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Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

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Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#131

Post by kevinpet »

sogrady wrote: post #79
1010100101 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Another one who should get some flack is Thiel. He may just be the worst, suggesting kids should forgo a university education and going so far as to actually debate the "issue" whether an education is "worth it". For some of these VC to make money, they have no need to see university degrees. But they have their own interests in mind. And, lo and behold, most of them have university degrees.

I did find it ironic that one of Thiel's major complaints about education was the exclusivity of universities like Harvard given that his solution was a program that admitted a mere 20 would-be entrepreneurs. jwz is right: be alert to the agendas of those who would influence you.

jwz is saying "follow the money". Thiel's drop-out scholarships are offered by his non-profit foundation.

There is no relation between the discord between the self interest of a VC and a startup employee on the one hand, and the possibility that Thiel is giving bad advice to people who he has no financial interest in.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#132

Post by [deleted] »

PakG1 wrote: post #128
1010100101 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure some people might find Arrington very convincing as well (especially when he's recycling old jwz material). That may be why jwz has chosen to speak out.

Whether or not someone is convincing is moot if they're correct. That's what should be considered, not whether or not they're convincing. And every self-thinking analytical individual should be free to draw their own conclusions, after gathering as much data as possible.

[deleted]

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#133

Post by kamaal »

tsunamifury wrote: post #121
kamaal wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad has hypertension. He has a weak digestion(Because of stress). His legs are weak. He wears glasses(Because he battled the glare from vehicles all this life). He also has bad moods all the time(Because of the frustration battling traffic all day). Yet he doesn't give up. That's what it really boils down to. Diseases are a part of life. You have to learn to live beyond and with them. He was lucky that every time…

Because our dad was paid for every hour of work he put in. He invested his time by the hour and his risk was minimal. For a startup coder he or she is investing by the month or year, and to walk away from that with not much to show for it can be awful. These coders arent paid extra for all nighters, they aren't compensated for losing relationships, they aren't covered when they burnout, all for a realistically very s…

I already mentioned in one of the threads below. Our work as software professionals today is more dependent on productivity not intelligence.

We are quickly assimilating in to normal crowd. We may even be judged by the same metrics they are.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#134

Post by kamaal »

kd1221 wrote: post #123
kamaal wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking of a totally tangential point. The point of the debate is about people who don't cheat(that's the short form of exploiting the loop hole in the system). VC's aren't exploiting the system. They bet their money on stuff which they can loose. How many of such bets turn out to be successful. You work hard on your one start up. Remember they are betting on many start up's at one time. That risk deserves so…

Exploit doesn't always have a negative connotation, and neither does manipulate. Cheating is irrelevant to the discussion. If you think exploitation is only about cheating, then you will be a software developer your whole life, as your father was a cab driver for his. VCs are exploiting a system. In fact, that is their sole purpose. If they win more than they lose, they continue to be VCs, otherwise they slip into ir…

Winning more than loosing is called profit, not exploiting.

Everybody here, is for profits. That's more of goes without saying kind of thing.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#135

Post by tchon »

tpatke wrote: post #101
dschobel wrote: post #55

I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

There is a big difference between PG and Arrington: PG states that you should be working for yourself. YC is set up to allow entrepreneurs to make money if they work hard and a big part of that is allowing a company to grow before being required to take VC money - allowing for a better valuation. Sleeping under your desk with .05% equity? Probably a bad investment. Sleeping under your desk for 45% equity? Well, roll…

Yes, 5 basis points is complete and utter crap. If you're going to work crazy hours, you might as well benefit from it proportionally. Gone are the days in tech when early employees would be rewarded for taking pay cuts in exchange for a higher amount of equity only to be completely diluted by each round of funding and the greediness of the MBA holding business founders.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#136

Post by corin_ »

felipemnoa wrote: post #8

>>Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers. This is just gold.

It struck me more as simple than gold. If a VC that invested in a company gives them advice then obviously his goal is to make more money... but that goal will, in turn make you more money too.

If you don't like the fact that a VC has the potential to make more money than you, the solution is to not take investment from one, not to ignore them after they take investment.

Also remember that yes, they're not putting in a lot of work to make the money - but you aren't putting in a lot of money that you might lose, which they did.

I'm not arguing for or against working crazy hours, just against the idea that you should be scared of any suggestion from a VC.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#137

Post by tchon »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #65
dschobel wrote: post #55

I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

I've not seen eye to eye with PG on everything he has written. But this particular essay is one of my favourites of his. PG laid out an upper bound, which he later clarifies: "If $3 million a year seems high, remember that we're talking about the limit case: the case where you not only have zero leisure time but indeed work so hard that you endanger your health." And his upper limit for hours worked was 2x that of a…

I think PG's background as an actual programmer and having a computational paradigm versus Arrington's sophistry is an underlying factor here too.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#138

Post by notatoad »

tom wrote: post #12

I hope this signals the end of folks walking on egg shells around Arrington. He's no longer a "newsman". He's no longer going to make or break every startup that ends up on AOLCrunch. He's just an investor hoping for deal flow. An investor who's proven he's probably not the guy you'd want to work with, probably not the guy you'd want to partner with, probably not the guy who will ever be on anyone's side but his own.…

people walk on eggshells around arrington? i thought he was pretty much universally reviled, people are constantly calling him out for various crap. maybe not startup people who want his money/coverage, but bloggers and other hangers-on.

i like this site: http://www.ismikearringtonadick.com/

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#139

Post by InclinedPlane »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #81
staunch wrote: post #64

It's the height of ridiculousness for someone who retired, at like age 30 to run a nightclub, after working at a startup to say it's a "con". What kind of terrible "con" turns the victim into a millionaire. There are far more startup employees that have become rich than founders or investors. Tens or hundreds of thousands of them. Of course they don't get as much money as the founders or investors, but how is that an…

JWZ acknowledges that he got lucky with the "Netscape Startup Lottery" and is trying to tell people that most employees at most startups won't see the same results. Even if they are world-class genius coders. Even if they put in 80 hour work weeks for several years. JWZ isn't a good example to emulate because he is a rare example. Patio11 is a better example because there are literally thousands more devs in a simila…

For reference: if you earn, say, $70k/year at a startup working 80 hr/week 52 weeks a year you are making the equivalent of $13.50 an hour at an hourly position that paid overtime. Alternately: $25/hr for 51 hr/week with 2 weeks of vacation a year. Hope that equity is worth it!

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#140

Post by _delirium »

nostromo wrote: post #91
1010100101 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Another one who should get some flack is Thiel. He may just be the worst, suggesting kids should forgo a university education and going so far as to actually debate the "issue" whether an education is "worth it". For some of these VC to make money, they have no need to see university degrees. But they have their own interests in mind. And, lo and behold, most of them have university degrees.

I think you guys are being unduly cynical. Thiel recently debated this on NPR ( http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/too-... ) and I found him very convincing. He repeatedly talked about the concern of young people leaving college with 200k+ in debt -- which I think is very fair.

Thiel's also discussed elsewhere his frustration with the liberal politics of academia, which he sees as an impediment to libertarian policies gaining wider buy-in, so I think he might have motivations for attempting to undermine it besides pure concern for students' debt. (Though it's quite possible he earnestly dislikes academia for multiple, independent reasons.)
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