Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 322 posts

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#311

Post by sandstrom »

istjohn wrote: post #275
sandstrom wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's point is that there are also disadvantages of growing up under high income (of course it depends on parenting too). Too spoiled, cannot relate to ordinary people, etc. I seem to remember that many entrepreneurs are born to upper middle class parents. Not spoiled enough that they cannot work, but still fortunate to have a safe upbringing and be risk tolerant. (I do agree with you that people are born with…

Wealth is not a disadvantage. Period.

Getting spoiled as a child can be definitely be a disadvantage later in life :)

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#312

Post by vasilipupkin »

haberman wrote: post #193
vasilipupkin wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem with PGs essay was that it is full of strawmen and non sequiturs made up by him. For example, the sentence you just described. Let's attack poverty - what does that mean in practice? in practice, that means spending money on solutions to poverty, ala Sweden. Where does that money come from? from taxes. So, the conversation about raising taxes on the wealthy ( or "attacking wealth" as he says ), outside of…

> PG made it sound as if the conversation is about attacking wealth for its own sake, which nobody but the fringe is having Let us test this claim. I Googled "inequality in the us" and clicked the first several results. If your claim is true, these will only discuss attacking poverty, and not attacking wealth. (I am assuming that top Google hits do not constitute "the fringe"). The first result is: "20 Facts About U.…

I am talking about not a few articles here and there that can be googled, but rather an actual political agenda that will result in actionable laws, regulations etc. The agenda on the table specifically, is, as an example, Obamacare, which is a program that raises taxes on the rich and transfers that money to provide healthcare for the poor. take the most left wing candidate in the presidential race today, Bernie Sanders. Is his agenda to attack wealth for its own sake? No, his agenda is to tax the rich in order to transfer that money to programs that will fight poverty. I am not a Bernie Sanders supporter, but the fact that even he doesn't attack wealth for its own sake, tells you that PG's essay is a giant strawman.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#313

Post by vasilipupkin »

Retra wrote: post #258
vasilipupkin wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

luck is a big factor but being in the right place at the right time maximizes the probability of getting lucky

"Being in the right place at the right time" is a vast majority of what luck brings you.

no, I don't think of it that way. As an example, if you moved to Silicon Valley in 1999 and made it a point to try to get a job at a cool startup, you might have at least had a chance to end up at Google as an early employee. But you had no such opportunity if you moved to Wichita, Kansas because you thought it was cheaper, or whatever the reason.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#314

Post by erikpukinskis »

mc32 wrote: post #74
nickbauman wrote: post #71

There's a strong thread of meritocracy in the tech community, but there is no such thing. When you choose the clearly better developer over the other, you're often choosing the one who had better resources growing up, not just natural ability. The poorer developer may have had a natural advantage over the other one, but didn't have the money to develop it as much. So you're really just selecting for wealth all over a…

The thing is "merit" an be any number of things. You can say the student most in debt merits the job the most, or the person with the most experience, or the person exhibiting most ability, or the person who had to overcome obstacle. But when people invoke merit they typically mean they're avoiding favoritism, nepotism, and are looking for someone who given what they know or learn about the person would best fit into…

The trouble is we can only really recognize "fit" to structures we are familiar with. We simply cannot see talent unless it is a kind of talent we've seen up close before. Because of this we end up only being able to approximate "the best candidate in my social group". And we neglect better candidates in foreign social groups.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#315

Post by mc32 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #314
mc32 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is "merit" an be any number of things. You can say the student most in debt merits the job the most, or the person with the most experience, or the person exhibiting most ability, or the person who had to overcome obstacle. But when people invoke merit they typically mean they're avoiding favoritism, nepotism, and are looking for someone who given what they know or learn about the person would best fit into…

The trouble is we can only really recognize "fit" to structures we are familiar with. We simply cannot see talent unless it is a kind of talent we've seen up close before. Because of this we end up only being able to approximate "the best candidate in my social group". And we neglect better candidates in foreign social groups.

But that's a different problem altogether. That goes beyond what people mean by "merit".

Yes, people only hiring people for whom they feel affinity is somewhat of an issue. I say somewhat, because it can be problematic working with people who understand things differently --say working with people who have a union attitude vs people who have a work at will attitude.

So, I understand the "I'd have beer with them" kind of thing even though it does bother me. I don't drink beer and I'm not into peer dynamics. But I understand why people might be into that.

That said, merit typically means not hiring someone just because they're friends, family, owed a favor, seniority, strict ethnic affinity (which happened and happens in lots of immigrant communities, of old and new), belong to some specific group, etc.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#316

Post by eropple »

anovikov wrote: post #268
eropple wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. "I am rich so I don't know how to make a vehicle to make even more money" is so transformatively different from "I grew up without enough opportunities to know how to function in polite (white) society" that my jaw bunched reading it. This industry makes me profoundly sad sometimes. Often.

Making more money out of existing money is not a startup. It's an investment. Basically a reverse to startup.

I am morbidly curious what you think the point of a startup is if not to transform existing money into more money. Or what you think investors do with regard to those startups.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#317

Post by anovikov »

eropple wrote: post #316
anovikov wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making more money out of existing money is not a startup. It's an investment. Basically a reverse to startup.

I am morbidly curious what you think the point of a startup is if not to transform existing money into more money. Or what you think investors do with regard to those startups.

A startup is about using other people's money as a leverage for your idea/work. An investment is about being on the other side.

A rich guy who wants to make more money in the tech field will be better off doing angel investing, literally getting on the other side of the counter with startup founders.

After all, capital isn't hard to come by these days. Even outside of the Valley. I have raised (and sadly, burned uselessly) money and it was no way hard. So the factor of having money doesn't mean much. Apart from that, a rich guy will have some advantages (self-confidence, ability to take risks, good initial network) and some disadvantages. Among these are poor understanding of audience for most kinds of ideas, pressure from high status relatives ('startups are hipster toys, you have to go to business school'), high opportunity costs. If we look at successful startup founders, very few come from rich families. Also, having to raise outside money provides a reality check, something which a rich kid will code using his own money has a higher chance to become just a toy - facing investors provides validation and feedback you can't ignore. Raising money is something people think is hard, and it's no way fun to do, so they avoid it whenever they can, so someone who doesn't need it will probably not do it. Which leaves him all alone with his vision...

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#318

Post by erikpukinskis »

mc32 wrote: post #315
erikpukinskis wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is we can only really recognize "fit" to structures we are familiar with. We simply cannot see talent unless it is a kind of talent we've seen up close before. Because of this we end up only being able to approximate "the best candidate in my social group". And we neglect better candidates in foreign social groups.

But that's a different problem altogether. That goes beyond what people mean by "merit". Yes, people only hiring people for whom they feel affinity is somewhat of an issue. I say somewhat, because it can be problematic working with people who understand things differently --say working with people who have a union attitude vs people who have a work at will attitude. So, I understand the "I'd have beer with them" kind…

Hiring someone because they remind you of your friends/family/ethnic group is exactly what I'm talking about.

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#319

Post by clock_tower »

ginsurge wrote: post #127
clock_tower wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world are you _hostile_ to the kind of accomplishments he's describing? Are you from pre-colonization India? 13th-century Europe? Christopher Columbus called, we don't despise upward social mobility anymore!

I'm a she, btw.

My mistake... Sorry!

Re: Privilege and Inequality in Silicon Valley

#320

Post by tn13 »

walshemj wrote: post #308
tn13 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly a Christian missionary driven attempts to marginalize Hindus even further by painting them as evil. From the sense I get it wont go anywhere.

Err what re you smoking? it was Asian MP's that piloted the bill through parliament.

Yup they are the agents of missionaries in their countries. Look at Bobby Jindal he is asian per say but in reality a hard core christian.
Post reply on HN