Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Marc Andreessen: “Take the Ego Out of Ideas”

gsb.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 252 posts

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

#171

Post by rqebmm »

0xCMP wrote: post #107

I do like the idea of almost a rolling office. I've always wanted a sort of vagabond life fueled by tech. There so much out in the world and so many people. It's a shame that we're often stuck in the same places for such long periods of time. If I become a remote/work-from-home/smb-owner I'd love to just being a self-driving car doing stuff on the go and also changing where I am all the time.

Yeah I was having this thought the other day: Why own a home when you could own a self-driving RV? Obviously there will still be advantages to owning land, but there's some real appeal to having your home drive itself around for you. Imagine waking up, prepping for work, opening the door and being in the parking lot, then hopping inside after work, eating dinner, and stepping out in front of a park to meet some friends.d Maybe you own some land with a larger home that you can "dock" with, maybe you don't and you can roam the country while working remotely.

Then you start to imagine what businesses could do with this. Self-driving food trucks is an obvious example: why pay a delivery driver when your restaurant drives itself?

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

#172

Post by andrestan »

smacktoward wrote: post #18
6stringmerc wrote: post #4

> So if technological change were going to cause elimination of jobs, one presumes we would have seen it by now. ...considering this statement was delivered while the US Workforce Participation is at 30+ year lows while productivity and technological change has made significant inroads during that time (ex: Macintosh 512k vs. iPhone 7), I think he's missing a large chunk of the, uh, big picture. Then, contrast one of…

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…

Billboards?

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

#173

Post by troygoode »

wyc wrote: post #165

Re: tech creates jobs, Tyler Cowen's Average is Over has an interesting passage about automation: "Keeping an unmanned Predator drone in the air for twenty-four hours requires about 168 workers laboring in the background. A larger drone, such as the Global Hawk surveillance drone, needs about 300 people...an F-16 fighter aircraft requires fewer than 100 people for a single mission." It's well known that the industria…

An 4-16 fighter mission isn't 24 hours long though...

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

#174

Post by trevyn »

concede_pluto wrote: post #164
inanutshellus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just turn off the windows. Click Voila, no car sickness. ;)

Motion you feel but don't see is the problem. Maybe a translucent display?

Or an active suspension that cancels out all bumps. This is actually my fantasy for self-driving cars; such a suspension is relatively expensive, but if cars are shared and autonomous, each car can be more costly.

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

#175

Post by rhapsodic »

davidf18 wrote: post #168

> "Self-driving cars, for example, could potentially put 5 million people involved in transportation jobs out of work....." On a work day, NYC subway provides 6 million trips. Think of all of the car drivers it is displacing. And then there are the buses! And that is in NYC alone. Just think of all of the drivers mass transit has already displaced throughout the nation! Then there is intercity transit: think of all o…

> On a work day, NYC subway provides 6 million trips. Think of all of the car drivers it is displacing. And then there are the buses! And that is in NYC alone. Just think of all of the drivers mass transit has already displaced throughout the nation!

I think if you read history, you'll find that, overall, the automobile disrupted and reduced the size of the passenger rail industry, and public transportation in general. Not the other way around.

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

#176

Post by stagbeetle »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #169
stagbeetle wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"? It's a good thing I have the police and military under my thumb to quell all uprisings. If I were smart, I would elevate them to the upper class and remove their current class loyalties. But a more practical answer: What's stopping those with (economic resources) from continuin…

> It's a good thing I have the police and military under my thumb to quell all uprisings. Famous last words! > If I were smart, I would elevate them to the upper class and remove their current class loyalties. Until they realize they don't need you, kill you, and take control. See history of the Praetorian Guard. Or KGB. > Basic income is assumed to mean "just enough income to buy vital products, services, and utilit…

> Until they realize they don't need you, kill you, and take control. See history of the Praetorian Guard. Or KGB.

Keep them at arm's reach and content, and their greed will keep them loyal. I've known of the Praetorian to assassinate emperors, but only those unwieldy that didn't indulge them.

> Actually, they kind of do because you have to look at b2b startups and how they really represent most of the interesting companies (and value) being generated by startups these days; if you're innovative and an entrepreneur and all that, odds are high that you might find yourself starting something in the b2b space.

You're conflating B2B startups with B2B businesses. One is a Remora fish and the other is a Shark. The first, aides the second and gets a little in return. The second, takes the lions-share (or should I say sharks-share?) of profits.

> You'll be trying to sell to large enterprises that sell stuff like electricity, cell phones, food, etc. Commodities. The commodities that drive the economy.

They do not drive the economy. They keep it running. The basic electricity, cell phone, food, etc. are just that: basic.

> You know who the biggest ad buyers in the US are? Procter and Gamble. AT&T. Comcast. Verizon. Commodities. And every ad agency is a b2b startup. Not to mention "ad tech".

You're stretching the term commodity too much here. AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are not commodities companies.

> Enterprise margins/profits are up now because of gains from automation, and they're driving the startup boom

To be blunt, this is another leap of logic that isn't true. Enterprise profits may be up, but they're not funneled directly back into VC cash (or equivalent) for startups.

> Eventually, that will run out because bottom up consumer demand will drop

Why do you suppose this?

> That will cause a crash. Unless measures are introduced to give people money to spend so they can jumpstart the economy from the bottom up.

I'm not quick to insult, but this flies in the face of all economic theory (all the above as well) and is exhausting to refute. The economy does not need a jumpstart via cash infusion. The economy will not crash because of perpetual deflation (which you are arguing will happen via "cash running out").

> "You shouldn't, and the cheapest solution to your resulting financial insecurity is for the government to give you money to go buy things."

Where do you suppose this money will come from? What plane of the astral aether will this money come from? Value is perpetually created and destroyed everyday, if you implement a "workless wage" you will crash the economy by devaluing your currency.

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

#177

Post by mistermann »

eanzenberg wrote: post #43
teej wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between making progress and recognizing the impact on real lives vs naively claiming we haven't seen any negative externalities of technology.

That's right, everytime there's been progress there have been negative externalities of the tech produced for the progress. It's nearly impossible to have both, ie, progress and no negative consequences. So which would you rather have?

Is that really true? For example, plumbing.

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

#178

Post by [deleted] »

rhapsodic wrote: post #175
davidf18 wrote: post #168

> "Self-driving cars, for example, could potentially put 5 million people involved in transportation jobs out of work....." On a work day, NYC subway provides 6 million trips. Think of all of the car drivers it is displacing. And then there are the buses! And that is in NYC alone. Just think of all of the drivers mass transit has already displaced throughout the nation! Then there is intercity transit: think of all o…

> On a work day, NYC subway provides 6 million trips. Think of all of the car drivers it is displacing. And then there are the buses! And that is in NYC alone. Just think of all of the drivers mass transit has already displaced throughout the nation! I think if you read history, you'll find that, overall, the automobile disrupted and reduced the size of the passenger rail industry, and public transportation in genera…

[deleted]

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

#180

Post by sanswork »

Mz wrote: post #128
whack wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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. I am a woman. My experience of the forum has vastly improved during that time. I am not saying that HN does not have problems. When I arrived, it had a real sense of community that it seems to most…

I am a man so obviously I've not had the same experiences as you with regards to feeling excluded earlier on but I'm kind of mixed in my overall feelings. I've been here pretty much the same length of time as you and I agree with you that some stuff has definitely improved. Any topic dealing with women or minorities of any sort use to be truly dreadful places to view the comments in. Now they are just kind of dreadful but the bad is hugely outweighed by great comments.

But the general feel seems a lot meaner these days. There are less specific attacks against race/gender/sexuality/etc but more general attacks against anyone and everyone and I think it has a compounding effect. I know I am certainly less kind on here than I use to be. It's that drive towards the negative that made me all but stop posting on Reddit since I didn't like the person I was when commenting there. It's having the same effect here. Every Show HN/talk/release seems to be more than 50% negative these days.

I'd love to see someone run a sentiment analysis on the comments here though to see if it's just that I'm seeing more negativity or if it really exists.

I mean we all remember drews first dropbox post and the whole "Why not just use rsync! this is stupid" type comments so maybe I just have rose coloured glasses.

Post reply on HN