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Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#161

Post by ahnick »

This blog post and all the comments in response feel very tautological. I think Marc has a fairly simple point here, which is don't spend time dwelling on the past. Learn from the past, take away information about how things can be improved, but then make a plan (for whatever it is that you are building/doing) and move forward with that plan.

In the podcast, he basically lays out that the A16Z thesis is that there is not enough technology, information, and intelligence in the world, so they are going out and investing in companies/ideas that can make an impact in these areas. That requires learning from the past, but not dwelling on it. Seems like a very sensible and positive approach to me.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#162

Post by pasquinelli »

bigyabai wrote: post #154
pasquinelli wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is so funny for me to read. a few years ago, i would see programmers saying they can negotiate better deals for themselves than a union could. now you're saying it's already over, programming as a skill has a future valuation that's heading to zero. i advise against being so sure of your ideas. maybe you think platform holders have all the cards--test it. if they fight efforts to unionize, that tells a different…

Individuals can negotiate insane labors deals for themselves. Go ask the best-paid person you know how they got their pay package, it usually entails some form of schmoozing. Unions are for bringing the bottom-rung up to par, not for raising the top bar further. > if they fight efforts to unionize, that tells a different story. You are describing an industry that has outsourced intelligent labor to India and Pakistan…

i'm saying test it, let's get scientific. why would you have a problem with that?

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#163

Post by ozgrakkurt »

quantummagic wrote: post #125
thedima wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the way you put it: “It’s okay to be wrong. We’re all wrong from time to time. What’s not okay is not having a way to be corrected by the outside world for a specific reason: being at the top of the political pyramid, being ultra-wealthy and surrounded by flattery, etc"

You're right, but we've never devised any system that prevents this from happening. Every single organization leads to a concentration of wealth and power. And even those ideally conceived to have counterbalancing forces, eventually are corrupted and subverted. It seems to be the steady state of reality.

Maybe wealth should be reset every time? There shouldn't be inheritence at all?

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#164

Post by mpalmer »

rdevilla wrote: post #149

I think Andreessen's comments were borne of hyperbole and as a (deliberate) overcorrection against certain Bay Area rationalist types whose 10,000 word navel gazing screeds border on schizoidal personality disorder. I have watched these people expend literally years getting into hypothetical arguments with strawmen they believe are active participants in their community when, at best, they are occasional lurkers, and…

So not only is he not wrong, he's a keen social critic?

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#165

Post by rexpop »

pasquinelli wrote: post #128
bigyabai wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Step one is that all of us blue collar technologists need to get organized So that Apple and Google can discriminate against us as a bloc, instead of individually? As a programmer I struggle to see how organization would achieve anything. We hold no cards, it's the platform holders who won.

this is so funny for me to read. a few years ago, i would see programmers saying they can negotiate better deals for themselves than a union could. now you're saying it's already over, programming as a skill has a future valuation that's heading to zero. i advise against being so sure of your ideas. maybe you think platform holders have all the cards--test it. if they fight efforts to unionize, that tells a different…

The fatalistic view that "platform holders have all the cards" and that "programming as a skill has a future valuation that's heading to zero" is a common psychological barrier in labor struggles. Oppressed or subordinate groups often suffer from a "diffuse, magical belief in the invulnerability and power of the oppressor"[0].

However, theories of political and social power argue the exact opposite: the power of any ruling class or corporation is actually quite fragile because it depends entirely on the cooperation, obedience, and skills of its subordinates. If highly skilled individuals like blue-collar technologists and programmers collectively withdraw our human resources, skills, and knowledge, we can severely disrupt or paralyze the systems that enrich the platform holders.

0. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#166

Post by quantummagic »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #163
quantummagic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but we've never devised any system that prevents this from happening. Every single organization leads to a concentration of wealth and power. And even those ideally conceived to have counterbalancing forces, eventually are corrupted and subverted. It seems to be the steady state of reality.

Maybe wealth should be reset every time? There shouldn't be inheritence at all?

It's a lovely idea, but that system will have to be enforced by a power structure... which will always tend to grant itself special privileges. And even before such corruption, without inherited wealth, there will still be entrenched institutions that control resources, and have a continuity of leadership, that will always be looking out for themselves and their in-group. It's just natural.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#167

Post by hackable_sand »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #156
jacquesm wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think technologists are blue collar. They are not necessarily part of the owner class but true blue collar work is not done behind desks.

These terms are all pretty flexible - blue collar in 1950 is extremely different than blue collar in 2026. What category would you place the following 99% of human people: You you will lose your ability to eat and have housing if you do not show up to a place (even if it’s at your rented apartment) and spend hours doing on what someone else wants you to do

Software developers definitely do not have class solidarity and their anxiety is unjustified.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#168

Post by steveBK123 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #38
John23832 wrote: post #12

We all know he’s wrong. The problem isn’t that he is wrong, it’s that we have elevated the wealthy into a status where they can be wrong, have no correction, and make decisions whole clothe which negatively affect the rest of us. All while being insulated from their negative world view.

[flagged]

Americans are weird creatures in this regard. Give them 5% of their compensation / 0.0001% of a company in stock/options and suddenly they think they have become Big Capital.

If you need to work to collect a wage to pay your expenses, you are still labor, sorry if that hurts peoples feelings, but it shouldn't.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#169

Post by visarga »

rybosworld wrote: post #120
John23832 wrote: post #12

We all know he’s wrong. The problem isn’t that he is wrong, it’s that we have elevated the wealthy into a status where they can be wrong, have no correction, and make decisions whole clothe which negatively affect the rest of us. All while being insulated from their negative world view.

Tim Dillon said summarized it pretty well - can't remember or find the exact quote. Something to the effect of: "Look around at all these things I have - how could I be wrong when I have so much?" And that's how you get the Andreessen's and Musk's of the world stating these nonsensical things as truth. In their minds, financial success is the ultimate yardstick. The fact that they have so much wealth is a testament t…

> In their minds, financial success is the ultimate yardstick.

In a loopy recursive way, it is. Cost gates what we can do and become. Paying back your costs to extend your runway is the working principle behind biology, economy and technology. I am not saying rich people are always right, just that cost is not so irrelevant to everything else. I personally think cost satisfaction explains multiple levels, from biology up.

Related to introspection - it certainly has a cost for doing it, and a cost for not doing it. Going happy go lucky is not necessarily optimal, experience was expensive to gain, not using it at all is a big loss. Being paralyzed by rumination is also not optimal, we have to act in time, we can't delay and if we do, it comes out differently.

Re: Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection

#170

Post by sibeliuss »

a456463 wrote: post #69
sibeliuss wrote: post #29

His statements about this were purely politics, and nothing more. He himself does not believe this. It's political revisionism.

I agree he could be doing political revisionism. But I fail to grasp, why?

To appear as a strongman in the eyes of those in power, those who are clearly incapable of introspection. And by such moves he himself gains power.
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