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

Careless People

pluralistic.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 575 posts

Re: Careless People

#341

Post by reaperducer »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

Have the elites through history always been this insecure or is it a modern phenomenon?

It's always been this way, more or less.

If you look back at the ultra-wealthy in any age, you'll find just these sorts of people. It's in 20th-century literature. It's in classic literature. It's in the Bible. It's probably in ancient Greek literature, but I'm not well-versed there.

At least in the early part of the last century, there was some hope. A number of ultra-wealthy people decided that instead of building a faster steam engine or racing to pump more oil, they'd engage in benefiting society as an alternative penis-measuring contest.

They were happy to pour the equivalent of today's billions into projects like paying artists to spend 30 years documenting the fading culture of the American Indian, or funding scientific expeditions to improve our understanding of ancient history.

Today's billionaires are, instead, trying to one-up each other on getting 12-year-old girls addicted to their apps.

Yay, progress.

Re: Careless People

#342

Post by apical_dendrite »

xdkyx wrote: post #73

This may be a little naive from my side, but I'm wondering - is every big tech company the same as Meta and it's leadership? Or is there something special, a perfect storm of circumstances that we only hear so much about so many instances of outright - can't even find the right word here - evil, stupidity, brashness? If we assume that every big (let's say FAANG) company is the same, why we hear about Meta time and ti…

I worked at a FAANG company that was not Meta. I'm not going to defend everything they did, but the culture was set up in such a way that people at all levels of the organization considered how their decisions would impact customers, and they had some sense of obligation to question harmful decisions.

Afterwards, I went to a startup, and the company leadership was shockingly callous about doing things that would harm customers. Some lower-level people spoke up about it, but nobody in a leadership position seemed to want to hear it.

Re: Careless People

#343

Post by alain94040 »

kashunstva wrote: post #166
notesinthefield wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me exactly when it gets interesting, Im listening to it and completely uninterested in the author’s “job pitch”

> completely uninterested in the author’s “job pitch” It's central to the arc of the narrative though. She begins with the idealistic possibilities for Facebook; and now, in a real-life epilogue, is concluding by pulling back the curtain on how horrible these people are. And by extension this company.

The book has great stories. You could skip the job pitch part and jump straight to once she joins Facebook, that's fine too.

Re: Careless People

#344

Post by Throw9444 »

sokoloff wrote: post #318
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. 108 Billion humans have ever lived on planet earth. 8 billion-ish currently. Most of them live lives that in no way reflected on their hard work and talent, but rather their circumstances, starting with where and when they were born but encompassing a million different contingencies outside the control of their hard work or talent. So do you think you have talent and hard work greater than 99% of those many bil…

Pick any of those 8 billion. Have them work half as hard. Have them have half as much talent. Do their outcomes remain the same , get better, or get worse? You’re arguing that there are other factors that also influence outcomes (and that those other factors are stronger forces). I agree with that point, but that’s not a refutation to the notion that the coefficients on talent and hard work are positive, nor a convin…

I imagine first you’d have to define success in a way others might agree with. And talent, for that matter—most notable talents can’t be easily exploited by capital.

But, I do know for sure that being wealthy is correlated to neither skill nor hard work, but savvy leverage of the skill and hard work of others. That shit has to end. You should make proportional to the work you put in. Shareholders and investors are even worse.

But whatever. I do not expect the world to improve at this point. We’re just stuck in a shitty place (as humanity) and asked to be grateful for the insight of the rich.

Re: Careless People

#345

Post by Jensson »

siavosh wrote: post #338
Jensson wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s clear from the zeitgeist that the ultra-rich and powerful—past or present—aren’t working a million percent harder or smarter; their positions are more accurately explained by structural advantages. Millions of people had an equal or better starting condition than Mark Zuckerberg so we aren't really lacking privileged people, but vanishingly few of those do become ultra wealthy.

I'm not going to get into the role of luck, but more curious -- how many ultra-rich individuals do you think can exist on the planet earth?

Point is that wealth is a pretty minor part here compared to luck and skill, as otherwise people born wealthy would dominate the startup world. Instead its people born to upper-middle class families that dominates it.

Re: Careless People

#347

Post by apical_dendrite »

diggan wrote: post #60
vmurthy wrote: post #17

I read the book. It’s a very interesting read. A few things stood out ( no spoilers ) - Casual indifference at exec level to atrocities happening because of FB/ Meta. - Money/power does make you insensitive - Tech bro view of the world permeates most decisions that Meta takes. - Casual sexual harassment for women ( follows from the tech bro worldview I guess ) - US centric world view influencing how execs treat world…

Maybe I'm jaded, but this is how I understand all US technology companies to be run. In fact, I'd be surprised if all of those things weren't true for most of the enormous "tech bro" companies coming from SV.

I would put Meta, the Elon Musk companies, Uber, and some others in a separate category from Amazon, Apple, and Google. To be sure, Amazon, Apple, and Google have done some very immoral things, but there does seem to be something in the culture of those companies that understands that they wield enormous power and that sees value in acting responsibly - even if it's just because they think being cartoonishly evil isn't in their long-term interest. I do think there's been a change in ethos from the Jobs/Bezos/Page/Brin generation of leadership to the Musk/Zuckerberg generation.

Re: Careless People

#348

Post by keerthiko »

swatcoder wrote: post #332
keerthiko wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in my experience, people who grow up as the biggest fish in a small pond (whether concerning just fields they care about, or in general) are always 99% of the time, one of these two when they end up a middling fish in the big pond: like you, happy to find peers and inspiring exemplars to collaborate with and learn from, or those who hate that they are not the best anymore. the former group probably leads the healthie…

I think the more common outcome you're not seeing, for the "other" group, is that they just go back to smaller ponds where they excelled in the first place, and often make strong contributions there. Once it's been observed that there are bigger fish, you can't really go back to the naive sense of boundless potentiality, but you can go back to feeling like a strong and competent leader among people who benefit from a…

this is a very good point, and a blind spot in my comment because IME people who left the small pond in the first place were dissatisfied and unfulfilled there.

it is absolutely possible that after experiencing the bigger pond, people can develop purpose in their "original" pond based on values like community and relationships, or even simply dislike the vibes in bigger ponds and want to undo as much as they can. this is a super valuable thing to society and humanity for the most part, as perhaps more change can happen this way than big things happening in big places.

personally i struggle with this, because whenever i re-enter a smaller ecosystem (including/such as the one i grew up around) i feel like everyone has a distorted view of the bigger pond and self-limit themselves, which is a contagious energy i can't stand.

Re: Careless People

#349

Post by John23832 »

rsynnott wrote: post #164
binaryturtle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called the Streisand Effect. :)

It's kind of amazing that people still hit this, really. Like, if you're Facebook's lawyers, how are you not telling them "don't talk about this; anything you say or do will only promote it further"? The lawyers must _know_.

Competing incentives.

Lawyers get paid to “do something”. To wealthy people, a lawyer saying “let’s actually not do anything” seems like a “what am I paying you for then” moment.

Re: Careless People

#350

Post by scarab92 »

lordnacho wrote: post #96
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

You've won the lottery, but you don't want to acknowledge that you won the lottery. You want to feel they you deserve your position through hard work and talent. You're living in a society where people are credulous, to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success. So what will happen? Everyone you hire ends up patting you on the back, telling you what a great guy you are.

Skill and effort obviously has a part in explaining success.

That aside, I can’t be the only person tired of people bringing envy politics to this forum, trying to shoehorn wealth into every single discussion involving someone who is wealthy, as if that’s the only, or even a valid, way to look at everything they do.

Post reply on HN