Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio] • Hacker News Board

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#151

Post by numair » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

mysore wrote: post #147

nceqs3 wrote: post #67

The Chamath Craze is ridiculous. The guy is a stock promoter through and through. It's really sad to see people fall into this guys trap. He has an incredibly story (coming from nothing) but lets look at his career: He "leaves" (aka fired) Facebook for being a D*ck head. Nobody is willing to work with him because he is rude and a jerk. His direct reports would cry regularly. Steven Levy talked about this in his book…

man you dont know this guy or his life story. people say all kinds of stuff in books. who cares about his dating/marriage life? That is really low to bring that kind of stuff up in this context. the fact that this is the highest comment speaks to how toxic this community has become. His "VC" fund is a social good company that prioritizes people's wellfare over profits. and who cares if its a success or failure, VC is…

Okay, I’ll take the bait. As someone with direct experience with the topic at hand, who has worked with / remains friends with people with direct experience regarding the subject of this conversation, I can say that many of the assertions of the parent ring true to me.

And, in fact, the stuff you don’t know is even worse.

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#152

Post by remarkEon » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:03 AM UTC

numair wrote: post #151

mysore wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

man you dont know this guy or his life story. people say all kinds of stuff in books. who cares about his dating/marriage life? That is really low to bring that kind of stuff up in this context. the fact that this is the highest comment speaks to how toxic this community has become. His "VC" fund is a social good company that prioritizes people's wellfare over profits. and who cares if its a success or failure, VC is…

Okay, I’ll take the bait. As someone with direct experience with the topic at hand, who has worked with / remains friends with people with direct experience regarding the subject of this conversation, I can say that many of the assertions of the parent ring true to me. And, in fact, the stuff you don’t know is even worse .

What does this have to do with what he said?

Steve Jobs, the example that always gets invoked here, was a horrible human being. Did that make him wrong? No, it didn't, it made him an asshole. And Chamath being an asshole doesn't make him wrong here either. Is Chamath Steve Jobs? No, but who cares. I found what he said interesting, and probably right in ways that make people uncomfortable.

Which probably explains why folks are bringing up his love life.

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#153

Post by sgpl » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

nceqs3 wrote: post #67

The Chamath Craze is ridiculous. The guy is a stock promoter through and through. It's really sad to see people fall into this guys trap. He has an incredibly story (coming from nothing) but lets look at his career: He "leaves" (aka fired) Facebook for being a D*ck head. Nobody is willing to work with him because he is rude and a jerk. His direct reports would cry regularly. Steven Levy talked about this in his book…

I agree with the comment that @mysore has written in a response to this but I wanted to add my two cents as well.

I mean if you have a disagreement with his ideas, it makes sense to debate them/attack them but on a post about his comments on the WSB debate you've tried to take his personal life and accomplishments to the cleaners.

> Yes, I am pretty pro WSB just like chamath. I think he is wrong about the "research" that is happening though. There is a bull case but not a $25 bil mkt cap one

And that's after you've already mentioned that you're pretty pro WSB. Is he wrong though, WSB posters identified, correctly, that they could use the GME short interest in their favour by squeezing the folks on the other side of the trade. @chamath never mentioned there's fundamental research to support a $25 billion market cap.

I don't know the backstory on his time at facebook but from all the articles I've read on his VC fund, he returned north of 30-40% / year while it was active. When commenters have pointed out his wins, you've discounted it as 'oh, but it's just one company' or something along the lines.

Additionally, Steve Cohen isn't really a fair comparison - that dude's company was literally shut down for insider trading - it's a whole different ballgame that Steve Cohen pretty much got away without so much as a slap on the wrist though.

Also the world is littered with people who've made poor decisions / decisions that are suboptimal to the external observer but I think given you don't have a microphone into their personal stuff, it seems really disingenuous to use that to disparage him.

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#154

Post by xadhominemx » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

anonAndOn wrote: post #141

xadhominemx wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owners of bank equity did not do fine in the global financial crisis

Which banks went out of business? Weren't many (all?) major banks about to be insolvent before getting saved by their buddies (aka, future bank Directors) in government?

They were illiquid not insolvent

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#155

Post by flylib » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

nceqs3 wrote: post #67

The Chamath Craze is ridiculous. The guy is a stock promoter through and through. It's really sad to see people fall into this guys trap. He has an incredibly story (coming from nothing) but lets look at his career: He "leaves" (aka fired) Facebook for being a D*ck head. Nobody is willing to work with him because he is rude and a jerk. His direct reports would cry regularly. Steven Levy talked about this in his book…

"The fund has no "major" wins."

Slack?

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#156

Post by totalZero » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:41 AM UTC

u678u wrote: post #43

paxys wrote: post #14

Wall Street is a large scale gambling operation with a public-backed safety net. Apparently they don't like it when people call this out. And they definitely hate it more when outsiders start beating them at their game.

> Apparently they don't like it when people call this out. Source? Clearly "they" dont like losing money but the rules are clear.

"Their" clients are a bunch of rich people who control media companies, donate to politicians, etc.

The Secretary of State of Massachusetts was on TV pushing a 30-day trading halt on GME. That doesn't strike me as something that particularly falls within his ambit, and I genuinely wonder what motivated his appearance there.

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#157

Post by notRobot » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:58 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #131

dang wrote: post #12

The stack on this story so far (newest ones at the bottom—if I've missed any, can you let me know at hn@ycombinator.com? this is sort of an experiment and we may eventually write software to support building lists like this collaboratively): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932598 ("Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25904779 ("How WallStreetBets Pushed GameStop…

(This is a stub reply so I can collapse the various comments responding to this, so as not to distract too much from the topic at hand.)

YouTube video re-up: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJ2DD61HzI&feature=youtu.be

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#158

Post by wjp3 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:07 AM UTC

baryphonic wrote: post #85

in3d wrote: post #16

He didn’t have any answer as to the fate of new bag holders he created with his tweet. That was irresponsible. His plan to make hedge funds disclose their positions daily as some kind of a solution to overleverage makes no sense whatsoever. And he’s delusional about research skills of WSB posters as compared to Wall Street analysts.

> He didn’t have any answer as to the fate of new bag holders he created with his tweet. That was irresponsible. I have to say up front, I find this kind of attitude incredibly infantilizing and condescending. Exactly how many "bag holders" did Chamath "create"? (Hint: Zero.) Obviously the "bag holders" are assuming the risks themselves, as is (absent any evidence to the contrary) Chamath. They're on a forum literall…

>(He didn't make this argument as well as he could have, but Chamath himself points out that when Goldman or AIG played stupid games, everyone else was conscripted into being the "bag holders.")

This - this is the point that seems to keep getting lost. The Big Guys get bail-outs constantly - hell Melvin got a float of $3B over this mess.

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#159

Post by wolfretcrap » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:11 AM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #89

systemvoltage wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt, there is some good stuff in there as well. A few DDs are very in-depth and surprisingly good. I don’t think the whole subreddit is like that.

Does DD stand for Deep Dive or what does it stand for?

I always thought it meant doubling down.

Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]

#160

Post by dataminer » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:15 AM UTC

Something that doesn't make sense to me, the images I have seen on internet show that Melvin Capital used PUTs to short GME. Those options may have become worthless by now, but they don't seem to be worth 2.5 or 3 billion dollars. Looks like Melvin Capital's downside was limited, or am I missing something?