Late last month, Marc Andreessen was holding court in the Waldorf, the site of the former Trump hotel in downtown D.C., showing off one of his new initiatives in town, “American Dynamism”—his firm’s investment thesis for backing startups in patriotic fields like manufacturing and defense tech. As the speaking list suggested, Andreessen hasn’t lost his ability to pull: sprinkled about were Governor Wes Moore, F.B.I. director Christopher Wray, and G.O.P. senators including Bill Cassidy and Todd Young. Later that evening, Andreessen Horowitz held one of those classic D.C. wine-and-dines at the National Portrait Gallery, which they rented out in all its grandeur. (Yes, there was a Playbook SPOTTED mention.) The firm’s partners weren’t SPOTTED when they hit the Hill a few days later to take private meetings with senators, however.

Andreessen, one of the men who helped invent the modern internet, used to hate Washington. In private conversations with friends—or the conservative rabble-rousers who flood him with ideas for memes—he has often expressed skepticism about the town’s value and its denizens. The man who once helped Al Gore design his website exuded the sense that he was done with these bozos, particularly after the Trump surprise of 2016 left the voracious reader looking inward for answers—a sort of self-conscious reflection and awakening that he has called a “spirit walk.”