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Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

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Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#51

Post by idiot_stick »

bykovich wrote: post #30
jph wrote: post #16

Yes. I paid $100 because I want to encourage volunteering. > To Marc Andreessen. From Joel Parker Henderson. Hi Marc, what are some of your favorite charity causes that could benefit from pro bono coding help? I work at [X] and we have many programmers who volunteer for social progressive causes; we love coding and we love to help. Thank you, Joel

why didn't you just talk to your favorite charities instead of deferring that judgement to Andreessen

>why didn't you just talk to your favorite charities instead of deferring that judgement to Andreessen

No doubt. Paid $100 to ask Andreeesen what his favourite charities are? The SV hero worship is so intense.

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#52

Post by gravypod »

kenferry wrote: post #49
gravypod wrote: post #22

I find it interesting that you can write RMS, the leader of the Free Software movement, and he'll respond to you within the day for no charge because he think's that's a morally important thing to do. You can in contrast write Marc Andreessen, one of the figure heads of the propriatary software and privacy violating movement of every bigger information companies, and he'll charge you for the pleasure. Interesting dic…

I would regard that $100 as an indicator that you have a real question that is important to you. Marc doesn't need or care about the money.

Makes total sense. Let's suggest the same thing to our local, state, and federal representatives. They should charge $100 to get their ear to make sure people only raise important questions. Maybe we should even set it at $1000! Raising the bar really filters out all of those annoying and pesky people.

If you can't tell it just feels wrong to me. Just something's off about this concept.

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#53

Post by amenod »

It seems to me this is just an advanced (and probably very efficient) quasi-captcha. Except it distinguishes those with a real need for his attention (that is, those who are willing and able to pay) from the others, instead of separating humans from bots.

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#54

Post by unhelpful »

gravypod wrote: post #43
unhelpful wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS contributed some incredibly influential and useful software back in the day, but you'd have to pay me a lot more than Andreessen is charging to read the ranting drivel he passes off as philosophy.

I don't think that's a fair or charitable charictatization of his opinions and if you do feel that way, even after you've read his works, you can still email him about technical questions. I don't know how much of a help he'd be but you can always try and ask his opinion on how to do something.

I have emailed him about technical stuff. I used to treat the guy like a hero until I talked with and met him.

I once offered to create a front-end for GCC for a programming language that, at the time, was only supported by proprietary compilers. (This was back before GCC was eclipsed by clang, with its sane licensing that allows more organizations to contribute.) I got back a disjointed screed about how evil the company behind it was because not all their software was free and they were basically fascists who ate babies and if their kind wasn't defeated then the universe was doomed. (I'm paraphrasing because this was 20+ years ago, but that was the general theme.)

I've also had the displeasure of working with him more than once at conferences, and he brings the same sort of good-vs-evil delusion to even the simplest things in everyday life. He sought out opportunities to harangue volunteers about everything from lighting to the beverages available, prepped with hours of obviously practiced diatribe to "support" all his bizarre ideas. He even showed up in the middle of a conference once--the schedule for which had been finalized months earlier--and asked when he could speak, and complained about the time slot we managed to find for him and how there were speakers talking about things that weren't GPL-licensed and we shouldn't be giving them a platform to promote such evil, etc. Honestly, he's the biggest ass I've ever had to deal with at such an event.

He's an atheist, but he has way more in common with the nuttiest of religious nuts than he does with any kind of philosopher. He's right about a few things (perhaps by accident, given how many things he's wrong about), and because he happened to be right about them first, he continues to be treated with reverence and many of his ideas are given way more credence than they should be.

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#55

Post by mahyarm »

saosebastiao wrote: post #15

What are you asking his advice for? I'm not a VC industry insider, but I've spent enough time in the industry as a peon analyst to see the industry for what it is. I've written before about how nearly all VC partners are ridiculously conservative bandwagoners (they only invest if someone else invests), with the sole (to my knowledge) exception being Marc Andreessen. There might be other exceptions out there, but the…

If everyone is a bandwagoner, how does the bandwagon start? Without pmarca, would VC grind to a halt?

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#56

Post by scarhill »

gravypod wrote: post #52
kenferry wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would regard that $100 as an indicator that you have a real question that is important to you. Marc doesn't need or care about the money.

Makes total sense. Let's suggest the same thing to our local, state, and federal representatives. They should charge $100 to get their ear to make sure people only raise important questions. Maybe we should even set it at $1000! Raising the bar really filters out all of those annoying and pesky people. If you can't tell it just feels wrong to me. Just something's off about this concept.

Isn't this exactly how it works? If you're a big contributor, the rep hears your concerns. If not, they're filtered through multiple layers of staffers or dropped on the floor.

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#58

Post by wirddin »

anton_tarasenko wrote: post #18

Previous thread (featuring Ben Horowitz on 21.co): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13485488 Two takeaways: 1. A response looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/CbRNrj7TUUhaLolVTLYJhrPxUdsYOK 2. A16Z invested in 21.co when it still was a Bitcoin mining hardware startup: https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/18/what-is-21-co-really-doing...

> 1. A response looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/CbRNrj7TUUhaLolVTLYJhrPxUdsYOK

That's quite expensive for $100. Also, doesn't sound like an advice, more like a judge for an elevator pitch.

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#59

Post by unhelpful »

tyingq wrote: post #20
anton_tarasenko wrote: post #18

Previous thread (featuring Ben Horowitz on 21.co): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13485488 Two takeaways: 1. A response looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/CbRNrj7TUUhaLolVTLYJhrPxUdsYOK 2. A16Z invested in 21.co when it still was a Bitcoin mining hardware startup: https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/18/what-is-21-co-really-doing...

>1. A response looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/CbRNrj7TUUhaLolVTLYJhrPxUdsYOK That seems reasonable for $20, but I'd be disappointed in that for $100. Basically, it's Q: "We have some tech that works in the law field, who should we talk to?" A: "Talk to some big law firms" Of course, the question itself invited that answer. Would love to see answers from other questions.

Don't forget... now that person can call those firms and say "Ben Horowitz said we should talk." :)

Re: Ask HN: Did you pay Marc Andreessen for advice and was it worth it?

#60

Post by lftl »

unhelpful wrote: post #59
tyingq wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1. A response looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/CbRNrj7TUUhaLolVTLYJhrPxUdsYOK That seems reasonable for $20, but I'd be disappointed in that for $100. Basically, it's Q: "We have some tech that works in the law field, who should we talk to?" A: "Talk to some big law firms" Of course, the question itself invited that answer. Would love to see answers from other questions.

Don't forget... now that person can call those firms and say "Ben Horowitz said we should talk." :)

If Ben would kick off an email introduction with someone he knows at the firm it'd be worth much more than $100.
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