<i>The Internet hate machine on this issue has been driven almost entirely by that very thought.</i><p>Without dissecting what Bloomberg may or may not have meant with their temporary headline, it seems you&#x27;re (mistakenly) assuming that people have been somehow reacting more to Bloomberg&#x27;s (since retracted) one-line description of what Andreessen said than by the substance he actually did say (and his immediate follow-up remarks, which to say the least, weren&#x27;t particularly apologetic).  Most readers on HN go straight to the source, and don&#x27;t attach much weight to catchy headlines.<p><i>Why would anyone have to make such an absurd clarification if that wasn&#x27;t exactly what has become a widespread interpretation?</i><p>It&#x27;s a fairly typical form of ass-covering to categorically &quot;reject&quot; a position one didn&#x27;t actually make (as a way of deflecting attention from from the somewhat more nuanced, but just the same, boneheaded and disturbing statement that one did, in fact, make).<p>You&#x27;ll notice he isn&#x27;t trying to explain just what he <i>did</i> mean by his initial tweet, right?  That&#x27;s because he knows there&#x27;s no way he can really salvage himself.<p>And BTW:<p><i>The Internet hate machine on this issue</i><p>It&#x27;s not a &quot;hate machine.&quot;  Andreessen <i>did</i> say something pretty darn stupid and and offensive (his subsequent and less than entirely convincing attempts to talk his way down from what he said notwithstanding).  And is being rightly called out for it.