America has ~16M marketers & sales folks (roughly 10% of all jobs) compared to only ~2.7M engineers. Source: https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/emp-by-detailed-occupation.ht....
It’s Time to Build
461–470 of 1001 posts
Re: It’s Time to Build
#462I 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…
>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. It's like it was written to be the perfect example of SV myopia for the rest of the world. Some examples: >Even private universities like Harvard are lavished with public funding; why can’t 100,000 or 1 million students a year attend Harvard?…
>> You see it in transportation. (...) Where are the high speed trains
> none of this stuff is economically or physically practical.
One of those things are not like the others.
Re: It’s Time to Build
#463If everybody is going to university no one is going to build anything
Re: It’s Time to Build
#464[flagged]
Re: It’s Time to Build
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like all the replies comparing legal system differences between the US and the EU miss a crucial element - the difference in the characters of the people participating in each society. I'm now going to make a couple of broad generalizations. Note, that I'm aware they do not apply to every person, or even state in the US, or member nation of the EU. However having lived in both for a number of years, I do have…
I think trying to put all of Europe into one EU in your argument is already where it breaks down. Europeans don't live in a cohesive society. Italians, Germans, Swedes live in a cohesive society in their small california-sized countries.
I’d say Italians, Germans and Swedes have much more in common with each other than with the US. The way of life is slightly different, but the philosophy is the same.
Re: It’s Time to Build
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the parent notes. The issue is if you have a simple law say "Do not dump harmful chemicals into waterways used for drinking, shipping, etc." this leads to a lot of litigation regarding what is a "harmful chemical". If instead you have it all spelled out "harmful chemicals being one of coal ash, hydrochloric acid, asbestos, ..." (don't quote me on these). Business's know what the variables/costs effecting operation…
I think the modern US version is different: A federal 3 letter agency unilaterally writes detailed regulations, that are for practical purposes law. One problem is that the regulatory agency gets captured by the industry, which means the regulation ends up being a way for the established industries and companies to make competition unfeasible.
We'll see how long that continues to be the case. Chevron deference is under fire from our whackjob supreme court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....
Re: It’s Time to Build
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why not write simpler laws and regulations and leave it to the courts What incentives do lawmakers have to make laws simpler?
How can we change incentives for lawmakers?
Abolish congress completely. There is no use for it when laws are simple and never need to change.
Re: It’s Time to Build
#468Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues, but who will actually do the political work to fight against it? Someone spent money to capture the regulations in the first place, through lobbying and campaign donations. Who will spend the money to lobby and donate for the cause of undoing that? The "builders"? No, their focus and limited capital is spent on whatever it is they are worki…
This is great observation and speculation on what could happen and where would it come from.
I've had multiple conversations with top-10 VC firm partners during our unsuccessful pitches where one of the sticking points is 'unfair-advantage'. 'How can you lock $user_group/$partners into this transaction/partnership?'
Peter Thiel: "Monopolies are a good thing for society... The opposite of perfect competition is monopoly. Whereas a competitive firm must sell at the market price, a monopoly owns its market, so it can set its own prices."
What the world needs is perfect competition. VCs profess that they live in a capitalist system and work within its constraints, but just about all want to capture some part of it, preventing competition from coming in.
One way to limit competition? Get the government to do it for you. Regulatory Capture.
So, excuse me, if I don't buy this coming from a VC. And I won't buy it from any other VC as well. They are arguing for them to be in control of capture. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Re: It’s Time to Build
#469Pre crisis we had The Govt. is required to steer the economic ship to make these things happen: 1) tie state taxes to per/capita testing infrastructure and ppe reserve 2) stress test public health institutes like financial institutes 3) use the military to war game these events
> who is left to build? The people who are now unemployed
They are waitresses, janitors, and other low level people. They can't build.
Re: It’s Time to Build
#470I 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…
> This overlooks the fact that Marc is in fact one of these folks who has a profoundly outsized role in deciding what he wants. He says what he wants, but then he expects someone else to build it. He's rich: if he wants these things, why doesn't he just pay to get them built? Sure, not all of them, but just pick one and pay to get it built. But, as you point out, he's not interested in long term investments--and that…
I doubt Marc has anywhere near enough capital to get these things done (by himself). 2 trillion is on a completely different order of magnitude.
That said, maybe this post is a call for help and the billionaires will unite?