Persuade xor Discover

It rubs me the wrong way when people make this sort claim about why others criticise them. Sort of a sophisticated version of a 13 year old girl's mother telling her that the other girls are mean to her because they're jealous. Richard Dawkins makes the same claim when he is confornted: "I realise that I might convince more people by being more strategic or diplomatic. I accept that criticism." (paraphrased) I don't really believe that.

I don't really believe pg when he writes: "I'd rather offend people needlessly than use needless words, and you have to choose one or the other" or ". If you want to please people who are mistaken, you can't simply tell the truth." Actually, it's not that I totally disbelieve him but I think its rationalising in a way that is not entirely intellectually honest. Maybe he rationally agrees with the former. The latter is probably true. But the reasons that we choose our words, our "style" is a lot less rational. In any case, claiming that 'my style is the honest one while the anaemic version that "everyone else" uses and want me to use would be the right one from a persuasion or self promotion perspective,' that is bogus. PG, Arrington & Dawkins have all been successful with their styles. It is doubtful they would have been with the style they describe. Perhaps it is because of the abrasiveness, perhaps not. That's up to discussion.

I understand pg is not defending himself, but he does seem to be defending Arrington in solidarity.

edit:* Something has been bothering me about this comment. I don't disagree with the premise of this essay. I agree with it. Arrington is disliked for reasons unarticulated and possibly unknown to his haters. I'm not even absolutely convinced that this conclusion is wrong. I would be very surprised if the effect it is describing explains everything. A few other explanations seem more likely to me. I am just suspicious of the class of argument put forward in the same way pg is suspicious of the 'heroic generation' arguments.

Of the 45m I only walked away with ~20m net. But besides that, I was in an industry with a lot of very very overpaid people. Some made that much a year. Kept my feet on the ground.

The valley has a whole has been a letdown. The city is nice but no better than many other cities. South bay is a string of ok small towns with little to no decent nightlife.

I've met many fine engineers, plenty of talented and smart people no doubt, but to be honest it's not that there aren't equally smart and talented people elsewhere. I consider some of the people I work with to be world class... but not better than other world class people I've had the pleasure to deal with. Many of whom are hungrier for it. More wild west.

The valley seems like a middle aged club with lots of sycophant youngsters willing to work themselves to death to get in. Plenty of startups rehashing ideas with the occasional, undervalued imho, gem. I think it's easy to argue that the valley is the center of the universe given the incumbent position of privilege it has. There'll be plenty more money made here and plenty more resulting mutual masturbation.

Maybe it was different in past years.

But I can't help but feel that the smartest money looking to build long term world-changing companies might be wondering.. and starting to look elsewhere for the next revolution. There'll be a pullback given the recent economic upheavals but the world is a big place.

Have you been to greenwich village? Faded glory. The left bank in paris.

Like them I don't think the valley is going away. Just succumbing to middleage spread.

I guess it depends what you consider important. I moved here recently. I don't disagree with much of what you say - but for me nightlife, social circles, name-dropping, and sycophants are only background elements.

What I do think are important are: 1) the very talented people I meet that come to the valley from all over the world both to live and to attend the endless flow of conferences, 2) the entrepreneurs and researchers I meet who are trying to change the world (in those words), and 3) the wide availability of resources (people, funding, advice, etc) for my startup.

These things I consider most important have actually exceeded my expectations about the valley.