A Dodd-Frank for Capital Markets
An Incomplete Lesson Learned from History
When Steve Schmidt had me on his podcast and asked me to put forward a policy proposal to address these structural challenges, I suggested adding sortition to the Senate for a third of the body—citizen legislators chosen by lottery to break partisan gridlock and restore democratic legitimacy.
But upon further reflection, I think there’s a regulation that might actually enjoy bipartisan support in the coming years. Something that could be passed by Congress and signed into law without any constitutional convention. Something that addresses the structural problem at its root.
Marc Andreessen doesn’t just have wealth. He has coordinating power across venture capital, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, media, and now direct political access through administration appointments. He can deploy capital, shape narrative, and influence policy simultaneously. There’s no structural limit on his reach. That’s the problem.
This isn’t about hating billionaires or punishing success. It’s about preventing the self-dealing incentives that emerge when controlling interests span multiple sectors of the economy. When someone can coordinate across tech investment, crypto regulation, media messaging, and political favor, democratic constraint becomes optional. Markets stop being discovery mechanisms and start being extraction vehicles.
The United States has crossed a threshold where individual actors can simultaneously coordinate capital, narrative, regulation, and enforcement across multiple sectors. That capability did not exist at scale in prior eras. Our regulatory architecture was not designed for it. This proposal is not preventative—it is corrective. The coordination power already exists. The question is whether we structure limits now, or normalize it after democratic constraint collapses.
We’ve solved this problem before. We just forgot the lesson.
