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Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

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Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#121

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tptacek wrote: post #84
nickburns wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on "basic competency issues", either in the case of Boudin's office and/or other high profile reformist prosecutors? Is that just a polite way of calling them dumb, à la what the kids are calling a 'skill issue' nowadays?

I can speak at length to the tenure of Kim Foxx, Chicago's former high-profile progressive prosecutor. I know some of the issues rhyme with Boudin's term, but San Franciscans can tell his story better than I can. So, first, no, I feel like I'm saying the opposite of "they're dumb". I don't think either Foxx or Boudin are dumb. I think they're both interesting people with interesting and valuable views. When I say "ba…

> the second most important urban index crime after murder

Can you comment on why this is? Is it because it's common? Or so visibly impactful?

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#122

Post by nerdsniper »

v0x wrote: post #15

Well, to be fair, Garry's article was clearly 100% AI-generated. So perhaps he didn't even really post it; maybe it was just a rogue agent. Or, y'know, an assistant who posted without his authorization. Or perhaps Ambien was involved. Or, it was an Ambien-addled assistant who misconfigured an agent to post the article. Clearly not Garry's fault.

I catch the /s, but honestly - if you sign your name on work product, you own it. Regardless if it was written by AI or ghost-written or whatever.

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#123

Post by k__ »

throwaway132448 wrote: post #17
SwellJoe wrote: post #11

I've come to be convinced that having a huge amount of money causes some kind of mental breakage, a need to control other people that is unhealthy for everyone it touches. I don't mind everyone having or expressing an opinion, even opinions I disagree with, but when someone uses their disproportionate wealth and influence to spread misinformation and disrupt and dismantle democratic systems it crosses a line. It take…

You have it backwards. The person didn’t change, they were always like that, long before money. Our system selects for them and rewards them, and when they attain those rewards they use them to further express themselves as the person they always were.

This.

Directors of small companies are the same, they're just not wealthy enough that they could do any harm.

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#124

Post by draw_down »

SwellJoe wrote: post #11

I've come to be convinced that having a huge amount of money causes some kind of mental breakage, a need to control other people that is unhealthy for everyone it touches. I don't mind everyone having or expressing an opinion, even opinions I disagree with, but when someone uses their disproportionate wealth and influence to spread misinformation and disrupt and dismantle democratic systems it crosses a line. It take…

[dead]

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#125

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jasonmp85 wrote: post #28
browningstreet wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Paul G has defended him on X as a centrist. Weird blind spot.

"Centrist" in America is just "far-right but doesn't talk about it very loudly"

> "Centrist" in America is just "far-right but doesn't talk about it very loudly"

Centrist in America means institutionalist, i.e. gunning for the status quo. That's going to piss off lefist and right-wing fanatics because both want to blow up the status quo. (They tend to be seen as a spoiler for progressives and conservatives. Think: Joe Manchin or Susan Collins.)

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#126

Post by ChuckMcM »

tptacek wrote: post #84
nickburns wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on "basic competency issues", either in the case of Boudin's office and/or other high profile reformist prosecutors? Is that just a polite way of calling them dumb, à la what the kids are calling a 'skill issue' nowadays?

I can speak at length to the tenure of Kim Foxx, Chicago's former high-profile progressive prosecutor. I know some of the issues rhyme with Boudin's term, but San Franciscans can tell his story better than I can. So, first, no, I feel like I'm saying the opposite of "they're dumb". I don't think either Foxx or Boudin are dumb. I think they're both interesting people with interesting and valuable views. When I say "ba…

-- When you start losing significant numbers of people, you lose the ability to set your own execution priorities; circumstances are making prosecutorial decisions.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! God so many people don't "get" this. Engineering leaders that come in and create and exodus of senior leaders, same thing. I started calling it organizational momentum. The speed at which you get things done, goes up as the organization gets to understand itself. A bunch of key people leave and BAM momentum goes to zero and suddenly all the milestones you are missing are putting all the wrong pressure on the org to get moving again.

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#127

Post by Barrin92 »

mghackerlady wrote: post #110
Barrin92 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>think some good evidence for this is that Ken Olsen, by most accounts, was a saint and he owned DEC You're right that the money itself does not cause it but what mattered with people like Olsen was that he had a Scandinavian background and was born in the 1920s. 'Saint' is a telling description because people like him came out of a, not necessarily explicit but still functioning culturally Christian environment with…

if the US of all places isn't a culturally christian environment I don't know what is

it isn't, not in his sense anyway. The moderate, central and northern European mainline Protestantism that fostered democracy, education, an egalitarian social contract and temperance you if at all find now only in small pockets.

It's a huge mistake to confuse that kind of deep cultural Christianity with what has been politically ascendant for a long time now in the US. That older, European set of values is still much more alive in say Sweden, which despite an even higher per capita rate of billionaires would not produce Garry Tan or Bezos or Musk.

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#128

Post by overgard »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #77
burkaman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think having the money causes the problem, it's the journey to get to that point. People like MacKenzie Scott or lottery winners generally don't act like this. But aside from those rare instances, in order to make it to a billion dollars you need to consistently exploit people and absolutely refuse to use your power to help others in any significant way. You have to wake up every day with a hundred million do…

>> in order to make it to a billion dollars you need to consistently exploit people and absolutely refuse to use your power to help others in any significant way. I would categorically disagree with your statement. Jeff Bezos Elon Musk Bill Gates Mark Zuckerberg All billionaires. All have created one (or multiple in Musk's case) products that have greatly benefitted society in numerous ways. The Gates Foundation has…

If you ever meet these people you're bound to have a "don't meet your heroes" moment.

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#129

Post by phonon »

tptacek wrote: post #105
phonon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you induce someone to violate HIPAA who is covered by it (like say a nurse at a hospital), you can be criminally liable. There is no carve-out for journalists. BOTH the person who gave the record and the person who induced them to give it could be liable (not in the same way, possibly). In any case, you seemed to think there was a bright line rule of some sort, that "At one point it accuses Lim of "violating HIPAA…

No, I don't think I will. Reporters covering public policy matters and obtaining records from covered entities have First Amendment protection arguments that a conspiracy among insiders and external mules to sell health information don't have. But none of this is my point. I'm not arguing that it would be impossible for Boudin's office to allege wrongdoing. I'm arguing that they failed to do so. Like, a really basic…

It would depend on exactly how the records were obtained. If hypothetically she paid a nurse $100 for it (and had done so many times in the past), that could be criminally liable. In practice, no-one would prosecute over a single x-ray. But when a reporter gets legally protected medical information "somehow", an insinuation that a legal violation took place at some point to effect that is not unreasonable.

Re: Garry Tan, the CEO of YC, accused me of unethical reporting

#130

Post by tptacek »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can speak at length to the tenure of Kim Foxx, Chicago's former high-profile progressive prosecutor. I know some of the issues rhyme with Boudin's term, but San Franciscans can tell his story better than I can. So, first, no, I feel like I'm saying the opposite of "they're dumb". I don't think either Foxx or Boudin are dumb. I think they're both interesting people with interesting and valuable views. When I say "ba…

> the second most important urban index crime after murder Can you comment on why this is? Is it because it's common? Or so visibly impactful?

Carjacking is a subset of motor vehicle theft, which is an index crime, but carjacking commands more public attention than anything except for murder; this is a vibes-based assertion but I feel like I could back it up easily.

Importantly: the carjacking wave wasn't Foxx's fault (it was in fact Kia's fault). She was in an incredibly tough position --- she also had to deal with Chicagoland police departments that have not covered themselves in glory over the last 20 years. But she didn't rise to the challenge.

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