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Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

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Re: Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

#41

Post by metaphorm »

tptacek wrote: post #40
metaphorm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you serious? if Horowitz was really committed to the cause he would just personally donate a large amount of money (he has plenty) and not bother engaging in any of the public virtue signaling behaviors. it seems pretty obvious that he put the "donated to charity" sticker on the form to deflect accusations that he was profiteering from his fame. seems to me more like he was getting too much shit mail and wanted t…

Yes. This. Ben Horowitz is petrified that we will perceive the immense revenues he's going to get from $20 Q&A sessions as profiteering, especially considering the paucity of his other business interests. Virtue signaling, indeed!

no, Ben Horowitz does not want to be perceived as engaging in personal nuisance abatement so he makes it look more socially acceptable.

in other words, he wants to be able to take questions by email, because there is some upside for him in that (discovering new prospects for investment probably), but there is huge downside in the risk of getting spammed by shit emails.

he implements a $20 cash gate on that to mitigate the downside, but then realizes he has introduced a new downside, of appearing greedy or craven in some way, therefore he donates it to a virtue signaling charity. it will be a very small amount of money either way.

my point is that the charitable donation aspect is NOT what is driving Horowitz' behavior here. I was responding to a post which suggested it was that.

Re: Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

#42

Post by gonehome »

bhouston wrote: post #8

It may could encourage people to contact him more by giving them a form of permission: > To come to our surprising conclusion, Uri ran an experiment: Out of 10 daycare centers across Haifa, they randomly chose six and introduced a small fine for parents who showed up more than 10 minutes late in each of them. In day cares where the fine was introduced, parents immediately started showing up late, with tardiness level…

I think the worst part was that even when the fine was removed the levels did not revert to what they were previously.

Once a monetary penalty takes the place of a social one it is hard to get the social one back.

Re: Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

#43

Post by dnautics »

j2kun wrote: post #23
nolepointer wrote: post #20

Why does it have to be only black girls? In fact, why does it have to be only girls?

Nobody said or implied that, just as an organization hoping to cure polio doesn't think that's the only illness worth curing.

that's a bad example, because the organization that cured polio moved on to 'other things' and is now one of the 'go to' examples of charity drift and nonprofit mismanagement.

Re: Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

#44

Post by tptacek »

metaphorm wrote: post #41
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This. Ben Horowitz is petrified that we will perceive the immense revenues he's going to get from $20 Q&A sessions as profiteering, especially considering the paucity of his other business interests. Virtue signaling, indeed!

no, Ben Horowitz does not want to be perceived as engaging in personal nuisance abatement so he makes it look more socially acceptable. in other words, he wants to be able to take questions by email, because there is some upside for him in that (discovering new prospects for investment probably), but there is huge downside in the risk of getting spammed by shit emails. he implements a $20 cash gate on that to mitigat…

Definitely a fantastic way to abate nuisance outreach is to allow people to entitle themselves to your time for the price of a 12 pack of beer.

This will have the opposite effect of the one you propose. Virtually everybody can afford $20; what he's doing is giving people new permission to contact him, and not only that but by attaching a price tag to it he's giving them expectations about his attention.

Re: Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

#46

Post by ionwake »

Swizec wrote: post #33
treebeard901 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentives for behavior modification is always a fascinating area. In this case, the daycare was incentivized to track people being late more closely since they had a financial interest in doing so. I suspect the outcome was somewhere in the middle of more accurate record keeping and introducing the ability for the parents to pay off their guilt.

It also made the behavior socially acceptable. "So many people are late that we introduced a fine" "Oh phew, it's not just me. Everyone's doing it"

Bingo

Re: Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

#48

Post by legodt »

beatpanda wrote: post #32
nolepointer wrote: post #20

Why does it have to be only black girls? In fact, why does it have to be only girls?

Perhaps because black girls are underrepresented among the population of kids learning to code?

Why does this very simple and clear explanation of the group's mission downvoted to negative levels? Is anti-racism that out of vogue on this site?

Edit: looks like it bounced back up, but still, damn.

Re: Contact Ben Horowitz for $20

#50

Post by metaphorm »

tptacek wrote: post #44
metaphorm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, Ben Horowitz does not want to be perceived as engaging in personal nuisance abatement so he makes it look more socially acceptable. in other words, he wants to be able to take questions by email, because there is some upside for him in that (discovering new prospects for investment probably), but there is huge downside in the risk of getting spammed by shit emails. he implements a $20 cash gate on that to mitigat…

Definitely a fantastic way to abate nuisance outreach is to allow people to entitle themselves to your time for the price of a 12 pack of beer. This will have the opposite effect of the one you propose. Virtually everybody can afford $20; what he's doing is giving people new permission to contact him , and not only that but by attaching a price tag to it he's giving them expectations about his attention.

yes, actually. compared to $0 cash gate, anyway. he wants some level of email interaction, but only if you're above some threshold of seriousness. its not a very high threshold, but is enough to prevent trolling and spamming in any case.
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