Barely a month after putting an undisclosed sum into Henry Blodget's Business Insider blog network, Andreessen is leading a $500,000 to $1 million round for TPM Media, the company behind political blog Talking Points Memo.

It seems Andreessen isn't just saying the New York Times will die on his popular blog; he's actually betting on it. (NB to Marc: You can PayPal your Gawker Media investment here.)

(Pic via TechShowNetwork)

Andreessen is a board member at Facebook and a longtime adviser to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But, as he confessed to PEHub, Andreessen passed on a chance to make an angel investment in the social network years ago:

Did you have an opportunity invest in Facebook as an angel?

Damn, she asked the question. [Laughs.] Let's put it this way, I've known them from the beginning. I probably could have if I had tried hard, but I didn't.

Because?

Because I didn't. [Smiles.] ...things just really happen fast, and Facebook was happening at a super high rate of speed and things just didn't click.

So there's that. Then there's the fact that, save for one year at Netscape, Andreessen's companies have consistently lost money; one, Opsware, lost money for six years straight before it was acquired by HP.

In an interview with Yahoo's Sarah Lacy, Andreessen claims his new fund's edge will be its ability to pick the winners (see excerpt above). Happily for the software maven and his investors, history is no guarantee of future performance.

Three strikes and you're out is a good rule for baseball and startups. In the last six weeks, Zuckerberg has committed three management fouls that would have led to any normal CEO's firing.

The terms of service disaster. After Facebook revised its legalese to suggest it would keep users' information forever, even if they deleted their accounts, users got into an uproar. Rather than quickly roll out new language that satisfied their concerns, Zuckerberg introduced an absurd voting mechanism that would let Facebook user, in theory, vet future changes.

Facebook's awful redesign. After years of pursuing his own vision for Facebook and ignoring competitors' moves, Zuckerberg took his eye off the ball and grew entranced by Twitter, a message-broadcasting service which mimicked Facebook's status-update feature. He then introduced a new design for Facebook that was almost universally loathed, even among his own employees. And unlike the terms-of-service debacle, where Zuckerberg championed a user-run democracy, he told employees that they should ignore feedback from users.

Management chaos. The disgraceful, petty ouster of Facebook CFO Gideon Yu, a veteran of Yahoo and YouTube, on Tuesday, apparently prompted by a disagreement over strategy, is just the latest executive-suite blunder by Zuckerberg. He has prompted the departure of countless key employees over the past couple of years. At a time when he should be pulling the best talent in through its doors, Zuckerberg is sending it the wrong way. Facebook started with five cofounders. Zuckerberg alone remains.

Facebook first tried to claim that it fired Yu as CFO because it needed someone with public-company experience. (Never mind that Yu's resume includes Hilton, Yahoo, and Google.) Realizing the absurdity of that spin, Zuckerberg is now trotting out the line that Yu is "spending more time with his family," and trying to claim it's not a cliché.

It is understandable for a 24-year-old to be fickle, easily swayed, and vengeful. But that is the reason why we have very few 24-year-old CEOs running companies with 800 employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues. The company is now conducting a search for Yu's replacement. But it ought to be looking for Zuckerberg's replacement instead.

Zuckerberg did a good job as Facebook's CEO during its startup years. He brilliantly conceived of Facebook's product, and pursued that vision unswervingly until recently. His hacker cred helped pull in likeminded engineers. When the Facebook application platform threatened to drown the site in spam, he reeled the appmakers back in, despite their howls of protest, proving he can sometimes correct his mistakes. But he has reached the limits of his abilities.

He has said that his most important job as CEO is to build the company's culture. And in that he has been an unmitigated disaster. It is a failing far worse than his three public strikes — though the depth of it is little understood outside Facebook's offices in Palo Alto. His executives are largely unhappy, consumed by infighting and backbiting while trying to accommodate a tempestuous boss's whims. Here's the Harvard man in Zuckerberg revealed: He has assembled a coterie of servants instead of building a team.

So what is Facebook's board to do? Firing him would be difficult. Zuckerberg owns 27 percent of the company and controls three of Facebook's six board seats. He could easily fight any attempt to oust him. And he is not unsalvageable. The right CEO could help Zuckerberg correct his failings and prepare him to take back the reins.

We think Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen is the one Zuckerberg needs. Already a mentor to the young entrepreneur and a Facebook board member, Andreessen has few undiscardable obligations. He has started a venture-capital fund, but that is nothing more than a few business cards to shred. Facebook could buy Andreessen's also-ran social-networking startup, Ning, to remove that excuse, using inflated shares to give him a graceful exit. His services would be worth the price. (Or Andreessen could simply return what's left of the $60 million it raised last year to investors, an honorable way to give up on a company that's going nowhere.)

It would be difficult to pull Andreessen out of semi-retirement. At his companies — Netscape, Opsware, and Ning — he has preferred to let someone else hold the CEO title. But it might be good for Facebook to have a CEO who's indifferent to the job, as opposed to someone who wants it all too badly, but doesn't know how to do it.

We doubt it. Facebook board member Marc Andreessen once cited a paper on business magazine covers as contrarian indicators:

Headlines from featured stories in Business Week, Fortune, and Forbes were collected for a 20-year period to determine whether positive stories are associated with superior future performance and negative stories are associated with inferior future performance for the featured company. "Superior" and "inferior" were determined in comparison with an index or another company in the same industry and of the same size.

Statistical testing implied that positive stories generally indicate the end of superior performance and negative news generally indicates the end of poor performance.

So what does that mean for Facebook? In this case, "superior performance" means losing money on an estimated $280 million in revenue last year — and facing more problems as the site grows.

We hear the company is even having trouble managing something as simple as a move to its new headquarters, a soulless office park facing a residential neighborhood on the other side of Palo Alto, Calif. from its current downtown digs. Local residents recently received a newsletter informing them that the move, scheduled to happen this quarter, was pushed back to April because of ongoing renovations:

See the hypercompetitive pattern? Hacks have always hustled to scoop rival papers. But tech blogs are being driven to distraction by the notion that they've been beaten by a story. In the rush to publish, they're not even stopping to check their own archives.

Checking actual facts is far more cumbersome. Jordan Golson, another former Valleywagger who now blogs at the Industry Standard, made a stink about a report on TheHill.com about iPhones coming to Congress. TheHill.com's overly sensational headline topped a report that merely stated that Congress's administrative arm was testing some iPhones. Golson called the flack quoted in TheHill.com's story, who backpedaled from his earlier statement that "lots" of Congressmen had requested iPhones.

Tom Krazit of CNET News, one of the guilty parties cited by Golson for reblogging TheHill.com, got to the bottom of things: Congressional IT administrators were testing a total of 10 iPhones, and all of two Congressmen had asked about getting iPhones instead of the standard-issue BlackBerry.

This messy process shows the blogosphere at its best and its worst. Through a series of iterations, the horde of bloggers arrived at the right result. In the meantime, however, a lot of people got the wrongheaded notion that Congress is switching to the iPhone any day now. (I'd note that TheHill.com has yet to retract its initial report; it would not be the first time a flack has said something, regretted it, and then claimed he was misquoted.)

There will always be a factchecking squad on the Internet. But I think the reblogging craze will fade over time, as the Web's writers learn the deep satisfaction of telling one's own story for the first time — not repeating someone else's for the nth.

Heiliger previously worked for Andreessen at Opsware. One would think the chrome-domed entrepreneur, now chairman of Ning, would prove a powerful ally in the fierce political battles that have roiled Facebook since the appointment of Sheryl Sandberg, a Beltway insider turned Internet executive, as COO. Nothing's certain, and Heiliger may well stay. But for him to be so unhappy as to openly entertain job offers? The social network's executive suite seems to be coming unplugged.

Wall Street is currently in a bubble of panic. The Valley is currently in a bubble of denial. Neither zone approaches reality. Members of the National Bureau of Economic Research — the only official arbiter of such matters — can't even agree if we're in a recession yet. "It's really hard to say if we're in a recession, because different indicators point in different directions," said Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard professor and a member of the NBER's recession-calling commitee.

That technical measure of recession ignores the reality on the ground: Home prices continue to slump, gas prices are pinching consumers' pocketbook, and advertisers are aggressively cutting back budgets, even online. Layoffs are grabbing headlines.

But does this really affect the Web startups which so enchant the blogosphere's imagination? Schadenfreude demands that these tiny companies shutter their doors — or if they don't have the decency to close up shop, they should act suitably chastened by the cold economic winds blowing. There's a lot of contradictory advice being handed out: Rely on angel investors! Don't rely on angel investors! My advice: Don't rely on journalists and bloggers for advice on how to run your business.

One might think Valleywag, which eagerly chronicles the mishaps of misconceived startups, would cheer on the notion of a lot of startups starving to death because of an economic downturn. Far from it! Better that they choke on their own vomit — that excess and lack of self-discipline kill them, rather than factors outside their control.

Serious entrepreneurs should be tightly controlling their spending. But that is as true now as it was a year ago, and a decade ago. Retaining pricey PR firms, throwing lavish parties, hiring executives from Fortune 500 companies at mid-six-figure salaries — that can wait until the company turns a profit. If your startup is dependent on a bubbly economic cycle, then it's not being run like a startup.

By all means, those who were never meant to be entrepreneurs in the first place, who lack any real ideas of their own, or any interest in making money rather than spending someone else's, should take this occasion to make a graceful exit from the scene. Six months ago, closing your startup would have seemed cowardly if not insane; now, everyone will nod at your wisdom.

That brings me to the opportunists — the likes of Marc Andreessen, who has been preaching the notion of a coming "nuclear winter" for some time, and Jason Calacanis, who recently wrote about a looming "startup depression."

Were I more impressed with their current startups, I'd nod alongside. But Andreessen's Ning is an unimpressive social-network builder; Mahalo, a gussied-up replica of Yahoo's 1994-era Web directory. Frustratingly for some observers, they have raised enough money that neither company will run out of funds for at least a year. (No one sincerely believes Calacanis when he says he has enough money to run the company for four years, do they?) If their flimsy business models remain unchallenged, their survival is all the more likely. So when Andreessen and Calacanis talk doom and gloom, what I'm really hearing is: "Please don't raise money for a better idea than mine — I can't take the competition."

What history tells us, actually, is that the best companies are started in times like this. The last wave of truly innovative Web 2.0 companies — Flickr, Del.icio.us, Last.fm, Facebook — started at a time when no one particularly believed in their potential.

Many people would benefit from a climate of fear: Venture capitalists, who might get larger pieces of startups; employers, who might hire talent more cheaply; and corporate dealmakers, like Jeremy Philips of News Corp., who might acquire companies less expensively.

But the biggest reason to ignore Philips' fearmongering, in particular? He's not taking his own advice. Rumor has it that, instead of food and guns, he is acquiring a piece of Manhattan real estate. And from what we hear, it is rather too glossy a place to serve as a warehouse for rations and ammo.

(Photo by Gawker Media)

Young Steve Jobs, Apple cofounder:

Jobs, older and thinner:

Young Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO:

Old Bill Gates, philanthropist:

Young Eric Schmidt, before he was Google's CEO:

Old Eric Schmidt:

Young Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO:

Old Larry Ellison:

Young Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen:

Not quite as young Ning cofounder Marc Andreessen:

Only one man has escaped the effects of time. That is, of course, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

I have been a great admirer of Andreesen since the mid '90s. He is no doubt one of the fathers of the modern internet. But really, he should can it about people using "his" ideas. He of all people should know that the internet abounds with ideas. Everyone has an idea.

Ideas are overrated and rarely original. The know-how to implement ideas, and to know which ones are good, that's where the real genius comes in.

I've edited down Om Malik's report on the talk.

• “Any desktop application that has not been implemented in the browser is now going to be implemented in the browser.”
• Chrome's speed, especially its advanced JavaScript engine, will push Firefox and Internet Explorer developers to make massive upgrades to their own products. “Microsoft can build good products when they want to."
• “If JavaScript gets any faster, then developers will question if they should develop in Flash or Silverlight."
• “Super interactive browser that sits atop a super-fast connection…now interesting things will happen over the next 5-10 years."

(Photo by Joi Ito)

On Microsoft:

Microsoft can build software, when they choose to.

On investing in startups:

I usually put in $25,000 to $100,000 per company. My philosophy is to put in a small enough amount of money that I won't get mad at the founder if I lose it.

Translation: Marc Andreessen is so rich that he can lose $100,000 and feel nothing.

On the failure of Friendster:

Friendster was very restrictive on what users did. You were supposed to connect because you know each other in real life, not, as [founder Jonathan] Abrams said, 'because you both like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.' But sometimes you want to put your chocolate in her peanut butter.

Yes, he really said that.

On his deathwatch for the New York Times:

I don't want to become the crazy anti-New York Times guy. You have to do what Intel did in 1985. The Japanese chipmakers were killing Intel in the memory-chip market. It got out of memory chips and focused on the much-smaller microprocessor market. I would turn off the printing presses.

On his mentor and Netscape cofounder, Jim Clark:

I could tell you a lot of stories about his life [in Florida], but I won't. He's dating a 26-year-old Australian swimsuit model. I just ran into an entrepreneur who said, "I just ran into Jim Clark at a resort town in Italy. Jim was in a hot tub carved into the side of a mountain." I said, "Yes! That was Jim Clark."

On the iPhone's price:

Give it a year, it will be down to $99. Give it another year, it will be free.

On his motives for giving away his money:

My wife teaches philanthropy at Stanford Business School. I would be in big trouble if I weren't hugely committed to it.

On his relationship with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

He's my Facebook friend. He's my Facebook 'friend.' [makes air-quotes gesture] I'll stop there.

1. Robert Scoble
2. Michael Arrington
3. Jack Dorsey
4. Biz Stone
5. Matt Cutts
6. Pete Cashmore
7. Dave Winer
8. Guy Kawasaki
9. Loïc Le Meur
10. Kevin Rose
11. Merlin Mann
12. Stowe Boyd
13. Jeff Atwood
14. Jeremiah Owyang
15. Veronica Belmont
16. Kara Swisher
17. Scott Beale
18. Marc Andreessen
19. Ryan Block
20. David Sifry
21. Emily Chang
22. Om Malik
23. Timothy Ferriss
24. Nick Douglas
25. John Battelle
26. David Cohn
27. Louis Gray
28. Tom Foremski
29. Tim O'Reilly
30. Ariel Waldman
31. Matt Mullenweg
32. Dean Takahashi
33. Philip Kaplan
34. JD Lasica
35. Sarah Lacy
36. Brian Solis
37. Charlene Li
38. Rafe Needleman
39. Dan Farber
40. Howard Rheingold
41. David McClure
42. Margaret Mason
43. Jason Goldman
44. Leah Culver
45. Chris Shipley
46. Jackson West
47. Liz Gannes
48. Owen Thomas
49. Adeo Ressi
50. Max Levchin

(Photo from Michael Arrington)

Through voting rights, Zuckerberg controls both the seat Andreessen fills and the remaining vacancy, so it's not surprising to see Zuckerberg picked an entrepreneur-friendly, don't-sell-if-you-don't-have-to mentor like Andreessen to join the board. Some Facebook shareholders are already offloading stock, perhaps growing impatient with Zuckerberg's slow progress toward an IPO. Other CEOs might be worried about retaining investors' goodwill. Zuckerberg, free to pack the board with another ally after Andreessen, doesn't have to. Jealous?

Because Zuckerberg doesn't have to. Microsoft owns 1.6 percent of Facebook; Li, even after doubling his take, only 0.8 percent. Neither stake is large enough to merit a board seat. Andreessen is, like Thiel, the former CEO of PayPal, an entrepreneur-friendly choice; he bypassed Sand Hill Road altogether to raise Ning's $100-million-plus in funding.

Just yesterday, we'd heard that Zuckerberg, who owns 27 percent of Facebook, had the right to appoint two board members. That leaves him one more seat at the table to fill. Anyone want to take odds on the moneymen getting left out once again?