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It’s Time to Build

a16z.com

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Re: It’s Time to Build

#691

Post by jacobush »

etrabroline wrote: post #656
baq wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t you think people elected Trump because he was the only GOP candidate?

Donald Trump was not the only GOP candidate, and he was the candidate with the least internal party support. >Trump used ideas of populism to persuade the average American throughout the election process.[139] In mid-September, the first two major candidates dropped out of the race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presiden...

Donald Trump is what gate keeping led to. We are now over the cusp. Enjoy.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#692

Post by mattigames »

ALittleLight wrote: post #645
peterburkimsher wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With so much money earmarked for the military, how absurd would it be to create a "health force" alongside the Space Force?

The US spends about 600 billion on the military and about a trillion on Medicare and health. https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...

That trillion in Medicare is due extremely overpriced supplies that in any other develop country would be exponentially cheaper.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#693

Post by buboard »

tekdude wrote: post #388

Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues, but who will actually do the political work to fight against it? Someone spent money to capture the regulations in the first place, through lobbying and campaign donations. Who will spend the money to lobby and donate for the cause of undoing that? The "builders"? No, their focus and limited capital is spent on whatever it is they are worki…

> who will actually do the political work to fight against it?

The virus is doing a pretty good work so far

Re: It’s Time to Build

#694

Post by dariosalvi78 »

quietthrow wrote: post #313

Since you are reading why nations fail I would like to recommend a pairing. How democracies die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky. The central thesis here is parties are the gatekeepers of democracies and when they put party before nation they erode the democracy that eventually fails. More often it’s a slow degrade than a sudden spectacular collapse. The erosion paves way for leaders that are more “spectacular”…

sounds like the recent story of British politics...

Re: It’s Time to Build

#695

Post by mcphilip »

I expect my reply to be buried in the flood of others, but I enjoyed the essay because of the various responses it provokes internally:

1. Optimistic response.

Right on! More influential VCs need to beat the drum of rebuilding the American Dream and the manufacturing base in spite of there being less potential return than shoveling more money into ad tech. We clearly have the talent to build things again, what we need to work on now is the incentives for talented people to take long term risks instead of joining a FAANG or a hedge fund.

2. Cynical response.

The American Dream has absolutely been crushed. We need triage in the short term, not thought leaders writing about the wonderful opportunities ahead of us in rebuilding after the COVID crisis subsides. Those sitting on large amounts of capital should make mass donations to things like food banks across the country because there is a massive risk of millions of people falling into long term poverty in the immediate future. The short term must be about helping those in desperate need. Long term planning can come later.

3. Response as a father

I hope others read this essay and get inspired about taking more risks in building a better future. As for me, I’m a sole provider for my family and must focus my career on making enough money to support those that depend on me.

I could go on, but you get the idea. A good essay is thought provoking in spite of bits and pieces being easily criticizable.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#696

Post by mattigames »

dmode wrote: post #679
coffeemug wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to be able to accomplish things like raising of Chicago[1] over 150 years ago but we can't move a few tiny communities in the middle of I-5 to build an infrastructure project of enormous economic value in 2020? I think that's case in point. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago

You can view that as a negative. But you can also interpret this as a positive development, where people at grassroots are empowered to protect their own communities, and cannot be simply swept over.

Any research that such thing is a net positive for society at large?

Re: It’s Time to Build

#698

Post by john_minsk »

isseu wrote: post #680
camgunz wrote: post #592

There are two problems: rapidly ballooning income and wealth inequality, and ladder pulling. That explains everything. Why are schools bad? Because we disproportionally fund schools for rich people's kids, and there isn't money or regulatory freedom to innovate there. Why is transportation bad? Because rich people have drivers and private jets, and there isn't money or regulatory freedom to innovate there. Etc etc et…

How private jets affects public transportation?

Because for people flying private jets and who actually can make the difference like the one described in the article, public transportation world is non existent.

The best you can hope for is that they can look at the spreadsheet and subtract costs from revenue.

(I don't think it is wrong)

Re: It’s Time to Build

#699

Post by morelisp »

dmode wrote: post #661
coffeemug wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "put your money where your mouth is" is a good argument. A16z can be subject to prisoner's dilemma of our collective cultural decline and simultaneously have genuine desire to get out of this predicament we're all in. He says it right there in the blog post-- the problem is desire. For example, someone is reliably making tons of money in China stamping cities into the ground and building thousands of mi…

The high speed rail is nothing to do with bureaucrats (not sure what the term means anymore), but is delayed due the really difficult task of land acquisition, while maintaining property rights, and address thousands of lawsuits about communities objecting to various routes. It is easy to comment on the abstract, but I bet even Marc Andreseen won't be happy if a high speed rail runs in his backyard in Atherton

Half of Andreessen's personal wealth is based on SV commercial real estate (cf John Arrillaga). Anything that helps people get around CA easier is against his direct interests, even if it doesn't run literally through his backyard.
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