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Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

gizmodo.com

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Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#51

Post by labrador »

bmitc wrote: post #26
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true of experts in other fields? Why are programmers prone to this behavior?

Physicists and engineers are a lot like this too. I think software people have more of a chance getting rich very easily based upon some dumb idea that just happens to make them rich when the company sells.

Yes, when home copmputers hit in the 80's and the internet hit in the 90's, if you were a half-way decent programmer the odds were pretty good that you'd make a lot of money. Physicists and non-microchip engineers didn't strike it rich like that

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#52

Post by gopher_space »

dang wrote: post #28
jweir wrote: post #2

This story was on the front page of Hacker News – but then disappeared. Did the original poster delete it or something else happen?

Looks like a moderator downweighted it, probably because it's a sensational-indignant article, which is not what HN is supposed to be for. Angry articles about how awful rich people or celebrities are a sure hit with upvoters, but their appeal does not come from intellectual curiosity, which is the organizing principle of this site ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... ). So it's standard…

> their appeal does not come from intellectual curiosity

Unless you're interested in human behavior and see finance as part of a natural process. From a biology perspective there's an obvious line of thinking around resource sequestration you can't really discuss in public, so I'm always interested in seeing the shape its eventual expression takes.

The articles are also rage bait and I agree with the moderation fwiw. We aren't really here to square this particular circle.

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#53

Post by joadha »

yodon wrote: post #49
neilv wrote: post #46

Seems buried on HN. It was at least rank 10 with some comments, but then I couldn't find the post in the first 20 pages of HN (up to rank 600). Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac (gizmodo.com) 80 points by jweir 1 hour ago | unvote | flag | hide | past | favorite | 41 comments

Marc is likely a controversial character, which leads to people disagreeing about comments. Lots of conflicting up votes and down votes is a signal HN uses to detect disagreement. The HN algorithm is designed to promote good discussions, explicitly at the expense of discussions where people interact poorly with each other, even if those other conversations are important. Lots of disagreement is a common precursor to…

What are some other examples of topics that, well gorsh-darn, the algorithm just had to push 'em down so we can all get along?

HN is an echo chamber.

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#54

Post by neilv »

joadha wrote: post #53
yodon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marc is likely a controversial character, which leads to people disagreeing about comments. Lots of conflicting up votes and down votes is a signal HN uses to detect disagreement. The HN algorithm is designed to promote good discussions, explicitly at the expense of discussions where people interact poorly with each other, even if those other conversations are important. Lots of disagreement is a common precursor to…

What are some other examples of topics that, well gorsh-darn, the algorithm just had to push 'em down so we can all get along? HN is an echo chamber.

The broad topic of this post might be especially relevant to HN: are we in danger of manipulating society through arrogance, elitism, greed, skewed perspective, bullying, collusion, influence-peddling, throwing around money/power, etc., and how would we know when we are.

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#55

Post by labrador »

jampekka wrote: post #29
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true of experts in other fields? Why are programmers prone to this behavior?

https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2556

The wise man is one who knows what he does not know

- Lao Tsu

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few

- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen master

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance

- Confucius

The more I know, the more I understand one thing: that I know nothing

- Osho

Nobody knows anything

- William Goldman, Hollywood producer

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#56

Post by bmitc »

jahewson wrote: post #50
bmitc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is that taxing the super wealthy would actually increase the health of the economy. They are leaches on the economy, hoarding up more and more money, land, assets, etc. just to make more money. Decreasing wealth inequality will help the economy. And I think there's also a point of culture. I think the startup culture and Silicon Valley culture is damaging the American economy, hyper focusing on sho…

Would it help the economy though? It helps to think of our current super-rich as an outcome of the asset bubble that currently exists in our economy, due to the fed’s post-2008 money printing; because it’s stock that accounts for most of their net worth. So what happens if we tax away the majority of that wealth? It’s a huge amount - enough to have a marked effect on the economic system. Well, we get a lot more money…

Yes, it would. Wealth inequality drives all sorts of bad things in society and the economy. Reducing it, i.e., increasing wealth equality, would reduce the effects.

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#57

Post by renewiltord »

labrador wrote: post #48
renewiltord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the direction mixed up. They became this successful because they always had conviction in non-mainstream ideas. This is frequently shown in criticism of the Internet Archive. "How could they think that Outrageous Thing X could be legal? The Archive is reasonable but this new thing is not". Well, none of the people who thought that did the original Internet Archive in the first place. Those who only take well…

I looked into Marc Andreeson's genius once and it surprised me that there were several GUI web browsers before Mosaic. Marc made a better one at the right time for it to take off. He's a coder, a good one, but to say he's a maverick following his own path is incorrect. It was a no brainer to start Netscape, so that's not so original either. Q: What were some GUI web browsers before Marc Andreeson wrote Mosaic A: Befo…

One of the things with being first on something cool is that it's a no-brainer 30 years later. Everyone thinks things are obvious in hindsight.

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#58

Post by [deleted] »

giantrobot wrote: post #36
cjensen wrote: post #9

Sometimes a person is in the right place at the right time and has an opportunity to become rich. It's important to resist the human urge to account success as a product of one's own intelligence.

I've yet to see any SV billionaires admit any of their success involves luck. They seem incapable of recognizing that being in the right time and place is a huge component of any sort of success. Their egos are so wrapped up in their fortunes that their success must be their omniscience and not the fact they won the tech stock lottery.

[deleted]

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#59

Post by marssaxman »

tmaly wrote: post #25
labrador wrote: post #4

My issue with American programmers and technologists who get rich is that it goes to their head and suddenly they think they're an intellectual on a wide range of subjects. It happened to me but I grew out of it when I got old. Marc Andreeson is no different. Have you ever really listened to Peter Theil in an interview? He's all over the map, saying things that sound profound but when you think about it actually make…

Where do you place Naval?

Hunter's Point, I would think.

Re: Marc Andreessen Is a Maniac

#60

Post by m3m3tic »

giantrobot wrote: post #36
cjensen wrote: post #9

Sometimes a person is in the right place at the right time and has an opportunity to become rich. It's important to resist the human urge to account success as a product of one's own intelligence.

I've yet to see any SV billionaires admit any of their success involves luck. They seem incapable of recognizing that being in the right time and place is a huge component of any sort of success. Their egos are so wrapped up in their fortunes that their success must be their omniscience and not the fact they won the tech stock lottery.

There's luck involved, but if you listen or read some of Marc Andreesen's ideas there's no doubt he's highly intelligent and thoughtful. Ben Horowitz even said he was the smartest person he'd ever met in his book. While he was obviously working on the right thing at the right time, his fortune is not what I would consider blind luck.
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