If you don’t know who Marc Andreessen is, then look at the program you’re reading this with. If it’s an RSS reader, then never mind. But if it’s a browser, then Marc Andreessen is its granddaddy–he invented the modern web browser, which made the World Wide Web really possible. As a college student, he co-authored the browser Mosaic, seen as the turning-point app that made the web accessible to everyone. After leaving college, he formed the Netscape company, which became the #1 browser–until Microsoft used its OS dominance to kill them off. Still, Netscape was sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. His second venture, Opsware, was sold for $1.6 billion.

Still, he’s a multi-millionaire (or billionaire?) Internet “whiz kid” who is still active in the industry, right now with the social network Ning. And currently, he maintains a blog. Today’s topic: about a year ago, Andreessen had the chance to sit down and speak with Barack Obama, privately, for about an hour an a half–probably one of the last times the candidate was able to sit down with anyone for that amount of time. His conclusions: he was markedly impressed. I’ll let you read the whole post yourself, but at least part of the last point is worth reprinting:

Before I close, let me share two specific things he said at the time — early 2007 — on the topic of whether he’s ready.

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven’t had meaningful experience as an executive — as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign — you’ll see my leadership skills in action.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of his answer — political campaigns are often very messy and chaotic, with a lot of turnover and flux; what conclusions could we possibly draw from one of those?

Well, as any political expert will tell you, it turns out that the Obama campaign has been one of the best organized and executed presidential campaigns in memory. Even Obama’s opponents concede that his campaign has been disciplined, methodical, and effective across the full spectrum of activities required to win — and with a minimum of the negative campaigning and attack ads that normally characterize a race like this, and with almost no staff turnover. By almost any measure, the Obama campaign has simply out-executed both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

This speaks well to the Senator’s ability to run a campaign, but speaks even more to his ability to recruit and manage a top-notch group of campaign professionals and volunteers — another key leadership characteristic. When you compare this to the awe-inspiring discord, infighting, and staff turnover within both the Clinton and McCain campaigns up to this point — well, let’s just say it’s a very interesting data point.

Read the second part of the experience answer on his blog.