Billionaires Build • Hacker News Board

Re: Billionaires Build

#111

Post by will4274 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

season2episode3 wrote: post #87

Meekro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California legislators made this kind of argument earlier this year as they tried to force Uber to reclassify their drivers as employees. California voters rejected that. Uber drivers themselves overwhelmingly wanted to keep their contractor status. Maybe they don't consider themselves exploited?

Or maybe Uber et al outspending their opponents on political advertising by hundreds of millions of dollars had something to do with it? Not to mention constant advertising for free in their apps. They had the “no on prop 22” people hopelessly outgunned. Even the idea that Uber drivers themselves wanted to keep their contractor status is questionable given that they collected those statistics via polls in the driver…

Every analysis ever has basically concluded that money in politics only matters up until the point of name recognition. Once voters know about both sides of an issue, you actually have to convince them. That's why money is really only interesting for obscure offices (like judges)

Re: Billionaires Build

#112

Post by majormajor » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

waterhouse wrote: post #100

majormajor wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You either contribute to improving it, worsening it, or keeping it the same. In two of those three cases, you are at fault (or continually become more at fault, more precisely, as the ratio of "how much it existed before you" shifts).

Contribute to keeping it the same? What does that mean? If the system has unfair policies, and you never personally enforce them or advocate for them and occasionally advocate against them, have you contributed to keeping it the same, and are you at fault?

You don't exist outside of the world, do you? If the most you ever do is "occasionally advocate against unfair policies," you certainly don't get to pat yourself on the back much for helping anything or anybody.

If you replace the word fault with "responsibility" or even a more neutral "influence" it's much more obvious, I think. You would clearly have less responsibility than the person advocating for said policies, but more than the person fighting them more vigorously or more effectively.

Nobody looks back and says "boy, I'm glad there were all those people who occasionally complained about Windows in the late 90s," they look back and respect and value the people who built alternatives instead.

Re: Billionaires Build

#113

Post by jtsiskin » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

Meekro wrote: post #85

Some of the most successful YC companies are: Stripe, Airbnb, Cruise, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, Dropbox, Gusto, Reddit, and Gitlab. I guess DoorDash and Instacart are accused of participating in the exploitative gig economy. Airbnb is accused of circumventing hotel laws (is that exploitation?) The other 7 on my list are pretty okay though, right?

Yeah, this is a great point. It’s easy to think that most of their companies are explorative, because those companies quickly come to mind.

But if you actually scroll through the list of them, https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/, most seem beneficial to society

Re: Billionaires Build

#114

Post by nsp » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

troughway wrote: post #70

throwaway2245 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think this is a new theme for pg's essays [edit: I mean, I don't think pg's style or content has changed that much], although I've also noticed this change [in responses here]. Usually, HN is the space where his essays are most heavily defended.

This is certainly a newer-ish theme. I am not sure where the bitterness comes, and to be honest, I would like to know. We are reading the same essays. More and more I am starting to think that people who are decrying pg's writing should come clean and say whether or not they've started a business, and if so, what was the outcome. The outcome isn't as relevant, but I bet there are very few people out there who have re…

I've started a business, we were recently acquired for a nine figure sum, and I think PG is increasingly out of touch. My best guess is that he's been rich too long, but I feel the bitterness and have been quite successful in my tech career starting companies.

Re: Billionaires Build

#115

Post by jariel » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #51

jariel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Back then tech was exciting and new. We were changing the world. Now we have changed the world. Mobile is king, web is emperor. We’ve won." You must be young. The difference between 1999 and 2009 was an order of magnitude greater than 2009 to 2019. This is your personal growth journey, not really an objective thing.

I started coding in 1995 so yes I know the difference was huge. Reading Hackers reveals that back in 1960 tech was even nerdier still . Professionalization marches on. Exponentially.

I think the inflection point was when tech, the valley and the internet itself became mainstream, circa 2000. It came along with millenium hype.

Even then only maybe 1/3 of Americans had consistent Internet access, but everyone was talking about it. 'The Matrix' films remember are about hackers.

Then the metastasizing with mobile, which really took root post 2010 when even poor people around the globe became connected.

I think AI, in the long run, won't be the thing we look at, it will be the internet itself.

In 500 years, I wonder if even Television or Radio will be remembered as 'a thing' - they were foundational and transformational, but only for a few decades until the internet took over.

The mishmash we have now, may resemble whatever it is we have in 1000 years. Protocols, sources, viewing tech will all change, but I think that it will actually kind of feel similar. It won't have the orthodoxy of 'TV Channels' with 'set program timings' etc..

Re: Billionaires Build

#116

Post by ghufran_syed » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #101

MattGaiser wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't tried anything. Every business being beaten by Amazon seems to have just decided to lie down and die. Even big businesses facing Amazon have done very little to compete.

""They haven't tried anything. Every business being beaten by Amazon"" This again, is glib. To suggest that you somehow know all these vendors have 'not tried anything'. How about lobbying government to subsidize their business like the US Government subsidizes delivery? Or the VAT tax breaks that Amazon gets? Or the fact that Amazon is dumping merchandise on the US by selling for negative margins, paid for by profit…

Amazon started off with 21 employees - do you think that’s a meaningfully different number? Amazon at that didn’t didn’t get any of the advantages you list. So do think it might be worth considering what they did differently at the beginning, when they were the tiny business, going up against huge and powerful companies like Barnes and Nobles?

https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-history-fa...

Re: Billionaires Build

#117

Post by birdsbirdsbirds » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

Benjammer wrote: post #22

Swizec wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pg has fallen out of touch. The world is very different for the young ones. I’m not old but my tech career started back around 2007. It was very different. Back then tech was exciting and new. We were changing the world. Now we have changed the world. Mobile is king, web is emperor. We’ve won. Tech is to 2020 what finance was to 1980. And VCs are seen as the big baddies. People don’t join this industry for the love o…

I'm even less old, my career started in 2009. My personal experience was that people back then were both more nerdy and more ambitious, not a tradeoff. And now people are "ambitious" but it's a personal ambition to play the game and earn more money than their peers. The people I worked with in 2009 were ambitious in the sense of building products and teams and companies to succeed in the marketplace, or creating new…

Where can one find the ambitious people of 2009 to build products and teams and companies? Asking for a friend.

Re: Billionaires Build

#118

Post by cactus2093 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

season2episode3 wrote: post #87

Meekro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California legislators made this kind of argument earlier this year as they tried to force Uber to reclassify their drivers as employees. California voters rejected that. Uber drivers themselves overwhelmingly wanted to keep their contractor status. Maybe they don't consider themselves exploited?

Or maybe Uber et al outspending their opponents on political advertising by hundreds of millions of dollars had something to do with it? Not to mention constant advertising for free in their apps. They had the “no on prop 22” people hopelessly outgunned. Even the idea that Uber drivers themselves wanted to keep their contractor status is questionable given that they collected those statistics via polls in the driver…

The biggest thing you're ignoring is that Prop 22 brings real, tangible benefits to workers compared to what they have today. It has companies pay I believe 41% of their healthcare costs, whereas previously this was 0%. And it includes the 120% of minimum wage provision, on top of vehicle maintenance costs. This is real money that real drivers and couriers will be "topped up" in certain cases, that they simply weren't being paid before.

The choices were 1. the previous system where drivers were purely contractors, 2. the AB5 world where the vast majority of them can't work at all anymore but the ones that remain are full-time employees, without the flexibility that attracted many of them to this work in the first place as opposed to, say, getting a job at a traditional taxi company, or 3. a compromise where the work stays fundamentally the same but pays more in many cases.

Most of the people I saw opposing prop 22, which I'm guessing includes the above commenter, and certainly included the legislator behind AB5, were just bystanders who viewed it as yet another a philosophical showdown of unionized full-time work vs anything goes exploitation. Even though that framework is a poor fit for the details of this particular situation.

The people with skin in the game saw it differently, the details actually mattered to them and they voted accordingly.

> overturning its provisions needs a 7/8 majority in the state legislature.

Given that prop 22 overturns a law that had recently been passed by the current sitting legislature, there wouldn't have been any point to doing it if it could just be immediately repealed by the same people. Prop 22 can be still be overturned with just a >50% vote by a future ballot proposition.

Re: Billionaires Build

#119

Post by dom2 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

ghufran_syed wrote: post #106

season2episode3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe Uber et al outspending their opponents on political advertising by hundreds of millions of dollars had something to do with it? Not to mention constant advertising for free in their apps. They had the “no on prop 22” people hopelessly outgunned. Even the idea that Uber drivers themselves wanted to keep their contractor status is questionable given that they collected those statistics via polls in the driver…

Your assumption seems to be that the side that spends more money wins - the prop 16 vote, with the YES side spending 20 million and the NO side spending just 1.5 million would seem to refute that idea. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Pr... Is it possible that maybe the voters actually have their own opinions regarding these ballot propositions? So maybe Californian voters think that drivers…

Yes on 22 spent nearly $300 million on the campaign, along with utilizing their established network of apps to tell CA residents to vote yes on 22. The comparison isn't at all equivalent. Uber et al used their vast resources to essentially purchase a law and it's astounding to me that anyone would defend them for it.

Re: Billionaires Build

#120

Post by antisocial » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

" by making things that genuinely delight its customers." - sure all these mindless, addictive apps, sites like Facebook, Instagram, binge watching on Netflix, time sink like YouTube are all genuinely delighting me, I walk away feeling great about myself.

Glossing over important aspects to either feel good about themselves or to project as do-gooders is not going unnoticed.