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Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#41

I don’t think it’s possible to be more insufferable than the All-In gang (David Sachs, etc), even Friedberg has gone anti-science (Natural gas? Really) and MAGA. Calicanis moved to Texas. These aren’t Silicon Valley people.

It's all well and good to deny that this group represents SV, but I do think they're more representative of the leadership class than most would like to admit. They were among the first people to call out that layoffs were coming. Even if their reasoning was bad, they're well connected enough to understand the vibe among the wealthiest people in the area. Within two years of that prediction, and after Musk had laid off 80% of Twitter, hundreds of thousands of tech workers had lost their jobs.

Even if the podcast makes it obvious that these men are clueless dilettantes, they were still lucky enough to have invested money into the right companies at the right time. They are well connected and rich. They're part of the private group chats that people like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen are using to shape the vibe, and like it or not, people like this have a lot of influence over the business culture in the valley.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#42

It's a funny ideology that's like "We're going to end scarcity and implement UBI, but also, be scared of socialism."

It seems like as soon as any particular set of ideas starts to attract a dedicated following said group abandons reason in favor of dogmatism, lack of consistency be damned.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#43
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That's panic.

So assessing someone's ability to govern is "panic".

How about the voters?

Is any negative assessment of the candidate "panic"?

Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#44
post #2

> Silicon Valley In this case, does that mean something more like "an exclusive clique of lucky tech-bros that converge on political views in their private channels"? As a larger region/industry, I can't see why SV would "panic" about a city mayor of a different city in another state thousands of miles away, no matter how populous the city is.

I'll break it down for you. For a long time, neoliberals like Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have run the Democratic party. They have enjoyed soaking up the progressive votes from the more left parts of the party, but they have done everything possible to prevent those elements from rising too high in the power structure. You saw it in 2016 when the party leadership coalesced around Hillary to nudge out Bernie, and again i…

Too bad most of this is meaningless, and the actual policy is the only thing standing between America and another 50 years of housing crises. When the so called progressive millennial is pitching rent control as the solution to housing in the largest city in the US you already know it's fucking Joever.

Social policy is popular among millennials, that doesn't make it good. Mamdani and his followers are wilfully ignorant to the root causes of the issues NYC is facing.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#45

> Gemini cofounders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, former X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, and Y Combinator president and CEO Garry Tan have also posted about Mamdani with some combination of anger, fear, and dread since his primary win. Yes, Garry Tan's message is disappointing: https://archive.ph/o/mTmBP/https://x.com/garrytan/status/193...

I for one am shocked that the man responsible for one of the more visible apparatus for neoliberal capital allocation, one responsible for such luminaries as doordash, with which you can rent a poor person to bring you treats, has some shitty opinions about someone who actually wants to improve his community.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right that this is what people believe. But as far as I've been able to tell, Mamdani's platform does not include anything about rent control. The closest position he's advocating for is to freeze the rent stabilization rate for 5 years while massively ramping up the construction of new apartments to bring rental costs down. Much of the pushback about Mamdani seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding…

Is that difference relevant here? I'm not familiar with the difference, but looking it up real quick, they seem to be extremely similar. They both act as price controls, which implies the same sorts of economic consequences.

Yes. Rent control is what most people are familiar with (grandma living in a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village paying $200 / month, locked in since the 1970's). Rent stabilization is just a regulation that puts some type of reasonable cap on how much landlords can increase the rent every year, usually around 3-5% per year.

This is especially relevant in this election, as Cuomo is attacking Mamdani for living in a rent stabilized apartment, suggesting it's hypocritical because he can afford a more expensive apartment. This is deliberately trying to muddy the distinction between "rent stabilized" and "rent controlled" (about half of NY apartments are rent stabilized, and there is absolutely no cultural expectation that people move out when they get a raise, or whatever nonsense Cuomo's suggesting).

Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#49
post #41

I don’t think it’s possible to be more insufferable than the All-In gang (David Sachs, etc), even Friedberg has gone anti-science (Natural gas? Really) and MAGA. Calicanis moved to Texas. These aren’t Silicon Valley people.

It's all well and good to deny that this group represents SV, but I do think they're more representative of the leadership class than most would like to admit. They were among the first people to call out that layoffs were coming. Even if their reasoning was bad, they're well connected enough to understand the vibe among the wealthiest people in the area. Within two years of that prediction, and after Musk had laid o…

What's most puzzling to me is how at this point a larger part of SV hasn't distanced itself with All-in Podcast-adjacent people a lot more vocally. I think the lasting power of that region hinges on some important voices doing that sooner rather than later, because they're actively damaging the whole brand of SV at this point.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Panicking About Zohran Mamdani. NYC's Tech Scene Is Not

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that difference relevant here? I'm not familiar with the difference, but looking it up real quick, they seem to be extremely similar. They both act as price controls, which implies the same sorts of economic consequences.

Yes. Rent control is what most people are familiar with (grandma living in a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village paying $200 / month, locked in since the 1970's). Rent stabilization is just a regulation that puts some type of reasonable cap on how much landlords can increase the rent every year, usually around 3-5% per year. This is especially relevant in this election, as Cuomo is attacking Mamdani fo…

I'm still not sure what the important distinction is. Are you saying it's that rent control freezes the price entirely, while rent stabilization allows it to increase? That doesn't seem to be right from what I'm seeing; "rent control" includes systems where the rent can increase. NYC apparently has both and NYC rent control does allow for (capped) rent increases, according to the NYC government: https://hcr.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2024/01/fact-sheet...
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