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Hanging up my spurs

lowercasecapital.com

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Re: Hanging up my spurs

#151
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[sploiler] For those who want a TLDR of this story, here it is from his Wikipedia: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Chris_Sacca > During law school, Sacca used his student loans to start a company which was unsuccessful and used what was left to start trading on the stock market. By leveraging trades for significant amounts (discovering a flaw in the software of online trading brokers)[15] he managed to turn 10–20 thousan…

What was the flaw? Also, isn't starting a company with your student loans illegal? > He says he managed to graduate without attending class. In order to obtain class notes, he threw an annual keg party where entry required classmates to dump their notes in a bin. I sure wouldn't want that guy as my lawyer.

> Also, isn't starting a company with your student loans illegal?

I don't think he meant using the money he was loaned to pay for classes but using the money the loan provides for living expenses. That money is completely up to you to figure out what to spend it on.

I could be wrong about that though...

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#152
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very disturbing but it's a leftist thing, not a liberal thing. Based on what he writes, he's a leftist. How productive can any conversation be when you have such a backwards and unfair starting point that the other side is evil? Leftists also assume minorities can't do certain things and that only they can save them because they are the enlightened ones. Leftists are far removed from being progressive and tolera…

The problem with your worldview is it leaves you totally unprepared for the scenario when the other side genuinely elects an evil or destructive person. It presumes there's always a rough moral equality between the two sides. We have historical examples of evil and destructive regimes being legitimately elected. It's not impossible. Sacca claims we are observing another example, right now, in America.

It absolutely doesn't. My view starts with assuming people with opposing viewpoints in the US aren't evil or bad people. AFTER you've engaged in discussion and their true intentions are known you can make more honest conclusions on that person or group of people. That's not what leftists do.

Your comment says destructive and evil in the same sentence. Again - being destructive or making bad calls - doesn't make you a bad person or evil. Incompetent yes; evil probably not. Every politician does destructive things, especially when those things are often subjective based on your philosophy.

The equivalent on the right is when they say that their opposition hates America because they have different perspectives and want to drastically change things. That's not cool either.

What's interesting is that if you look at history, the leftists are by far the most evil (Mao, Stalin, etc) and it's not even close. Evil is not a word that should be thrown around loosely like the leftists do daily.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#153

tldr - compulsive gambler who won the Twitter lottery vows to quit playing the lottery and move on to making podcasts and buying political influence

Chris won the Twitter lottery.... and the Uber lottery.... and the Instagram lottery..... and a bunch of other lotteries. Had arguably the best run of seed investing in history.

I think it's public he owns Uber and owned it early. I think it's early to say if that was a "win"; I reckon he got in at a good val but Uber ain't public and w/ a braindrain, 2 lawsuits, likely death of their AI program, ceding China to Didi and public backlash idk if it's got legs.

Chris made a lot of money and he did a lot of interesting things. He's interesting and a lot was luck and a lot was skill. That said, Twitter (if he exited a bit post IPO was the companies big win. You only need one though.

Edit: Forgot about Instagram. He crushed it. Point is more Uber might not be as big, but his track record is amazing compared to other shops

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think the institutions, principles, norms, and traditions that make the United States of America genuinely exceptional are at serious risk. It has been hard to think about anything else." "These oppressive zealots in the White House" "fighting a despotic regime" Of course he can have an opinion, and it seems like everyone's got one. It's less clear why the reader should care. And statements like this: "My career w…

> The hyperbole just smacks of virtue signaling, which some people enjoy and others don't. Why is everything that democrats/liberal say deemed "virtue signaling" now? Do liberals have any genuine principles at all? Are some liberals signaling these virtues to other liberals who genuinely have principles, or is "virtue signaling all the way down"? (BTW, I'm not American and don't identify neither as liberal or conserv…

> Do liberals have any genuine principles at all?

The principle they adhere to most strongly is that the ends justify the means. Virtually everything they do flows from that.

Of course, that leaves the questions of what the ends are, and whether their means will effect them. From recent history, it would seem that the answer to the latter is, to some degree, yes. However, there is now significant pushback, leading to further polarization on both sides. The two sides do not ultimately desire the same ends, although many politicians claim that they do in order to establish a "moderate" position and retain their seats.

We may be in for some rough times ahead, politically. However, the Constitution has seen us through worse; as long as it is respected by those in office, we will ultimately come out intact. But I'm afraid that is not a given, since one side now sees the Constitution as "living" and evolving to meet the interpretations that will help effect their ends. If only they would pursue the amendment process instead of...creative interpretation.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#157

> As a rich white guy, being an activist/loudmouth in the #resistance often means taking up political positions that are against my own apparent self-interest. These oppressive zealots in the White House... > You mean beyond fighting a despotic regime... > I assure you, that’s not going to happen. Nevertheless, I am spending a great deal of time meeting with all of the beautifully spontaneous and decentralized organi…

The three local things you mentioned are all gonna get worse as a result of that "despotic regime", so...yeah.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#158

I didn't know venture capitalists had to wear spurs.

Yes to ride their entrepreneurs.

Something about describing your retirement as "hanging up my spurs" bothers me on an unreasonable level. Unless you actually were a cowboy. I mean when I retire from IT work I hope I'm not going to tell people I'm "stowing away my space helmet and locking my plasma rifles in the cabinet".

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#159

> I am spending a great deal of time meeting with all of the beautifully spontaneous and decentralized organizations that have been popping up in the wake of our electoral calamity as well as dozens of candidates at all levels of government. Does anyone know where (or how) to find these organizations? I'd love to get involved in some of these organizations that are trying to build a better future for our country, and…

Come work at Binti! We're a start up in SF, not working on politics or democracy per se, but are improving foster care in the US. Lowercase invested. https://binti.com

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#160
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chris won the Twitter lottery.... and the Uber lottery.... and the Instagram lottery..... and a bunch of other lotteries. Had arguably the best run of seed investing in history.

I think it's public he owns Uber and owned it early. I think it's early to say if that was a "win"; I reckon he got in at a good val but Uber ain't public and w/ a braindrain, 2 lawsuits, likely death of their AI program, ceding China to Didi and public backlash idk if it's got legs. Chris made a lot of money and he did a lot of interesting things. He's interesting and a lot was luck and a lot was skill. That said, T…

You can click on any of the several links in this thread to see that you forgot more than Instagram.

I don't have any affection for Sacca, don't know him, don't care about him, etc. But he's factually been an incredible investor and it's just weird to see concerted effort to dispute that for no reason. He could be all sorts of negative things but he was a hell of a seed investor and that's in the books and he's got the receipts.

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