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Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

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Re: Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

#41

Post by kstenerud »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Property is the only way that we can build complex things.

We couldn't have airplanes if property didn't exist. Anyone could just walk away with parts off the airplane if they felt like it. And in fact that's exactly what happens if you leave an airplane unprotected for too long.

Hydroelectric dams would be impossible. You couldn't even have light bulbs or computers because their production methods require so much coordinated effort as well as protection from theft and damage.

Without property, all you'd have are bands of foragers because without the ability to control access, any group efforts could be undone overnight by anyone.

Re: Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

#42

Post by dsjoerg »

i ask "what details does the piece offer about how to make the proposed alternative happen?"

===

i'm told "Almost none.

The only concrete mechanisms mentioned are:

Founding worker-owned cooperatives instead of equity-based startups.

Raising capital as loans rather than selling equity.

“Creative ways to solve the political problem of capitalists’ monopoly on capital.” This is referenced but not elaborated.

No operational steps, no policy proposals, no institutional models, no financing frameworks, no examples of working co-op ecosystems, no strategy for scaling co-ops, and no plan to change investor incentives."

===

Dear author, please come back with more specific recommendations. I'm curious what you think early stage startup founders and funders should be doing instead of what they're currently doing. I think you want founders and funders to effectively make massively unilateral economic concessions to early employees, since they are "labor". And then you want those early employees to in turn make massive unilateral concessions to later employees because those are "labor" too.

But what about the rest of labor in society?

Why not instead have massive tax rates on the gains, so that all of society's labor can get in on the fruits, rather than the startups relatively few employees?

Re: Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

#43

Post by jaybrendansmith »

DonHopkins wrote: post #32
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #26

As a democratic socialist, I find this article fails to back its claim that equity is theft. Workers at startups get equity; this is why they work so hard. Would a worker cooperative be better? Possibly, but there is little incentive for the person with the capital to risk their wealth if they don't get a stake that is commensurate to the risk they are taking. I think if anything, startups are a massive improvement o…

You're saying Peter Thiel is a Beholder? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beholder_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons...

Excellent, but was thinking more of a Cloaker, Soulleecher, or Succubus. These creatures seem safe/helpful or innocent, but then attack, draining your life force and leave you as a discarded husk.

Re: Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

#44

Post by jaybrendansmith »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #43
DonHopkins wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying Peter Thiel is a Beholder? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beholder_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons...

Excellent, but was thinking more of a Cloaker, Soulleecher, or Succubus. These creatures seem safe/helpful or innocent, but then attack, draining your life force and leave you as a discarded husk.

Not really sure what he is but this comes immediately to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strahd_von_Zarovich "He is a malignant narcissist trapped by his malignant narcissism – forever alone, forever feared and unable to change. Salvation is beyond him. He is framed as inhumanity personified, often serving as a cautionary tale: once you lose your humanity, you can never get it back."

Re: Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

#45

Post by haritha-j »

omarhaneef wrote: post #11

At the heart of this article is the claim that buying equity is a form of theft. That is an extreme claim (in the sense of surprising, remarkable, unusual, and one that needs a lot more support than ordinary claims). It is inadequately defended here. The argument that it violates fair exchange is tautological.

For me, when you start to lobby, when you explicitly pay people to pass laws in your favour, that's when you cross a line. You go from playing within the rules of the system to making up rules that favour you, and it's wild that it's legal much less acceptable for corporations to do that.

Re: Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

#49

Post by gguunhcyyd »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #33
Avicebron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my house sits on here was acquired mainly by force from its prior inhabitants two centuries ago. This argument can be used for practically any piece of earth, it's nonsensical to fixate on it. The issue has always been that capital (and it's quiet sibling power) can compound itself endlessly absent any checks against it. Societal unification against power and wealth consolidation should be the same as it would be a…

I'm not fixating on it really. My point is just that classical liberal arguments about free exchange and the market and property don't hold up to historical scrutiny. My point is you can't form an ethical framework around property as intrinsic right because really property is less "theft" than it is power , so you end up at the end of the argument having to actually defend might makes right as your world view. (Which…

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