Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by judahmeek » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

cjbgkagh wrote: post #52

haritha-j wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While I agree it is unfair and it would be better if they didn’t, the reality is that there is a meta-game at a higher level and they are playing according to the meta-game rules. Part of the meta-game is to convince others to stay in the regular game sandbox which gives rise to the hypocrisy we are all familiar with. I don’t know what it would take to diminish the meta-gaming let alone eliminate it, it’s very hard t…

The Atlantic just wrote an article that references this concept: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/marjorie-taylor-gr...

They also have several older articles directly targeting insider trading by politicians.

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

#72

Post by labcomputer » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

ffsm8 wrote: post #69

Anon1096 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, in a mortgage the loan is secured by the house. But more importantly: you can get simple loans for startups too! Banks provide loans that are personally guaranteed (ie if the business goes under the founder is still on the hook). But if you want more money or something that is limited in liability then your pool of people willing to give money is much smaller and they usually want a stake in the business as…

The opposite argument would be that the default should behave like the house then, so ownership should switch over to the person providing the loan entirely - instead of passing on part ownership forever. But that's obviously less desirable to the person providing the money, and they've obviously got all the cards... Hence the argument of this post. I wouldn't call it evil myself, unless I wanted to classify capitali…

You aren’t thinking this through. If a startup defaults, it is because they have no money left (which is because they do not have a viable business yet). So there is nothing of value to repossess.

This is the same reason the bank asks for an independent valuation of a house (and requires the buyer to maintain insurance) before releasing the money to pay for it: The value of the collateral needs to plausibly match the value of the loan, so that the value of the loan can be recovered in case of default.

The only way this works is for the founder to personally guarantee the loan. Which means the founder needs to have sufficient personal assets to keep the bank happy. It also means the founder risks personal bankruptcy if those assets are not enough to cover the loan if the startup defaults.

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

#73

Post by api » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #21

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.

The article is clearly written from a bit of a Marxian perspective and I think there's a lot assumed ... presuppositions about exploitation and value theory. So yeah, even though on first skim I think I agree with the thrust of this article, I think you're right it's poorly defended, assuming it's at all for an audience outside of people who already think this way.

Marxism is back in vogue again. I guess people have tried reviving Naziism/fascism so now they’ve got to try reviving the other failed early 20th century totalistic political ideology.

I get that the status quo has huge issues, but can we have some new ideas maybe instead of continuing to try to revive late 19th century ones that have repeatedly and disastrously failed?

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

#74

Post by otterley » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

treyd wrote: post #64

kstenerud wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

> Property is the only way that we can build complex things. This assertion needs to be substantiated, even if it is true. You give an example of how property "allows us to build complex things", but you don't prove that it's impossible for any other system of ownership or of mediating access to resources/"things" to allow that.

Fine. It's the only way we know of that unlocks the potential of building complex things. If you know of an alternative that is better, please tell us!

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

#75

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #47

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #19

> like an Apple, Facebook, or Google One of these, is not like the others.

One of these has better marketing for sure.

Hating on Apple is quite fashionable, around here, but it’s an old company, that grew up in a very different fashion from Google and Facebook. It's an old-fashioned SV company.

I’ve been writing software for Apple systems since 1986, and it was already a well-established company, by then.

I have watched people declare it dead, numerous times, since then.

That doesn’t excuse some of its behavior, nowadays, but it’s a very different creature, and lumping it in with them, seems like a cheap grab for Apple-haters.

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

#76

Post by underlipton » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

renegade-otter wrote: post #38

It's like accusing a pig of being a pig. Pig gonna do what pig does. What DOESN'T work is legally-enforced "norms" that we the people decide everyone has to follow. Businesses are "people" now, according to the US Supreme Court, so it's our job to make them face consequences if they refuse to behave like actual "humans" bound by laws. But it's only if we elect representatives who are not corrupt grifters.

I think we just need to get rid of corporate personhood. If you want to do something big, you need to have skin in the game. Criminal prosecution for corporate action taken under your purview should be more common. If you can't handle the heat, just come watch TV with the rest of us plebs.

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

#77

Post by kmeisthax » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

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.

Imagine for a second that any time you borrowed money to buy something, like a home or a car, you paid that back not by actually paying the loan plus interest, but by a % garnishment of your lifetime wages. That is what equity capital is like.

Obviously, nobody would take that kind of deal. But what if regular loans were just flat out not made available to you? Like, if tomorrow, banks as a class individually decided they would only accept payment in this sort of lifetime wage equity. Then it's not really a choice anymore. One of the options has been taken away from you. If I take a fair deal and have one of the counterparties flat out remove some of the negotiating options - even if they were not the ones taken - is it still a fair deal?

In other words, the argument that fair exchange has been violated is based on the idea that market power can be a form of coercion. If you don't agree, then you can argue that every possible counterparty deciding to only offer you a bad deal is perfectly acceptable and non-coercive. "Natural shorts[0] are not coercion", in other words. But why stop there? I mean, even in outright theft, where I'm holding a literal gun to your head and demanding payment, you could still choose to eat lead. We can redefine theft and coercion down to excuse any behavior we want on libertarian terms. The tautology is not with the argument, it's with fair exchange itself.

[0] As in, "thing you need to exist". You have a natural short position in food, drink, and shelter.

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

#78

Post by Retric » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

rixed wrote: post #51

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is clearly written from a bit of a Marxian perspective and I think there's a lot assumed ... presuppositions about exploitation and value theory. So yeah, even though on first skim I think I agree with the thrust of this article, I think you're right it's poorly defended, assuming it's at all for an audience outside of people who already think this way.

I haven't read Marx since I left college, but in my remembering the only thing that is "theft" in the capital is the initial accumulation. There is no idea that any form of ownership beside that is theft (I don't believe there is any notion of "evil" either.) To be honest, you don't give the impression that you have read anything from the author that you are siting. Marx is like those ancient greek phylosophers and c…

I think you misunderstood his viewpoint.

Marx’s writing predates the US civil war. When you “own” someone and then “own” their labor the fruits of that labor aren’t yours any more than the person. By that reasoning, if you then use the fruits of that labor to buy a house it’s a stolen house.

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

#79

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:46 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #41

__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 co…

I wasn't talking about about stuff you can walk off with, nor was the article author, nor was Proudhon in 1840. This is about the difference between owning things made my people versus owning people who make things.

Used to be that the people themselves were property, then it was the machines they used, now it's some abstraction related to shares and companies, but it's all the same: what you're doing belongs to me not because I bought it from you but because of something to do with my position in society as it relates to yours.

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

#80

Post by labcomputer » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 4:47 PM UTC

treyd wrote: post #64

kstenerud wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

> Property is the only way that we can build complex things. This assertion needs to be substantiated, even if it is true. You give an example of how property "allows us to build complex things", but you don't prove that it's impossible for any other system of ownership or of mediating access to resources/"things" to allow that.

> but you don't prove that it's impossible for any other system of ownership or of mediating access to resources/"things" to allow that.

You can’t prove a negative, so the onus is actually on you to show an example of a working alternative that does not rely on property.

And it has been tried in the 20th century. Several times, in fact. Despite all the industrial espionage committed by the Soviet Union (which saved them the resources to do the research themselves) and the slave labor of people who spoke or wrote about the “wrong” ideas (which surplus was given to the rest of the population), ordinary people in the USSR had much worse lives than those in the West.