Marc Andreessen Predicts 'Biggest Industry In The History Of The Planet'

Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen predicts that humanoid robotics will become the most lucrative market in history, surpassing the internet’s economic impact. In an interview with Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale at a forum hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, Andreessen urged the United States to lead the development of robot factories, positioning the nation to drive what he called the next Industrial Revolution.

“You’ve likely seen Elon Musk’s Tesla Optimus robot,” Andreessen told the audience, referencing the humanoid robot being developed at Musk’s electric vehicle company. “These humanoid robots—this general-purpose robotics trend—will take off in the next decade, and it will happen at an enormous scale.”

Andreessen, co-founder of the tech investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), envisioned a future with “billions, perhaps tens of billions” of robots performing tasks from industrial production to healthcare. “I think there’s a plausible argument, which Elon also believes, that robotics is going to be the biggest industry in the history of the planet,” he said. ARK Investment Management LLC’s Big Ideas 2025 report supports this vision, forecasting a transformative robotics industry that boosts productivity across sectors. It highlights specialized robots, such as household appliances, slashing time spent on daily tasks. The report projects generalizable robotics could generate over $26 trillion in global revenue, split evenly between $13 trillion in household robotics and $13 trillion in manufacturing robotics.

The global Smart Robots Market is expected to grow from a valuation of USD 33.83 billion in 2024 to $135.83 billion by 2034, reflecting a robust CAGR of 26.5%, according to a new report by The Research Insights. Fueled by the integration of artificial intelligence and advanced sensor technologies, smart robots are expanding into diverse applications. Global demand for enhanced productivity and safety across organizations, coupled with the synergy of cognitive systems and sensor technology, is driving rapid adoption and propelling the market’s worldwide growth.

However, competition is intensifying. China’s “Made in China 2025” initiative aims to deploy millions of robots, while Japan and South Korea advance their own automation ecosystems.

“We don’t need to bring back old manufacturing jobs,” Andreessen said, dismissing labor-intensive assembly lines. Instead, he championed what Musk calls “alien dreadnought factories”—highly automated, state-of-the-art facilities producing robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles at unprecedented scale.

Andreessen described a future of transformative economic growth, with thousands of new industrial categories emerging nationwide. “Coastal tech investments will yield massive returns, but we’ll create tens or hundreds of millions of jobs in rural areas,” he said, emphasizing advanced manufacturing’s potential to revitalize America’s heartland.

This shift, he argued, would enable the U.S. to lead the “third or fourth Industrial Revolution,” setting global standards for robotics and automation while fostering widespread prosperity.

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“We shouldn’t be screwing screws by hand on rubber mats for 10 hours,” the billionaire said. “We should be designing and building the future.” Andreessen warned that if the U.S. fails to rapidly scale robot factories, China could seize the lead. “We have to do this because if we don’t, China will, and we don’t want to live in that world,” he said.

Last month, Musk declared that the company’s Optimus humanoid robot, now capable of learning tasks from human instructions, will be “the biggest product of all time.” Musk argued Tesla’s unique combination of AI, manufacturing scale, and robotics expertise positions it as the only company poised to produce intelligent humanoid robots at scale. “This is a super big deal,” he added, predicting Optimus’s impact could outstrip the next biggest product by a factor of ten.