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Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

finance.fortune.cnn.com

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Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#111

Post by _delirium »

xenophanes wrote: post #108
_delirium wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think I'm fairly familiar with Ayn Rand's work, though I'm by no means an expert. I'm a computer scientist, but my philosophy minor was supervised by one of the few tenured professors who specializes in Rand scholarship in academia (and he is a fan of hers). I don't really see this as far off, though. Rand really did believe that it was unethical to be altruistic. Not because it led to negative outcomes, or…

You neglect to mention why Rand opposed altruism and considered it inherently immoral: because it means putting other people above oneself and therefore self-sacrificing for others.

That's true, but there isn't really much argument for that position in her work (certainly not argument I found convincing). It's almost assuming the consequent: you prove that putting your own good above collective good is moral because the alternative would be putting collective good above your own good. Well, yes, that's definitionally true. But what's wrong with putting collective good above any one individual's good (including your own)?

Her answer wasn't the consequentialist one that Adam Smith and other market-economy defenders proposed: that self-interest produces the best overall outcome. It was instead somehow more metaphysical, that somehow self-interest is the highest good, and putting any other goods above one's own good is corrupting the greatest good. I see it as a kind of take off on Nietzsche's master-morality/slave-morality dichotomy, except, unlike Nietzsche, she ties it to the free market and commerce. (Nietzsche believed in great people putting their own self-development ahead of the masses, in the elitist sense that if you're better than everyone, you should focus on your own development first... but he considered business and money-making to be a dirty, mass occupation that in no way qualified as "great" or "elite".)

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#113

Post by gwern »

lukifer wrote: post #70

This is why wealthy individuals are better for society than shareholder-owned corporations. If the latter made a move like this, the entire board would be fired immediately.

If 90+% of the shareholders voted to distribute that quarter's profits to charity - the equivalent scenario to the general partners so voting, no? - who would be firing the board?

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#114

Post by daenz »

paul wrote: post #96
daenz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to believe whatever you want, based on whatever criteria you want. But to argue that something is right or wrong because someone else has more money, has no weight. Re-read yesbabyyes comment. It makes no argument other than "who are you", "they are famous and accomplished" and "they are rich." It's a poor argument.

Typically the fact that someone has more money would not be relevant, except in this case it's a discussion of capital allocation and a person (Andreessen) who is making a lot of money by being very good at capital allocation. It's like claiming that Michael Phelps's 14 gold medals should carry no weight in a discussion of whether or not he's a good swimmer.

> It's like claiming that Michael Phelps's 14 gold medals should carry no weight in a discussion of whether or not he's a good swimmer.

Not really. It's like Michael Phelp's 14 gold medals should carry no weight in a discussion of whether or not his butterfly stroke has room for improvement.

No one is arguing that Andreessan is not good at making money. If people were, then your analogy would be correct. People are arguing whether or not his money was put to efficient use in this specific instance (by donating to charity).

Having 14 gold medals does not prove to anyone that your butterfly stoke technique could not be better. Nor does earning a lot of money prove that you always make good decisions with money. Take my $100 toilet paper example. Earning a lot of money through good investments does not make using $100 for toilet paper suddenly unassailable to criticism. Does this make sense?

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#115

Post by astrofinch »

hprhpr wrote: post #91
rdl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that "how people donate money" (or spend money, or invest money seems to conflict with what they claim are their stated preferences, I wonder which is more representative. I'd bet on the revealed preferences by actions. Basically no one would say (or is allowed to say in polite company) that they care more about having art available locally than the lives of a thousand people in some third-world country that th…

Agreed about nobody saying they prefer local art over thousands of lives, but I don't think that means their revealed preferences are more representative of what they really want, I think it just shows how irrational they are. Most people don't sit down and think about what they want most and construct a plan to achieve that, so it shouldn't be surprising that they end up doing such drastically sub-optimal things as…

There's an article on Less Wrong about that too ;)

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2p5/humans_are_not_automatically_str...

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#116

Post by hristov »

poorpointofview wrote: post #98

The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But the…

Oscar Wilde said this because he believed in the complete abolition of private property. I do not think you can convince any VC that that is a good idea.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#117

Post by astrofinch »

daenz wrote: post #74
paul wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is a system for transferring money from those who are bad at allocating capital to those who are good at allocating capital. That's the magic of it. It also implies that people like Andreessen most likely have an above average understanding of how to allocate capital :)

Doesn't make it any less a logical fallacy. Andreessen partners could wipe their asses with $100 bills. If someone with less money tells them that's a poor use of money, would you tell him clearly Andreessen knows better because they have more money?

And who was it that told you appeal to authority was a fallacy? Some authority on fallacies like Wikipedia, maybe? :D

http://lesswrong.com/lw/aq2/fallacies_as_weak_bayesian_evide...

If a wealthy self-made person says something about how to make money, that's stronger Bayesian evidence for that actually being a good way to make money then if some random person says it.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#118

Post by zmitri »

daenz wrote: post #83
shantanubala wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a very good question -- how can we know someone is a "genius" unless they have the resources to thrive? We can debate on the meaning of genius, but regardless of how you view it, a person simply cannot reach their full potential if they have to constantly worry about feeding themselves or a family. Before we can even identify someone as a genius, they have to have been successful in some way. For them to b…

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just asking for examples that back his claim "It's unbelievable how much genius is wasted in poverty." The statement he made is unnecessary to his overall point, which is that charity can help people. His claim about the "unbelievable" number of geniuses being squandered has no real basis in fact.

I suppose I'm commenting from a statistical standpoint.

-In the North America there are n% recognized as super talented people and have some profound impact on society.

-In Africa there is m% recognized super talented people and have some profound impact on society.

For some reason m Now think of how much is lost just by missing one Einstein, or one Feynman... Even one of those would be an unbelievable amount of genius squandered.

You're right, statistically it's possible nobody is missing out, but it's kind of unlikely.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#119

Post by daenz »

shantanubala wrote: post #106
daenz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just asking for examples that back his claim "It's unbelievable how much genius is wasted in poverty." The statement he made is unnecessary to his overall point, which is that charity can help people. His claim about the "unbelievable" number of geniuses being squandered has no real basis in fact.

But aren't you ignoring a potential reason why it has no "basis in fact"? The reason why we can't find examples of "genius being wasted in poverty" is simple: how can we identify someone as a "genius" until they've actually produced something notable? How can someone with little to no resources produce something notable? It's possible, but the odds are skewed a lot . The statement was very necessary. If we operate on…

Genius manifests itself in many ways. It's foolish to think that simply by living in poverty, genius can be stopped. If you raise the living standards everywhere, the lowest living standard becomes the new poverty. Are we then to say that genius is being squelched in those new areas?

> The reason why we can't find examples of "genius being wasted in poverty" is simple: how can we identify someone as a "genius" until they've actually produced something notable?

Poverty does not prevent the identification of. I've lived in a poor community. Yet I've seen genius in people who can fix vehicles, in people who can track animals to hunt, or in just retelling amazing stories. Those people are geniuses. Just because they don't invent some new-fangled iBullshit, or get on the NYT best seller list, does not diminish their genius. It does not mean that it did not exist. And it does not mean that a cash infusion would have made them any "more" of a genius. Open your eyes. Geniuses are not resources to be exploited by people who want to make a good return on an investment.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#120

Post by daenz »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #109
daenz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a difficult subject. People are passionate about money. But kudos for owning up to your post... I made a ad hominem awhile back and someone was kind enough to point it out, thought I'd pass around the favor :)

I take it you think one should donate to charity anonymously, but humblebrags are ok? ;) I just wanted to add that I actually think wealth and investment accomplishments are somewhat relevant in this discussion, regarding your comment on fallacies. Especially given jimmyvanhalen's very strong opinions on what "a VCs job" is, what a16z "should" do, and his confused ending statement on that what they did would be fine…

I wasn't bragging. I was trying to relate...I made an ad hominem attack and was called out on it.

I don't really have an opinion on the actual thing being discussed though, other than my comments back and forth with "paul"

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