a16z founder Marc Andreessen joins the Federal Reserve, and the AI productivity task force officially launches

New Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh has set up five working groups. a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen co-leads the “Productivity and Employment” group, researching how AI affects inflation and jobs.
(Background recap: Trump: Micron investing $250 billion in the US! This is my “Trump effect” that can create 100 thousand jobs)
(Background add-on: Trump gives Iran the final countdown: by Saturday, publicly guarantee the Strait of Hormuz remains open—don’t fire on merchant ships anymore, or the consequences are on your own)

The Federal Reserve (Fed) announced the appointment of Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), as co-leader of the “Productivity and Employment” working group to study the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence on productivity and employment.

Andreessen will serve together with Stanford economics professor Charles I. Jones (currently on leave from Anthropic) and Asha Sharma, Microsoft’s corporate vice president and CEO of Xbox. The group is one of five working groups under the policy review of new Fed chair Kevin Warsh; the other four groups will respectively focus on policy communications, balance sheet policy, data quality, and the inflation framework.

At a press conference on June 17, Warsh said: “These issues are timely and important and are worth revisiting.” He emphasized that each group is independently led by “top talent inside and outside the economics field,” and that the central bank will issue policy announcements in more concise and clear language.

Andreessen and Warsh’s connection

Andreessen and Warsh’s acquaintance can be traced back to the early 1990s at Stanford University. In a CNBC interview in 2025, Warsh said Andreessen and Palantir founder Peter Thiel “were both friends from their university days.”

Andreessen has publicly supported Warsh serving as Fed chair. In an X post on January 30, he wrote: “I’ve known Kevin for 30 years. He combines deep insight into the economy and finance with a sharp understanding of technology and business.”

Divergent views inside the FOMC on AI’s impact

Views within the Fed are not consistent. There is a clear split among FOMC members on AI’s economic impact:

• Deflationary view: AI is a long-term productivity accelerator that helps lower inflation
• Inflationary view: Spending on AI infrastructure is pushing inflation higher

In a speech on May 27, FOMC member Lisa Cook said that AI will “further boost productivity growth, contributing to strong GDP growth,” but there are also “risks of higher inflation.”

Former chair Jerome Powell said in March that data center spending “puts pressure on all kinds of goods and services,” and “could push inflation at the margin.”