Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas” • Hacker News Board

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#141

Post by archagon » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:31 PM UTC

stagbeetle wrote: post #129

archagon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know that sounds harsh, but we seriously need to stop the hero worship in SV culture and begin building a society that benefits everyone, not a society that works itself to the bone just to eat the cake of a larger corporation and enrich the early investors. This sort of oligarchy is probably emergent from the way we structure our economy on a base level. What factors incentivize corporations to form into pyramid…

> What factors incentivize corporations to form into pyramids, with most of the wealth accruing on top? Most people are incapable of managing high-level responsibilities. Those on the lower rungs assign/relinquish (depending on how you look at it) their responsibilities, and the fruits they bear, to those they perceive more capable than them. So now instead of having a smooth slope of compensation, it's top-heavy. In…

Corporations are already propped up by a variety of opaque laws and incentives. There's little natural or intrinsic about the way they tend to be structured. People are malleable and adaptable, and I think new social and economic structures should at least be explored to see what comes out on the other side.

I agree that centralized leadership tends to produce better products, but I don't think a more democratic company would necessarily have to put every decision to vote. Hierarchies could still emerge and responsibility could still be delegated. (Again, see Valve.) But I think distributing power, reward, and responsibility more equally throughout the company would be massively beneficial in terms of "social good".

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#142

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #103

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #33

I'm getting tired of all of the hot air coming from these tech oligarchs. They're so enriched by a tech boom and a decade of easy money that we worship at their feet. Their vision and goal for the future is simply more money for themselves at the expense of others. "Guys look! An hour long commute is actually a good thing because you can spend it with your kids!" Why is it so hard to spend time with our kids now?! I…

I only came to HN somewhat recently, around 2 years ago, but I've started to notice a very major change in the culture of this forum lately. There is so much vitriol and blanket insults being levied at anyone and everyone. The linked article is almost always a sideshow, and simply acts as a prelude for the battle in the comments section. A battle which has little to do with what the article itself says, and is simply…

While your comment is over the specified age limit, please note that comments lamenting HN's decline are advised against in the guidelines. [0]

The comment you replied to was relevant to the article and it articulates a valuable perspective that I actually wish we saw more of on HN, more skepticism toward the established VC/startup investment process. It's especially important because YC's involvement with HN has made it a nexus for many who are infatuated with startup culture and unwilling to countenance criticism of it.

FWIW, my account claims to be 3173 days old (or "8.715 average Gregorian years" according to WolframAlpha) and I don't think what you're describing is anything new, or that it's bad. The comments have always been the star of the show at HN. The articles are treated as catalysts because they are. HN is about the discussion that occurs on HN.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#143

Post by aanm1988 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:36 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #93

smacktoward wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When he talks about "what if you don't have to worry about driving," what I hear is: what if your car is one more place where we can show you ads? Right now we can't show you ads in your car, of course, because you're in command of two tons of steel moving at high speed, so your attention needs to be fully concentrated on that task. But if the car could drive itself, think of all the ways we could monetize that newly…

If you own the car, surely you can install the equivalent of an ad-blocker.

You don't really own the car though. You own steel and plastic and all that sure, they haven't figured out how to erode ownership of that yet. It's all worthless without software though and you don't get to own that. Now you are just licensing it. Now they can slap all the conditions they want on it. They fucked up and people died? Well enjoy your arbitration clause because that was a software issue. That dream of using your self driving car to make money, well you can do that on their network only with their rules.

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#144

Post by jhoechtl » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:40 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #87

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #33

I'm getting tired of all of the hot air coming from these tech oligarchs. They're so enriched by a tech boom and a decade of easy money that we worship at their feet. Their vision and goal for the future is simply more money for themselves at the expense of others. "Guys look! An hour long commute is actually a good thing because you can spend it with your kids!" Why is it so hard to spend time with our kids now?! I…

Yeah. > Self-driving cars, for example, could potentially put 5 million people involved in transportation jobs out of work. And creating 5 million new jobs for them seems impossible with net monthly job gains typically in the hundreds of thousands. “Five million jobs seem like a lot of jobs. It is a lot,” Andreessen says. But looking at the big picture shows that “every year in the U.S. on average about 21 million jo…

What is overseen most of the time is that mere job counting statistics are worthless. If 20 million jobs were destroyed where people could make a decent living, to create 24 million jobs where people have to work endless hours, live in vans and get no security, it's a net loss for the society.

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#145

Post by delegate » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:41 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #103

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #33

I'm getting tired of all of the hot air coming from these tech oligarchs. They're so enriched by a tech boom and a decade of easy money that we worship at their feet. Their vision and goal for the future is simply more money for themselves at the expense of others. "Guys look! An hour long commute is actually a good thing because you can spend it with your kids!" Why is it so hard to spend time with our kids now?! I…

I only came to HN somewhat recently, around 2 years ago, but I've started to notice a very major change in the culture of this forum lately. There is so much vitriol and blanket insults being levied at anyone and everyone. The linked article is almost always a sideshow, and simply acts as a prelude for the battle in the comments section. A battle which has little to do with what the article itself says, and is simply…

Emotions are flying high in the comments, because the world (including the virtual one) is changing fast(er) and not in the best direction.

There is also great disconnect between the tech billionaires and the real problems in the world.

The numbers they base their worldview on are carefully curated and the story is of course that 'things are greater than ever', but the rest of the people (especially outside the US) are felling it very differently.

Proof of that is Brexit, Trump and populists + nationalists winning in many countries - voted in by people who are finding it hard to adapt to the fast-changing pace of the tech-driven world, in which they have no shares or say.

Compared to 'real' problems that the world faces, self-driving cars are, in my humble opinion, irrelevant. From a passenger's perspective, self-driving vehicles have existed since forever - called buses, trains or taxis, so I don't see how the passenger experience will dramatically change when it's driven by a computer rather than a human.

From the perspective of the owner of a self-driving fleet, though, this is a potentially fantastic business.

Of course profits will be largely shared by a couple of shareholders and some leftovers offered to the engineers in the form of yearly salaries and maybe some equity, while the rest of us will get a new bill each month for the miles/seconds driven.

I know it because I experienced it myself as an engineer in a company in which Mark made billions, while those who built the whole thing received scraps from the deal.

So I think the OP post is understandable - maybe the tone was a bit harsh, but the main points I find hard to not agree with.

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#146

Post by alphonsegaston » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:44 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #103

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #33

I'm getting tired of all of the hot air coming from these tech oligarchs. They're so enriched by a tech boom and a decade of easy money that we worship at their feet. Their vision and goal for the future is simply more money for themselves at the expense of others. "Guys look! An hour long commute is actually a good thing because you can spend it with your kids!" Why is it so hard to spend time with our kids now?! I…

I only came to HN somewhat recently, around 2 years ago, but I've started to notice a very major change in the culture of this forum lately. There is so much vitriol and blanket insults being levied at anyone and everyone. The linked article is almost always a sideshow, and simply acts as a prelude for the battle in the comments section. A battle which has little to do with what the article itself says, and is simply…

I'm confused about your argument because it seems essentially an appeal to restrain discourse to agreement with Andreesen. Anything else is "hijacking" or "superfluous soapboxing"? You even go so far as to characterize him as a ho-hum guy under undeserving attack, even though he himself feels free to publicly attack things like anti-colonialism in India when it serves his business interests.

You may feel that the level of discourse has declined, but our social context has shifted quite a bit too. In an era of extreme wealth inequality, the tech industry and venture capitalism have taken on new and perhaps darker connotations. It's fine to walk away from that discussion, but I don't think doing so is to the benefit of understanding the reality of our circumstances.

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#147

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #106

ryandrake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hero worship of successful people is just survivorship bias in action. Out of a population of people flipping coins, we (after the fact) find the ones who flipped heads 10 times in a row and fawn over them, asking them how they became such great coin flippers and what we can do to improve our coin flipping skills. See also: Good To Great or any similar business book.

The other possible explanation is that there is a formula for success. It's just extraordinarily complex and we haven't figured it out yet, so we just attribute it to this thing called luck, the same way ancient people didn't understand thunder and attributed it to gods expressing their anger.

There isn't a formula for success because "success" doesn't have a firm definition.

I would argue that a person that has a happy home life and feels comfortable and sufficiently compensated in their work is a success. There are hundreds of millions such people. This doesn't seem overly complex at all.

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#148

Post by dave_sullivan » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

stagbeetle wrote: post #136

dave_sullivan wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think this time will be different. I agree it will take a decade, but those jobs aren't coming back. One trend to consider: each "mega successful company" for the past 100 years or so (maybe longer?) has been extraordinary because of how few people were required to start the company, and how much profit per employee they generate. The unspoken side effect is "we need fewer people" (and they're hard to find A…

> In such a world, most people will have to be on the dole at some point in their life, and that will be OK. I don't think so. If "most people are simply not going to be economically useful" for what reason, besides an appeal to utopianism, is it a good idea to strain the country's resources in chase of an ideal? Basic income will pave the way to cementing this feudalistic class-inequality we possess today. Extremely…

> If "most people are simply not going to be economically useful" for what reason, besides an appeal to utopianism, is it a good idea to strain the country's resources in chase of an ideal?

Two very practical reasons.

A) People need to buy groceries. What will you do when they're at your door with pitchforks, pissed because you told them to "go eat cake"?

B) For the larger economy to function, there has to be bottom up purchasing pressure at the consumer level. Walmart has to be making lots of money so they can buy cool stuff from startups (some of which eventually turn into large companies buying from startups themselves). If you just give people money to spend, that will drive the economy at the bottom. It's basically like the opposite of trickle-down economics and I think it's much more sustainable.

Also, there's growing awareness that sociopaths aren't good for society, so arguments along the lines of "oh quit whining and suck it up you pussies" are starting to get a lot more pushback.

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#149

Post by v45h » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #33

I'm getting tired of all of the hot air coming from these tech oligarchs. They're so enriched by a tech boom and a decade of easy money that we worship at their feet. Their vision and goal for the future is simply more money for themselves at the expense of others. "Guys look! An hour long commute is actually a good thing because you can spend it with your kids!" Why is it so hard to spend time with our kids now?! I…

Perhaps SV has a lot of hero worship but I feel as though comments such as these commit the same folly. They're focused on Andreessen and not the ultimate point being made.

Andreessen's base point is that whether you like it or not, millions of jobs are going to get taken away and millions more jobs are going to open up elsewhere. The question is, how do we get society to be better at adapting to this change?

If you truly are concerned about building a society that benefits everyone, this is the question that should be discussed/answered.

Re: Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

#150

Post by wavefunction » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

archagon wrote: post #116

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #33

I'm getting tired of all of the hot air coming from these tech oligarchs. They're so enriched by a tech boom and a decade of easy money that we worship at their feet. Their vision and goal for the future is simply more money for themselves at the expense of others. "Guys look! An hour long commute is actually a good thing because you can spend it with your kids!" Why is it so hard to spend time with our kids now?! I…

> I know that sounds harsh, but we seriously need to stop the hero worship in SV culture and begin building a society that benefits everyone, not a society that works itself to the bone just to eat the cake of a larger corporation and enrich the early investors. This sort of oligarchy is probably emergent from the way we structure our economy on a base level. What factors incentivize corporations to form into pyramid…

I wonder if a co-op model where workers who are part of the co-op slowly accrue fractional interest in the firm with a continual dilution as new members join.

Almost like an inflationary pressure on the ownership of the co-op that might allow us to turn away from the gains continually traveling upwards long after the contributions of members have been made and they've moved on to other things.

You could still pay differential salaries if you wanted some hierarchy.