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It’s Time to Build

a16z.com

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Re: It’s Time to Build

#301

Post by stale2002 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #8

You are a billionare Marc. You are probably one of the top 1000 people with the capacity to build in North America. So, how many of the things you list are you building?

This is what I will call the redirection or hypocrisy fallacy.

Regardless if you think that Marc is fulfilling the values that he claims to support, point this out does nothing to dismiss the actual point that he made.

So his point is still valid. And misdirecting the conversation to being about Marc, is not a valid way of disagreeing with the point being made.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#302

Post by qplex »

ggreer wrote: post #295
qplex wrote: post #230

If we didn't have unlimited travel across borders this epidemic would have never happened. Absolutely nothing would need to be built to achieve this.

Considering that even North Korea has infections, isn't this false?

Viruses like this can spread very quickly and develop to pandemias only because we can fly from China to New York in one day.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#303

Post by baryphonic »

tlb wrote: post #144
oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

Getting an answer from a court (is X legal?) takes a long time: at least a few years and several hundred thousand dollars. Far too long to wait before building a business around X. Asking people to build the business first and then find out if it's legal isn't how a society of laws is supposed to work. Fast courts would be a huge benefit to society.

This is also a failure to build. We just accept it as a given that courts take too long, judges are too lazy to get their opinions out in a timely manner and the legal profession too often gets fat fees for slow-walking legal proceedings when technology exists to make expeditious dispute resolution much faster. For example, I can think of no reason why we can't mandate that discovery must use electronic format unless the information was never before recorded in an online electronic system. Given that I have never seen a functioning typewriter in a corporate office, I imagine that would smooth things a bit.

Also, just as a matter of how the US legal system works, the presumption is that someone is innocent until challenged, whether by the state or by a private party. A prospective business could not file a petition with a court asking if their conduct was legal or not, since it's not really a controversy. But businesses will always do loads of due diligence with lawyers beforehand, who should help identify areas of legal risk.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#304

Post by darawk »

wwweston wrote: post #257
KirinDave wrote: post #167

I find this essay to be extremely frustrating, and a good example of the attitude I've personally witnessed Andreessen have in the few interactions I've had with him directly. > Is the problem capitalism? I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know — all of these fields are highly lucrative already and should be prime stomping grounds for capitalist investment, goo…

Yep. Markets build in response to incentives. Most American production choices are determined by markets, including the choices of investors allocating capital. Public institutions build and manage in response to electoral incentives. If we're not prepared, it's because the incentives are wrong. On the market front, once incentives and maybe even insights become opaque at the level of the abstraction of return on inv…

> Markets build in response to incentives. Most American production choices are determined by markets, including the choices of investors allocating capital.

This leaves out the most important problem though: regulatory capture and bureaucratic gridlock. Markets would love to build more housing. But they're prevented from doing so by the regulatory state. Markets would love to build nuclear power plants, but they're prevented from doing so by the regulatory state.

Which ultimately comes back to the democratic question of will. We need to elect people who will alter the regulatory state to make way for these things.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#305

Post by MR4D »

oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

Simple - politics is about control. Laws are a form of politics.

Why would anyone give up control once they had acquired it?

Re: It’s Time to Build

#306

Post by XorNot »

oxymoron wrote: post #296
harryh wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point being, why not write simpler laws and regulations and leave it to the courts to interpret what adheres to the spirit of it? With the barriers of entry gone, I think we'd see a renewed vitality to many ossified sectors. I agree with your overall point, but you have the regulatory differences between the US and Europe exactly backwards. Europe (excluding England somewhat) has a statutory legal system. Things are…

I may not have expressed that point very well, but it seems like the common law system would encourage less explicit regulation rather than more, so that seems like a bit of a contradiction. Does the need for more litigation drive a desire to be more explicit in how statues are written?

It means power is captured by those who can afford lawyers, and lawyers are expensive. There's no way to plan your risks up front in an area with not a lot of case-law, because you don't know them - your business plan now gets to be "hopefully we win this case in our favor in the next 3 years, but if it goes all the way to the supreme court..."

Re: It’s Time to Build

#307

Post by adammunich »

soared wrote: post #228

Ah yes, the lack of success in our nation is purely the individual’s fault. Your fault, my fault. There are no structural issues, misallocations of capitals, disincentives. You should be working harder on bigger problems! Quit your job at Walmart, and start working on things that matter. What the fuck Andreessen? Are you so out of touch with reality that you think if the working class just worked a little harder, a l…

From what I have seen among silicon valley there are two realities:

1. Very wealthy folks who are very removed from society, talk big, but are afraid to invest their money on things that aren't "proven" business models.

2. Normal people who struggle to pay their landlords so much that "building things" is completely out of the question. The east bay, one of the last places where a lot of on-site manufacturing remains, is currently undergoing a "transformation" where the last of these small businesses are being squeezed out by rising rents and are replaced with one-plus-5 housing for google expats.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#308

Post by BrandonM »

KirinDave wrote: post #167

I find this essay to be extremely frustrating, and a good example of the attitude I've personally witnessed Andreessen have in the few interactions I've had with him directly. > Is the problem capitalism? I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know — all of these fields are highly lucrative already and should be prime stomping grounds for capitalist investment, goo…

If there’s anyone in finance who’s less focused on quarterly numbers than VCs, I’d love to hear about them. One of the bigger criticisms of VCs is that they encourage a high risk, high burn, swing-for-the-fences strategy, even in businesses where it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

So while I agree with your sentiments overall, I wouldn’t say that Andreesen is especially reflective of the attitudes that you’re rightly calling out.

Disclaimer: my company received funding from a16z. It’s worth mentioning that, if anything, they have been part of a board encouraging our CEO/founder to think about producing more grand, long-term value, and our CEO already has a strong bias toward long-term thinking.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#310

Post by cmrdporcupine »

soared wrote: post #228

Ah yes, the lack of success in our nation is purely the individual’s fault. Your fault, my fault. There are no structural issues, misallocations of capitals, disincentives. You should be working harder on bigger problems! Quit your job at Walmart, and start working on things that matter. What the fuck Andreessen? Are you so out of touch with reality that you think if the working class just worked a little harder, a l…

Yes.
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