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Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

nytimes.com

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Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#161

Post by fnl »

bickfordb wrote: post #76
megaman22 wrote: post #5

The tech industry has, historically and in aggregate, had pretty solid rates of returns. If I was sitting on a dwindling store of natural resources as my primary store of wealth, I would probably want to try to diversify that wealth into other areas and grow that wealth aggressively while my potentially limited income source is still highly profitable. I'm not sure that more nefarious aims need to be posited than sim…

It's not clear what you mean by "tech industry", but total VC returns have been negative for at least a decade

Source(s)?

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#162

Post by doktrin »

sokoloff wrote: post #138
59nadir wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is made in the article that a lot of this money was not taken in order to stay alive at all. The concrete example is Slack taking $250 million that they haven't even earmarked for anything in particular, just "operational flexibility". It's a nice play on emotions to bring up "wife and children", but that's not reality here.

The claim GP was responding to was a "never" claim, not a "not if it was just to bank $250MM without any specific allocation for it".

There's not much to gain from spinning pedantic hypotheticals around the word "never"

"But what if you were hanging from a cliff and only a job offer from Pol Pot could save you.. "

Because that's not missing the point at all.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#163

Post by oculusthrift »

sho wrote: post #126
brighteyes wrote: post #41

There is something to this argument, but it's ruined. The author and many others don't like Saudi Arabia and Russia. That's the main reason for advocating a boycott of their investment money, because while the author mentions the poor human rights records of those two countries as the reason, there are plenty of other countries with such records. The main example of which is China, which is of course not mentioned. T…

I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line? I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good: badness country 100% DPRK 90% Saudi Arabia 80% Dubai 70% Russia 60% China 50% USA 40% India 30% Japan 20% Australia 10%…

australia, with its migrant crisis is somehow better than japan?

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#164

Post by fnl »

manfredo wrote: post #147
sho wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of agree with you, but I think you muddy your argument by getting into the weeds somewhat. For me this whole thing is pretty simple - where do you draw your line? I mean, off the top of my head here's a rough list, in my extremely rough estimation, of human rights offenders from bad to good: badness country 100% DPRK 90% Saudi Arabia 80% Dubai 70% Russia 60% China 50% USA 40% India 30% Japan 20% Australia 10%…

And how do we make countries high up on that list go down? Economic isolationism surely isn't the answer - seeing as North Korea is #1 on that list. Notice that the countries lowest on your list of badness have the closest ties to Western countries (with the exception of Antarctica). Saudi Arabia becoming more closely tied economically to Western countries is an opportunity to lessen its "badness" on your scale. Rece…

Your assumption is that economic cooperation makes "evil" countries become more like the "good" countries they cooperate with. I don't think that holds true. Just take China and Russia, who have very strong economic ties with almost all of the world. Human rights in Russia certainly are not getting any better, and I doubt they are in China. In fact, taking recent relevations into account, those ties might just as much be corrupting the "good" countries, and not (just) working the way you assume they are.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#165

Post by kakarot »

adventured wrote: post #119
kakarot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took that as people need to be a little more honest and accept that those slogans are lies and bullshit. This kind of attitude is exactly the problem. Sure, they are for profit, but since when is that the only thing that matters? I would never knowingly take blood money from a dictator, even if it meant I lived an impoverished life. If the company I worked for took such money, I would begin looking for alternate em…

> What they're asking is why do we let this happen in a country that boasts about its commitment to democracy and human rights? The let part is very curious for its implication. What would the proposal be exactly, other than using violence and bureaucracy (every investment goes through an inherently corrupt government investment approval board) to curb free association and dictate capital flows through a command & co…

I'm sorry, exactly what kind of socioeconomic policy do you support? You speak as if you are a proponent of free market capitalism. Is that so?

We live in the real world, where things are not black and white, but that line you talk about? It's called law and we will be spending at least the next couple of centuries working out the kinks.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#166

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

Barrin92 wrote: post #92
kakarot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took that as people need to be a little more honest and accept that those slogans are lies and bullshit. This kind of attitude is exactly the problem. Sure, they are for profit, but since when is that the only thing that matters? I would never knowingly take blood money from a dictator, even if it meant I lived an impoverished life. If the company I worked for took such money, I would begin looking for alternate em…

> What they're asking is why do we let this happen in a country that boasts about its commitment to democracy and human rights? don't get me wrong, I care about this as much as you do. I'm just saying that the valley itself is not the right place for this, it's a political matter. we shouldn't waste our time going on a deep introspection tour into 'tech values', they have a duty towards their shareholders as much as…

> they have a duty towards their shareholders as much as BP or Exxon

Or as little. The concept of fiduciary duty is just a hack to keep corporations working in the service of capital, rather than, you know, the common good or whatever. It's neither a legal standard nor an economic imperative, just a convenient myth. I guess it can be encoded into the charter of a company, in which case it is their imperative, but I digress.

But I totally agree that it's absurd that this debate is being scoped to the tech industry.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#167

Post by kakarot »

wsc981 wrote: post #120
kakarot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took that as people need to be a little more honest and accept that those slogans are lies and bullshit. This kind of attitude is exactly the problem. Sure, they are for profit, but since when is that the only thing that matters? I would never knowingly take blood money from a dictator, even if it meant I lived an impoverished life. If the company I worked for took such money, I would begin looking for alternate em…

I would never knowingly take blood money from a dictator, even if it meant I lived an impoverished life. Even if you would need this money to keep your own wife and children alive?

Yes. You act like it's a hard question to answer.

If my wife hates me for not taking blood money, I have failed to find a compatible life partner.

If my children hate me for it, I have failed to educate them about morality.

Whatever kind of ill will falls my way as a result of sticking to my guns and valuing the herd over the individual, I will take it with a smile. Because I can sleep at night knowing that I didn't decide that my own petty little problems are more important than the problems faced by people living under dictatorship.

Love can be an incredibly powerful thing. Love can be an incredibly selfish thing. Love can bring peace to all who accept it. Love can be the spark that leads to war. It is neither purely a good or evil thing. It cannot be used as an excuse for supporting the systematic degradation of human rights. That is love being selfish. Because it's not about the wives and children of the world, it is about your wife and your children.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#168

Post by kakarot »

doktrin wrote: post #162
sokoloff wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim GP was responding to was a "never" claim, not a "not if it was just to bank $250MM without any specific allocation for it".

There's not much to gain from spinning pedantic hypotheticals around the word "never" "But what if you were hanging from a cliff and only a job offer from Pol Pot could save you.. " Because that's not missing the point at all.

It's hard for people to understand it, and this is not the first time I've been accused of lying about this very thing... But when I say never, I mean it.

My principle on this matter is more important than any emotion I may have.

Some people feel like it's ok to be selfish as long as they don't directly see the results of their selfishness. Yet imagine if every time you went to pick up your check, you were forced to watch a woman get stoned to death because someone raped her, and the ones doing the stoning were the ones handing you the check.

Any person that is okay with this scenario is a scourge on this planet.

Any person who isn't okay with this scenario, but is ok with taking blood money from foreign countries where they do not have to see the violence actually taking place, well honestly I just pity them for living their life in such a state of confusion.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#169

Post by abalashov »

The developed world already transfers gargantuan sums of wealth to the Saudis for energy supplies, and has done so for many decades. What exactly is the moral distinction here? From a 50,000 ft view, it seems that the social bargain we have with the Saudis is what it is, and the particular modes of capital flow aren't the critical issue.

If nothing else, massive inputs of fossil fuels are required to sustain the Valley tech economy, too, in all kinds of direct and indirect ways. Tech has been helping make the oil autocracies rich since forever.

Re: Saudi Money Fuels the Tech Industry. It’s Time to Ask Why

#170

Post by gtirloni »

odiroot wrote: post #142

Why now, New York Times? Just after Saudis started to clean their house. What's your point? This article cannot be accidental.

Because that's how news works.

There are more incentives (i.e. more eyeballs) to talk about the latest news and people who are in power today. If Congo becomes a global investiment power in the future, you'll hear more about Congo.

Of course we should all be wary of market manipulations by people with easy access to lots of eyeballs but this article is too widespread to have any direct impact on the market or a specific company.

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