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The venture capitalist's dilemma

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Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#71

Post by surgical_fire »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
surgical_fire wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich will always be powerful. The irony is that we do live in the best of all worlds, but it still sucks. There's no utopia, there's only dystopia. And I disagree that democracy will ever be improved, at least not with humans at the helm.

> I disagree that democracy will ever be improved, at least not with humans at the helm Again, this is an easy and thoughtless take without a proposed alternative. (Benevolent AI is just benevolent dictatorship with a veneer.) It's also gratingly at odds with very modern history. History that, granted, is not part of our public education corpus.

I proposed no alternative because there is no alternative.

A benevolent AI would not work as humans will be the ones to define the constraints under with the benevolent AI operates. Make no mistake, the ruling class will define constraints that will give them more power.

My remark about "humans at the helm" may have given you the false impression that I am optimistic about technology solving our societal woes. I apologize for that. I state that there's no eucatastrophe to save us from ourselves. My remark was intended as a sardonic statement that while there are humans, nothing will ever be improved. These problems are as old as humanity, and will only cease being problems when humanity ceases to exist.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#72

Post by pc_edwin »

Its fascinating how narratives can have such a outsized impact on our worldview, often distorting reality. In this context, we see the "evil bankers" vs "free market" trope but in reality, neither sides couldn't be further from the truth.

You can prevent the bank runs and massive economic booms/busts by simply prohibiting banks from monetising deposits. We wont do this because it will collapse the nation-state as we know it.

Banks and the government have an agreement where banks operate as if deposits are stable in order to buy long-term assets, while the government insures deposit stability.

These assets primarily comprise of lending to governments, businesses and mortgages. In other words, the banking system essentially acts as a quasi-arm of the government, enabling the welfare state to function both explicitly by buying government debt and implicitly by expanding the monetary supply.

The progressive and libertarian narratives were both fighting against their own interests, which is why I find them both amusing. The reality is that we haven't had a free market for banks since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, so it wasn't a battle between "evil bankers" and "poor poor lidl workers," but rather a game of king-making.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#73

Post by djbusby »

kqr wrote: post #11
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #2

> that those controlling massive amounts of capital and power in our society are not the smartest, or most level-headed, or most altruistic among us. This seems to be the telling quote - and is to me the point. We are missing democracy in control over at least half of the spend in society. It's going to be weird, but we need democratic control over companies, as well as government. No idea what it's going to look lik…

There are a few employee-owned cooperatives around and they tend to be somewhat democratic, if you want case studies in what that looks like.

Bob's Red Mill is my favorite example. And their products are very high quality.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#74

Post by pas »

surgical_fire wrote: post #63
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> naive to the point of absurdity, when the rich and powerful quite often are gifted loopholes for the profits to not be taxable This is not how I read OP. You’re reading a Panglossian “we’re in the best of all worlds.” I read we’ve found a good solution, but it’s a work in progress. Democracy alone has evolved through the centuries, ranging from electoral fetishism to enlightened autocracy. Progressive taxation, mea…

The rich will always be powerful. The irony is that we do live in the best of all worlds, but it still sucks. There's no utopia, there's only dystopia. And I disagree that democracy will ever be improved, at least not with humans at the helm.

It's pretty easy to improve democracy, get better constituents.

Also it's pretty easy to list actual small tweaks. Does that count as improving democracy itself?

Education works, even if its "efficacy" is pretty low.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#75

Post by nsriv »

pas wrote: post #74
surgical_fire wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich will always be powerful. The irony is that we do live in the best of all worlds, but it still sucks. There's no utopia, there's only dystopia. And I disagree that democracy will ever be improved, at least not with humans at the helm.

It's pretty easy to improve democracy, get better constituents. Also it's pretty easy to list actual small tweaks. Does that count as improving democracy itself? Education works, even if its "efficacy" is pretty low.

>It's pretty easy to improve democracy, get better constituents.

Simple solutions aren't the same as easy ones.

Education absolutely does work wonders on social and economic fronts, but it is unevenly distributed and the administration of it is easily subverted.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#76

Post by kwhitefoot »

foverzar wrote: post #29
surgical_fire wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it just so happens that the current system we came up with - a mixed market with a strong, democratically elected public authority, yet freedom for individuals to pursue taxable profits This is naive to the point of absurdity, when the rich and powerful quite often are gifted loopholes for the profits to not be taxable, with a wink and a nudge from the "democratically elected public authority". I would certainl…

> the rich and powerful quite often are gifted loopholes for the profits to not be taxable. Those loopholes aren't free and their nature is typically temporary. One example would be tax cuts in exchange for committing to provide N jobs.

> tax cuts in exchange for committing to provide N jobs.

Does this ever work? That is does it work better than not giving tax cuts in the long run.

Committing costs very little, especially if the tax advantages are not clawed back if the jobs fail to materialise. How does one really measure the number of jobs created by the tax cut versus those that might well have been created even if there were no tax cut.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#77

Post by Jochim »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #64

> I would probably argue that venture capitalists are not good for society regardless of what they’re investing in That's kind of a stupid and black and white argument. It can be good, might not be. Overall customers decide. If society deems slavery ok, then some VCs can and will make money with it. Shitting on VCs from someone that advocates for crypto and "aLtErNaTiVe MoDeLs". This bullshit can only come from someo…

Legality and morality are not the same thing. There are many activities that may be technically legal but still make you someone society would be better off without.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#78

Post by kasey_junk »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57
offtotheraces wrote: post #18

It’s funny that Molly (a VC) ascribes so much power to VCs that they can literally create bank runs on their own. No. VCs don’t make decisions on where a company keeps its cash; the founder/CEO does. And founders freaked the f-ck out. Let’s make sure to remember that founders had 100% agency in the decisions they made about their cash. Here’s a selection of comments in the Whatsapp founders group Im in - all founders…

When a bank runs, you run. Trying to pin the blame on depositors is misguided. There are real villains to the SVB story. Regulators. Senior management. Goldman Sachs.

I don’t think the depositors should be blamed for attempting to get their money out of the bank once it became insolvent, but they certainly weren’t blameless in their own risk management prior to that.

Roku keeping half a billion dollars at svb without doing capitalization audits, or venture firms steering portfolio companies there without recommending backup banks is a business failure plain and simple. Those actions deserve scrutiny and the decision makers deserve blame.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#79

Post by JumpCrisscross »

kasey_junk wrote: post #78
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a bank runs, you run. Trying to pin the blame on depositors is misguided. There are real villains to the SVB story. Regulators. Senior management. Goldman Sachs.

I don’t think the depositors should be blamed for attempting to get their money out of the bank once it became insolvent, but they certainly weren’t blameless in their own risk management prior to that. Roku keeping half a billion dollars at svb without doing capitalization audits, or venture firms steering portfolio companies there without recommending backup banks is a business failure plain and simple. Those actio…

> Roku keeping half a billion dollars at svb without doing capitalization audits, or venture firms steering portfolio companies there without recommending backup banks is a business failure plain and simple

One hundred percent. I was more attacking this conspiratorial line around so and so's tweets prompting the run.

Re: The venture capitalist's dilemma

#80

Post by mark_l_watson »

I used to really enjoy the All In Podcast. However their recent "all in for their best interests" was too much for me. The topic of interest rates vs. not having a recession is really complicated. I believe that long term extremely high inflation would be much more crushing for middle and lower income segments of the population since they don't have the kinds of real assets that float as the dollar floats. This is why I personally believe that raising rates is required.

I believe that the character and soul of a society is how well they give less privileged people at least a chance to earn shelter and food. I was less extreme in my views before I started volunteering at a local food bank and got to know people whose lives collapsed because of one bad family illness, etc.

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