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A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

nytimes.com

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Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#101

Post by dang »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #32
marvindanig wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lawlessness, scams, and dishonesty are endemic in this area. And homelessness. I was disappointed to see hundreds of helpless homeless people, some in horrible mental state, right there on streets in the middle of huge ivory towers that SV thumps its chest on. It's such a shame! And with young kids coming out of those glass doors flashing gadgets and gizmos at each other, with that certain bay area flair … I mean t…

The reigning ethos in SV is something very close to nihilism, but we do believe in one thing: property. A homeless or insane person has been assigned a near-zero value by markets and is therefore to be ignored. When the only thing you recognize is the exchange of goods and money, how can you assign any value to a person having neither?

Please stop posting this sort of intemperate rant to HN. It sheds no light on a difficult social problem like homelessness and turns discussion into a tire fire.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#102

Post by dang »

chenster wrote: post #20

Finally, a photo of Isaac Choi https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/09/01/business/01STARTU...

We've killed this comment. Personal attacks, which this crosses into, are not allowed on HN. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 for a fuller explanation.

All: please don't post, and do flag, comments that publish identifying personal details on others in the context of attacks on them. (Especially when they're newly-christened public enemies.) Maybe someone has done bad things; reacting to that by becoming a mob is also a bad thing, and we don't want it here.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#104

Post by dang »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #71
wrong_variable wrote: post #9

I have some issues with this sort of doxxing. In fact unless a court decision is made I think it technically unfair to the company and their employee the way the mob has brought out their pichfork. We have only heard the story from one person - and it makes the company and its CEO look like Satan's spawns - which in my experience never is 100% true. Having said that, I am always a little unnerved browsing LinkedIn -…

The NYT article included statements from Choi, or did you not read it?

"Did you not read it"-style comments break the site rules, so please edit such bits out of your comments here. It's striking how much better a factual comment becomes when that sort of swipe is taken out.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#105

Post by honkhonkpants »

dang wrote: post #101
honkhonkpants wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reigning ethos in SV is something very close to nihilism, but we do believe in one thing: property. A homeless or insane person has been assigned a near-zero value by markets and is therefore to be ignored. When the only thing you recognize is the exchange of goods and money, how can you assign any value to a person having neither?

Please stop posting this sort of intemperate rant to HN. It sheds no light on a difficult social problem like homelessness and turns discussion into a tire fire.

I don't like metadiscussions, and I can see you have your hands full with this circus of a post, but did you reply to the wrong comment? Mine only has two replies (ex. yours) but dozens of siblings and cousins. If there's a tire fire here, I didn't light it.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#106

Post by BinaryIdiot »

jtmcmc wrote: post #81
marvindanig wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can judge, but SF goes further than any city I've seen to provide services to the homeless... That's nice to hear! I do realize now that my comment is naive; definitely only a tiny snapshot from the limited time that I spent over there and is not a complete picture or a total impression of the place. But I still do wish that SV had a better situation/solution to these otherwise normal people problems.

San Francisco alone spends 241 million on homelessness per year. Most places deal with these "normal people problems" by criminalizing it to the point where people leave to places like SF or are jailed.

So your comment isn't really accurate.

> San Francisco alone spends 241 million on homelessness per year.

The $241 million figure is a little misleading because it encompasses the total spending across homeless services and supportive housing. Supportive housing is $112 million and the people within are NOT counted as homeless (nor should they be but that $112 out of $241 million is not being used on homeless people). [1]

It certainly doesn't help that the amount of money actually used on the homeless is contracted out to many, many, many companies and split across other government groups making it effectively impossible to spend efficiently and to track (I really wish they'd get this corrected; I mean we're the city of Silicon Valley for crepes sake!)

> Most places deal with these "normal people problems" by criminalizing it

Many cities spend more money, year over year, to house, shelter, feed and medically treat the homeless. Sure they'll get arrested too and I'm sure there are exceptions but I couldn't find any information regarding further criminalization, in recent years, as a way to get rid of the homeless (if you have a source that would be great). In fact here in SF the supervisor wants to do away with tents calling them illegal [2]

> people leave to places like SF

Only 10% of the homeless in a 2015 report came from out of state. 71% of the homeless lived in SF before becoming homeless, which is about 10% higher in just 2 years. I don't think very many are leaving to go to SF to be homeless. [3]

[1] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...

[2] http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/25/s-f-supervisor-scott-wie...

[3] https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran...

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#107

Post by dang »

honkhonkpants wrote: post #105
dang wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop posting this sort of intemperate rant to HN. It sheds no light on a difficult social problem like homelessness and turns discussion into a tire fire.

I don't like metadiscussions, and I can see you have your hands full with this circus of a post, but did you reply to the wrong comment? Mine only has two replies (ex. yours) but dozens of siblings and cousins. If there's a tire fire here, I didn't light it.

I'm describing what long experience has shown us that comments like that one do. Sorry for not making that clearer (and thanks for the convivial note about the circus).

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#109

Post by blub »

kalleboo wrote: post #93
Finbarr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been outside of the US? Coming from Europe, SF is utterly shocking. I've never seen anywhere else like it. Government provides a lot of support for low-income and homeless people in EU.

The EU is too big to speak of a one entity. And things are changing too. I lived in the third largest city in Sweden, and when I moved in there were the handful (like, probably less than 5) of homeless beggars that everyone knew. There were probably more homeless but they were sheltered by the state. But by the time I moved out, in front of every supermarket there was a Romanian beggar with her head down. I'll agree…

That's probably not what you think. The beggars you saw in front of supermarkets were likely part of a criminal gang and had a handler collecting their money.

Should be pretty easy to investigate, arrest, deport them and forbid them to come back.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#110

Post by manigandham »

bigtones wrote: post #79
manigandham wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because there are currently no "startup-friendly" banks. The ones who say that are just using marketing speak and are no better and often worse to deal with than the majors.

That is not true at all. Silicon Valley Bank is absolutely friendly to startups, helps fund them, and supports them with a great network of early stage company get-togethers many times per year. They supported my startup from first funding right through to the $42 million we have raised to date.

Every big bank will also help you if you're about to put millions in an account with them. And some random "get-togethers" aren't really a big deal and not something I'm looking for from a bank.

What does "supported" even mean? What does SVB really do for you that another major bank couldn't? In contrast, they have less branches and ATMs, fewer business hours, weaker credit card offerings, more fees, and an utterly crap web interface.

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