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The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

chris-martin.org

61–70 of 297 posts

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#61
post #25

I didn't agree with everything, but I did with a lot; in particular this: > As Julie says when someone repeats that Amazon was started in a garage: Ain't no garages in the trailer park. Not sure who Julie is, but I think she's spot on.

I just learned this quote now and I love it. Very true. Much of tech mythology, where we are told "started from nothing" actually started from a place of at least some capital and privilege.

Look into bill gates mom ;)

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#62
When did this style of psychoanalysis become popular? Everyone now uses these terms and instead of coming off like an informed take it just sounds like "I'm just trying to insult other people". At some point, the online forum take of "all the successful guys are sad and I'm not as successful because I'm well-adjusted" has gotten boring. I get that people want to feel better about their lives but this is just embarrassing.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#63
post #47
post #20

Aside from the overarching thread of the current crop of CEOs struggling to come to terms with the fact that their empires are now all they'll ever be and it's up to others to continue innovating, I found these quotes interesting: > The Internet is no longer the world's great frontier, and the pool of unsatisfied wants that suddenly welled up as the world first came online is not what it once was. There once was no g…

I mean yeah, but Uber promised us self-driving taxis, but only found profit by delivering takeaways. Meta and Twitter - adverts, and all on the foundation of a zirp economy.

Most of the big unicorns of the past cycle, uber, airbnb, etc, where mostly plays on -we can do illegal shit- and grow faster than laws close us up

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#64

I partly disagree, software still sucks and it's a great time to build. The #1 OS is slow and crashes all the time. The #1 email client takes 10s to load on my mother's laptop. Most popular products are slow, buggy, filled with spam, & filled with dark patterns. Enshittification won. FAANGs are the new IBM. Let's build better stuff.

> I partly disagree, software still sucks and it's a great time to build.

you can build great software, but the bigger challenge is to defeat network effect of preoccupied/monopolized market.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#65
post #25

I didn't agree with everything, but I did with a lot; in particular this: > As Julie says when someone repeats that Amazon was started in a garage: Ain't no garages in the trailer park. Not sure who Julie is, but I think she's spot on.

Ain’t no trailer parks without engineers and mechanics designing trailers.

Everyone is connected; the growth of the world economy has brought nearly 90% of people out of global poverty in under a century.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would you mind giving a greater explanation of what they mean by this? I couldn't grok the meaning from context, other than the obvious its not really possible to simply startup half baked out of your house or something along those lines

It's saying that even just having a garage is a privilege.

Even being able to type in a comment box is a privilege, as is life.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#67
post #25

I didn't agree with everything, but I did with a lot; in particular this: > As Julie says when someone repeats that Amazon was started in a garage: Ain't no garages in the trailer park. Not sure who Julie is, but I think she's spot on.

would you mind giving a greater explanation of what they mean by this? I couldn't grok the meaning from context, other than the obvious its not really possible to simply startup half baked out of your house or something along those lines

If you live with your parent in a double wide in a trailer park and need to work at the local Target every night since high school to make enough money to help pay for groceries for the family, you might have a harder time working 100 hour weeks on the off chance that you'll raise a round and start a company. You probably also don't know many VC's or live too close to where they hang out.

Anyone can start a billion dollar business. Anyone who does so is probably extremely smart and extremely hard working. There are some very smart, hard working folks for whom the path to starting a company is harder than for others.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#68

I partly disagree, software still sucks and it's a great time to build. The #1 OS is slow and crashes all the time. The #1 email client takes 10s to load on my mother's laptop. Most popular products are slow, buggy, filled with spam, & filled with dark patterns. Enshittification won. FAANGs are the new IBM. Let's build better stuff.

> I partly disagree, software still sucks and it's a great time to build. you can build great software, but the bigger challenge is to defeat network effect of preoccupied/monopolized market.

I agree, the monopolistic practices are concerning, especially against the open internet.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#69
The idea that success often depends on luck, right place/time, and other circumstances often outside one's control, is definitely true. Not sure how this validates the DEI movement though? Still a largely toxic and unserious movement that has good intentions but ultimately harms institutions and wastes time and resources.

Re: The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis

#70

I partly disagree, software still sucks and it's a great time to build. The #1 OS is slow and crashes all the time. The #1 email client takes 10s to load on my mother's laptop. Most popular products are slow, buggy, filled with spam, & filled with dark patterns. Enshittification won. FAANGs are the new IBM. Let's build better stuff.

Yeah, the “it was easy back then” sounds bitter and inversely correlates success with problem difficulty.

It is getting a little tiring to hear that building software is a superhuman endeavor and that almost nothing new can be built and nothing can be replaced.

If anything, this attitude plays right into what the people criticized in the article want everyone to think. “Just give up, there won’t ever be another Marc Andreesen or Mark Zuckeberg”

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