Ayn Rand. That said, I have nothing critical to offer regarding a16zs rebranding. I think its superb in a way: A perfect manifestation of the firm’s values, and a dog whistle for the types of people its hoping to attract. This is an investment firm thats telling you exactly what it believes in: itself.
Category:
E-Commerce
Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. Costco has been on a good run lately. The beloved big-box club chain has been winning new fans for its no-nonsense stand on continuing its DEI policies, with comparable store sales up 6.8% in its most recent quarter. But as Costco shoppers know, its in-house Kirkland Signature brand, which includes everything from underwear to frozen pizza, has long been the discount clubs not-so-secret weapon. Kirkland marks its 30th anniversary this year, and in whats shaping up to be a challenging economy for consumers across the board, its poised to become more important than ever. Kirkland-branded products (excluding gas) already account for nearly a quarter of Costco salessome $56 billion in its fiscal year that ended September 1. That makes Kirkland bigger by revenue than Nike ($51 billion last year) or Netflix ($39 billion). Like all private labels, it competes with brand-name consumer products largely on pricean obvious advantage in belt-tightening times. But Kirkland is also the rare private label thats developed its own powerful, and surprisingly elastic, brand identity. When it was founded in 1983, Costco offered only name-brand goods, but over time the company became concerned with rising prices, sometimes even when underlying commodity prices were going the other way. So it decided to jump on the then-burgeoning trend of creating lower-priced house-brand alternatives. At first, it followed the practice of Sears and other major players of that era who created multiple distinct private brands for different categories. But ultimately this struck management as confusing: Consumers couldnt be expected to associate dozens of newly invented brand names with Costco. Kirkland Signaturefirst used on vitamins and shampoo, in 1995was named after the Seattle suburb where Costco was based at the time. The biggest-selling Kirkland products tend to be staples like toilet paper, paper towels, and bottled water. But as the label has developed a quality reputation, Costco has gradually become more and more adventurous about where the brand can go, and there are now an estimated 500-plus Kirkland-branded products, from high-end liquor to aluminum foil to sushi. Its hard to think of any other single brand successfully competing in such a dizzying array of categories. Meanwhile, the discounters core strategy of limiting choices in each category and generally offering far fewer SKUs (stock-keeping units) than most big-box stores ended up making Kirkland even more potent. A few years ago, according to The Wall Street Journal, Costco decided Kirkland would become one of its two diaper offeringsmeaning either Huggies or Pampers had to go. Costco and Huggies-maker Kimberly-Clark made a deal to manufacture the Kirkland diapers; Huggies stayed. (Costco later switched to another manufacturer, but Huggies kept its slot.) Speculating about which big brands actually make Kirkland productsare its apparent dupes of a popular pair of Lululemon pants actually made by Lululemon?is a Costco-fan pastime. Costco generally doesnt comment (and did not respond to an inquiry from Fast Company), but its widely accepted that Starbucks supplies some Kirkland coffee, its batteries are made by Duracell, and Bumble Bee supplies its tuna fish. And plenty of Kirklands supply partners are quite open about the relationship: Ocean Sprays logo is right below Kirklands on its cranberry juice bottles. And while Grey Goose has in the past denied supplying its vodka, Oregons Deschutes Brewery has put its logo on the popular Kirkland Signature Helles-Style Lager it now brews for Costco. Traditional brands continue to outsell private label alternatives by a wide margin, but store-brand sales continue to grow. (Target, Walmart, and others still have multiple private labels, but direct Costco rival Sams Club has moved to a similar model built around its Members Mark cross-category house brand.) And Costco has reiterated that it believes it can continue to grow private-label sales. While its not yet clear what the full fallout of the Trump administrations nascent and ever-changing trade war policies will look like, its a safe bet that shoppers are going to become increasingly price-sensitive this year; the Conference Boards expectations index of forward-looking consumer sentiment has plunged, with tariffs a cited concern. That means more interest in lower-cost private labels in generalbut maybe especially for a private label with a quality reputation. It may not be as attention-grabbing as a $1.50 hot dog, but Kirkland Signature seems positioned to become more popular than ever.
Category:
E-Commerce
Americas federal public lands are unique, part of our birthright as citizens. No other country in the world has such a system. More than 640 million acres, including national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges, as well as lands open to drilling, mining, logging, and a variety of other uses, are managed by the federal government but owned collectively by all American citizens. Together, these parcels make up more than a quarter of all land in the nation. Congressman John Garamendi, a Democrat representing California, has called them one of the greatest benefits of being an American. Even if you dont own a house or the latest computer on the market, you own Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and many other natural treasures, he wrote in 2011. Despite broad, bipartisan public support for protecting public lands, these shared landscapes have come under relentless attack during the first 100 days of President Donald Trumps second term. The administration and its allies in Congress are working feverishly to tilt the scale away from natural resource protection and toward extraction, threatening a pillar of the nations identity and tradition of democratic governance. Theres no larger concentration of unappropriated wealth on this globe than exists in this country on our public lands, said Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, a conservation nonprofit. The fact that there are interests that would like to monetize that, theyd like to liquidate it and turn it into cash money, is no surprise. Landscape protections and bedrock conservation laws are on the chopping block, as Trump and his team look to boost and fast-track drilling, mining, and logging across the federal estate. The administration and the GOP-controlled Congress are eyeing selling off federal lands, both for housing development and to help offset Trumps tax and spending cuts. And the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is wreaking havoc within federal land management agencies, pushing out thousands of civil servants. That purge will leave Americas natural heritage more vulnerable to the myriad threats these lands already face, including growing visitor numbers, climate change, wildfires, and invasive species. The Republican campaign to undermine land management agencies and wrest control of public lands from the federal government is nothing new, dating back to the Sagebrush Rebellion movement of the 1970s and 80s, when support for privatizing or transferring federal lands to state control exploded across the West. But the speed and scope of the current attack, along with its disregard for the publics support for safeguarding public lands, makes it more worrisome than previous iterations, several public land advocates and legal experts told Grist. This is probably the most significant moment since the Reagan administration in terms of privatization, said Steven Davis, a political science professor at Edgewood College and the author of the 2018 book In Defense of Public Lands: The Case Against Privatization and Transfer. President Ronald Reagan was a self-proclaimed sagebrush rebel. Deubel said the conservation community knew Trumps return would trigger another drawn out fight for the future of public lands, but nothing could have prepared him for this level of chaos, particularly the effort to rid agencies of thousands of staffers. The country is in a much more pro-public lands position than weve been before, Deubel said. But I think were at greater risk than weve ever been beforenot because the time is right in the eyes of the American people, but because we have an administration who could give two shits about what the American people want. Thats whats got me scared. The Interior Department and the White House did not respond to Grists requests for comment. In an article posted to the White House website on Earth Day, the Trump administration touted several key actions it has taken on the environment, including protecting public lands by opening more acres to energy development, protecting wildlife by pausing wind energy projects, and safeguarding forests by expanding logging. The accomplishments list received widespread condemnation from environmental, climate, and public land advocacy groups. That same day, a leaked draft strategic plan revealed the Interior Departments four-year vision for opening new federal lands to drilling and other extractive development, reducing the amount of federal land it manages by selling some for housing development and transferring other acres to state control, rolling back the boundaries of protected national monuments, and weakening bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile, Trumps DOGE is in the process of cutting thousands of scientists and other staff from the various agencies that manage and protect public lands, including the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM. Nearly every Republican senator went on the record this month in support of selling off federal lands to reduce the federal deficit, voting down a measure that would have blocked such sales. And Utah has promised to continue its legal fight aimed at stripping more than 18 million acres of BLM lands within the states border from the federal government. Utahs lawsuit, which the Supreme Court declined to hear in January, had the support of numerous Republican-led states, including North Dakota while current Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was still governor. To advance its agenda, the Trump administration is citing a series of emergencies that close observers say are at best exaggerated, and at worst manufactured. A purported energy emergency, which Trump declared in an executive order just hours after being inaugurated, has been the impetus for the administration attempting to throw long-standing federal permitting processes, public comment periods, and environmental safeguards to the wind. The action aims to boost fossil fuel extraction across federal lands and watersdespite domestic oil and gas production being at record highswhile simultaneously working to thwart renewable energy projects. Trump relied on that same emergency earlier this month when he ordered federal agencies to prop up Americas dwindling, polluting coal industry, which the president and his cabinet have insisted is beautiful and clean. In reality, coal is among the most polluting forms of energy. This whole idea of an emergency is ridiculous, said Mark Squillace, a professor of natural resources law at the University of Colorado, Boulder. And now this push to reinvigorate the coal industry seems absolutely crazy to me. Why would you try to reinvigorate a moribund industry that has been declining for the last decade or more? Makes no sense, its not going to happen. Coal consumption in the U.S. has declined more than 50% since peaking in 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, largely due to market forces, including the availability of cheaper natural gas and Americas growing renewable energy sector. Meanwhile, Trumps tariff war threatens to undermine his own push to expand mining and fossil fuel drilling. The threat of extreme wildfirean actual crisis driven by a complex set of factors, including climate change, its role in intensifying droughts and pest outbreaks, and decades of fire suppressionis being cited to justify slashing environmental reviews to ramp up logging on public lands. Following up on a Trump executive order to increase domestic timber production, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins signed a memo declaring a forest health emergency that would open nearly 60% of national forest lands, more than 110 million acres, to aggressive logging. Then theres Americas housing affordability crisis, which the Trump administration, dozens of Republicans, and even a handful of Democrats are pointing to in a growing push to open federal lands to housing development, either by selling land to private interests or transferring control to states. The Trump administration recently established a task force to identify what it calls underutilized lands. In an op-ed announcing that effort, Burgum and Scott Turner, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, wrote that much of the 500 million acres Interior oversees is suitable for residential use. Some of the most high-profile members of the anti-public lands movement, including William Perry Pendley, who served as acting director of the Bureau of Land Management during Trumps first term, are championing the idea. Without guardrails, critics argue the sale of public lands to build housing will lead to sprawl in remote, sensitive landscapes and do little, if anything, to address home affordability, as the issue is driven by several factors, including migration trends, stagnant wages, and higher construction costs. Notably, Trumps tariff policies are expected to raise the average price of a new home by nearly $11,000. Chris Hill, CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation, a Colorado-based nonprofit working to protect BLM-managed lands, said the lack of affordable housing is a serious issue, but we shouldnt be fooled that the idea to sell off public lands is a solution. The vast majority of public lands are just not suitable for any sort of housing development due to their remote locations, lack of access, and necessary infrastructure, she said. David Hayes, who served as deputy Interior secretary during the administrations of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and as a senior climate adviser to President Joe Biden, told Grist that Trumps broad use of executive power sets the current privatization push apart from previous efforts. Not only do you have the rhetoric and the intentionality around managing public lands in an aggressive way, but you have to couple that with what youre seeing, he said. This administration is going farther than any other ever has to push the limits of executive power. Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a Colorado-based conservation group, said Trump and his team are doing everything they can to circumvent normal environmental rules and safeguards in order to advance their agenda, with no regard for the law or public opinion. Everything is an imagined crisis, Weiss said. Oil, gas, and coal jobs. Mining jobs. Timber jobs. Farming and ranching. Gas-powered cars and kitchen appliances. Even the water pressure in your shower. Ask the White House and the Republican Party and theyll tell you Biden waged a war against all of it, and that voters gave Trump a mandate to reverse course. During Trumps first term in office, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke repeatedly boasted that the administrations conservation legacy would rival that of his personal hero and Americas conservationist president, Theodore Rooseveltonly to have the late presidents great-grandson, Theodore Roosevelt IV, and the conservation community bemoan his record at the helm of the massive federal agency. Like Zinke, Burgum invoked Roosevelt in pitching himself for the job. In our time, President Donald Trumps energy dominance agenda can be Americas big stick that will be leveraged to achieve historic prosperity and world peace, Burgum said during his confirmation hearing in January, referencing a letter in which the 26th president said to speak softly and carry a big stick. The Senate confirmed him to the post in January on a bipartisan 79 to 18 vote. Some public land advocates initially viewed Burgum, now the chief steward of the federal lands, waters, and wildlife we all own, as a palatable nominee in a sea of problematic potential picks. A billionaire software entrepreneur and former North Dakota governor, Burgum has talked at length about his fondness for Roosevelts conservation legacy and the outdoors. Whatever honeymoon there was didnt last long. One hundred days in, Burgum and the rest of Trumps team have taken not a stick, but a wrecking ball to Americas public lands, waters, and wildlife. Earlier this month, the new CEO of REI said the outdoor retailer made a mistake in endorsing Burgum for the job and that the administrations actions on public lands are completely at odds with the longstanding values of REI. At an April 9 all-hands meeting of Interior employees, Burgum showed off pictures of himself touring oil and gas facilities, celebrated cleancoal, and condemned burdensome government regulation. Burgum has repeatedly described federal lands as Americas balance sheetassets that he estimates could be worth $100 trillion but that he argues Americans are getting a low return on. On the worlds largest balance sheet last year, the revenue that we pulled in was about $18 billion, he said at the staffwide meeting, referring to money the government brings from lease fees and royalties from grazing, drilling, and logging on federal lands, as well as national park entrance fees. Eighteen billion might seem like a big number. Its not a big number if were managing $100 trillion in assets. In focusing solely on revenues generated from energy and other resource extraction, Burgum disregards that public lands are the foundation of a $1 trillion outdoor recreation economy, nevermind the numerous climate, environmental, cultural, and public health benefits. Davis, the author of In Defense of Public Lands: The Case Against Privatization and Transfer, dismissed Burgums balance sheet argument as shriveled and wrong. You have to willfully be ignorant and ignore everything of value about those lands except their marketable commodity value to come up with that conclusion, he said. When you add all their myriad values together, public lands are the biggest bargain you can possibly imagine. Davis likes to compare public lands to libraries, schools, or the Department of Defense. There are certain things we as a society decide are important and we pay for it, he said. We call that public goods. The last time conservatives ventured down the public land privatization path, it didnt go well. Shortly after Trumps first inauguration in 2017, then-Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican representing Utah, introduced legislation to sell off 3.3 million acres of public land in 10 Western states that he said had been deemed to serve no purpose for taxpayers. Public backlash was fierce. Chaffetz pulled the bill just two weeks later, citing concerns from his constituents. The episode, while brief, largely forced the anti-federal land movement back into the shadows. The first Trump administration continued to weaken safeguards for 35 million acres of federal landsmore than any other administration in historyand offered up millions more for oil and gas development, but stopped short of trying sell off or transfer large areas of the public domain. Yet as the last few months have shown, the anti-public lands movement is alive and well. Public land advocates are hopeful that the current push will flounder. They expect courts to strike down many of Trumps environmental rollbacks, as they did during his first term. In recent weeks, crowds have rallied at numerous national parks and state capitol buildings to support keeping public lands in public hands. Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, who voted to confirm Burgum to his post and serves as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has taken to social media to warn about the growing Republican effort to undermine, transfer, and sell off public lands. I continue to be encouraged that people are going to be loud. They already are, said Deubel, the executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. Were mobilizing. Weve got business and industries. Weve got Republicans, weve got Democrats. Weve got hunters and weve got nonhunters. Weve got everybody speaking out about this. In a time of extreme polarization on seemingly every issue, public lands enjoy broad bipartisan support. The 15th annual Conservation in the West poll found that 72% of voters in eight Western states support public lands conservation over increased energy developmentthe highest level of support in the polls history; 65% oppose giving states control over federal public lands, up from 56% in 2017; and 89% oppose shrinking or removing protections for national monuments, up from 80% in 2017. Even in Utah, where leaders have spent millions of taxpayer dollars promoting the states anti-federal lands lawsuit, support for protecting public lands remains high. Even in all these made up crises, the American public doesnt want this, Hill said. The American people want and love their public lands. At his recent staffwide meeting, Burgum said Roosevelts legacy should guide Interior staff in the mission to manage and protect federal public lands. Those two things, management and protection, must be held in balance, Burgum stressed. Yet in social media posts and friendly interviews with conservative media, Burgum has left little doubt about where his priorities lie, repeatedly rolling out what Breitbart dubbed the four babies of Trumps energy dominance agenda: Drill, Baby, Drill! Map, Baby, Map! Mine, Baby, Mine! Build, Baby, Build! Protect, Baby, Protect, Conserve, Baby, Conserve, and Steward, Baby, Steward have yet to make it into Burgums lexicon. By Chris DAngelo, Grist This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
Category:
E-Commerce
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