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Hanging up my spurs

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Re: Hanging up my spurs

#71

Post by sulam »

angersock wrote: post #67
sulam wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a strawman opposition when you see people you work with unable to re-enter the country, environmental leadership questioning the human role in global warming (or even the role of CO2 in warming!), members of organizations that openly identify with the Nazi movement as first tier advisors to the president, etc... This is not a strawman, this is real and it's worth fighting. So are the other things you mention…

Everyone is free to pick their fight, sure, but when people have accumulated great power there is great responsibility, no? And if these people come from a philosophical and cultural and political monoculture, I think it's reasonable to be suspicious about them. FWIW, I feel the same way about the energy execs and crooked politicians--except in the case of at least Trump, there is at least a mandate of government gra…

So if the next election goes the other way, you're going to be supportive of the Chris Saccas of the world and discount the Gary Cohns and Steven Bannons? (note I purposefully am picking two very divergent points of view from within the Trump administration who happen to be multimillionaires).

At the end of the day, I personally care about actions and how they stack up against my personal ethical and moral compass. You are obviously free to use whatever method you want to decide if someone is doing good in the world. And yes, Sacca is free to spend his money however he likes. I also support Rebekah Mercer's right to spend her money on vicious attack ads. I don't have to respect her for it -- regardless of who won the election -- and you don't have to respect Chris Sacca.

Regarding monocultures -- circumscribe a set tightly enough and everyone comes from a monoculture. I don't think Sacca is any less exposed to divergent viewpoints than the Mercer's are, to use a relevant example.

And finally, just to respond to your overarching argument that Sacca has some responsibility to use his money in a particular way. He may believe so, and that wouldn't make it any more your business how he does it. And if he chooses to spend it on wine, art, and yacht collecting because that's what he wants to do with it we can both believe he can do better (Larry Ellison, if you're reading this: you can do better) -- but the society we live in hasn't made us the arbiters of good billionaire behavior, more's the pity. :)

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#72

Post by tyrust »

oxryly1 wrote: post #65
jtraffic wrote: post #54

It's interesting to think about this decision in the context of Nassim Taleb's writing. If you have a large sample of investors, some of them would be good just by chance. It's possible that Chris Sacca is not good just by chance, but we can't really know, and that is an excellent feature of walking away at this point. Most people will just tell themselves that Sacca "beat the game" and left. It could easily be that…

True, and the only way to know more about the quality of his decision-making is to wait another 20 years and see where he's at.

If he is as successful as he sounds he has probably liquidated enough to last for far more than 20 years.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#73

Post by angersock »

Thrillington wrote: post #69
angersock wrote: post #56

> As a rich white guy, being an activist/loudmouth in the #resistance often means taking up political positions that are against my own apparent self-interest. These oppressive zealots in the White House... > You mean beyond fighting a despotic regime... > I assure you, that’s not going to happen. Nevertheless, I am spending a great deal of time meeting with all of the beautifully spontaneous and decentralized organi…

With most people, I'd agree with you that local engagement would be more effective. Doubly so in the homeless hating bay area. However, Chris' access to capital, which equates to power in America, makes it more successful for him to fight on the federal level. trump in the white house has emboldened local behavior that threatens our education/healthcare systems, the homeless and countless other social safety net rela…

I'm unconvinced that somebody who made their money in many cases exploiting the little guy ( https://lowercasecapital.com/posse/ ) is suddenly finding religion here in any meaningful way.

Action at the large levels is remote and indistinct, and boils down to status signalling and rich people games.

Paying for housing and food and shelter and schooling and grants and libraries and hospitals goes a hell of a lot farther...just see the good works of Carnegie and Kaiser, to name two.

Here's an interesting read you may enjoy along similar lines: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-dem...

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#74

Post by hsod »

angersock wrote: post #56

> As a rich white guy, being an activist/loudmouth in the #resistance often means taking up political positions that are against my own apparent self-interest. These oppressive zealots in the White House... > You mean beyond fighting a despotic regime... > I assure you, that’s not going to happen. Nevertheless, I am spending a great deal of time meeting with all of the beautifully spontaneous and decentralized organi…

Your criticism here is that he expressed his opposition to Trump with too much "melodrama"? That's pretty weak. Sometimes dramatic things happen. Sometimes dramatic language is warranted.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#75

Post by jakelarkin »

the 2010-2015 era of generous outcomes for early-stage startups is over. No more easy follow-on rounds or acquisitions. Being VC becomes a lot harder so all these non-institutional personality guys - Sacca, Tim Ferris, Ashton Kutcher, and Russ Hanneman types are going to move on.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#76

Post by gist »

jacquesm wrote: post #58
kevinmannix wrote: post #2

Chris Sacca is one of the few VCs that people outside of the SV bubble and even the tech world know and associate with the valley. He, along with Mark Cuban & potentially a few others will likely be part of the few of this era remembered many decades from now when history gets consolidated into a few figures, much like Gordon Moore of Intel & William Shockley of the Mountain View of the 1950's.

Mark Cuban got rich of one deal that probably shouldn't have happened in the first place. He got very lucky.

As you know there is luck (of various types) involved for anyone who has ever gotten anywhere (even if family connections as a separate benefit there is also luck).

You have to give Mark credit for doing a good job of snowing and playing Yahoo that does take skill.

Look if Steve Jobs had grown up in, say, Iowa USA, had strong family ties that prevented him from even thinking about moving to Silicon Valley, where would he be today?

If Bill Gates's mother wasn't on the board of the Red Cross he'd never have the IBM connection that gave him the contract. (Forget as well that he was the right age at the right time as well).

Notoriety and wealth is always outsized relative to actual capabilities.

Was watching Bloomberg on 60 minutes. Sure Mike is a really smart guy. Worth 40 billion or whatever. But compared to a smart guy who is worth 3 million or in debt he isn't that much smarter (Edit: I mean as a percentage ..). It's always been like this.

I am not ever jealous that people have luck and great success. But I am typically annoyed at how other people (press, pundits, media, bloggers) give them accolades that essentially reduce to 'wow this guy is really smart capable' w/o acknowledging any luck at all.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#77

Post by s73ver »

jakelarkin wrote: post #75

the 2010-2015 era of generous outcomes for early-stage startups is over. No more easy follow-on rounds or acquisitions. Being VC becomes a lot harder so all these non-institutional personality guys - Sacca, Tim Ferris, Ashton Kutcher, and Russ Hanneman types are going to move on.

Well, Russ Hanneman is already in the Three Comma club, so he doesn't need to that much.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#78

Post by disease »

gist wrote: post #76
jacquesm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark Cuban got rich of one deal that probably shouldn't have happened in the first place. He got very lucky.

As you know there is luck (of various types) involved for anyone who has ever gotten anywhere (even if family connections as a separate benefit there is also luck). You have to give Mark credit for doing a good job of snowing and playing Yahoo that does take skill. Look if Steve Jobs had grown up in, say, Iowa USA, had strong family ties that prevented him from even thinking about moving to Silicon Valley, where woul…

You've got me thinking about the interplay of natural ability, hard work, luck and success.

How unsuccessful could someone be if they were extremely talented and hard-working, but had little luck. How far can luck push someone with no ability or desire? I suspect luck plays a greater role in our lives then we are willing to admit, even though it can be mitigated to some effect.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#79

Post by ryanSrich »

jpeg_hero wrote: post #5

This looks like a really easy marker that we've topped out on unicorn/big secondary market. When the smart big players start to take their chips off the table you can be sure this thing has peaked.

These types of comments are always hilarious. Really? You think we've topped out on 1bn dollar companies in the year 2017? AI, Self Driving Cars, Improvements to Flying, SPACE!? You honestly think there's nothing left to invest in?

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#80

Post by angersock »

sulam wrote: post #71
angersock wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is free to pick their fight, sure, but when people have accumulated great power there is great responsibility, no? And if these people come from a philosophical and cultural and political monoculture, I think it's reasonable to be suspicious about them. FWIW, I feel the same way about the energy execs and crooked politicians--except in the case of at least Trump, there is at least a mandate of government gra…

So if the next election goes the other way, you're going to be supportive of the Chris Saccas of the world and discount the Gary Cohns and Steven Bannons? (note I purposefully am picking two very divergent points of view from within the Trump administration who happen to be multimillionaires). At the end of the day, I personally care about actions and how they stack up against my personal ethical and moral compass. Y…

So, if Bannon and Cohn were to go and start rabble-rousing about the "resistance" and the "despotic democrats" (and Lord knows folks did plenty of that when Obama took office), I'd be similarly annoyed.

My overarching argument is not quite that Sacca has a responsibility to use his money in a particular way--it's more that I find it distressing that powerful people (that arguably should know better) seem to have gotten caught up in the zeitgeist of the times and aren't being more conservative (in the "wait, let's stop and think about what we're actually advocating and how that could play out") and open-minded (in the "wait, maybe these other points of view are simply different and not always wrong").

I feel the same way about folks on the other side--they just tend not to show up on HN as much.

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