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Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

ianbetteridge.com

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Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#81

Post by TeMPOraL »

thr0w wrote: post #18
dannyobrien wrote: post #4

I think another way to explain "being bored" (and a bunch of other features that this post describes). These people are getting old: Andreessen is 53, Graham is 59, the author is in his fifties; I am too. Nothing too surprising about having older people be the supposed "blowhard" voices of an industry -- except during the golden age that these posts harken back too, all of these pundits were twenty or so years younge…

While it seems clear that general vibe is trending to the negative, it's interesting to me that everyone has their own slant on it. My personal issue with Graham is that his writings are all trite common sense-isms dressed up as complicated analogies or profound insight. Like the way people claim Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field", as if the term "charisma" wasn't coined for good reason a billion years ago..…

> Like the way people claim Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field", as if the term "charisma" wasn't coined for good reason a billion years ago...

Charisma is active - as in, the charismatic leader talks you into believing their bullshit. Reality distortion field is passive - as in, you hang out too much around the leader, or people hanging out around the leader, and you end up believing their bullshit.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#82

Post by vidarh »

jen729w wrote: post #58
Animats wrote: post #24

The part of "tech" which is ad-driven has become both boring and seriously annoying. Unfortunately, that's where the money is. There are interesting things going on: * Self-driving cars finally work. San Francisco is full of them. Next step is to get the cost down and replace those rotating scanners with something cheaper. At least the ones that aren't on top. * Robotic manipulation in unstructured situations is just…

> * Electric cars. For new car sales, 10% in US are electric. 20% worldwide. 50% in China. US is way behind. Norway: hold my beer. 94%. https://electriccarsreport.com/2024/09/norways-ev-sales-set-...

A key element is that Norway has some of the highest taxes on cars in the world, and one of highest VAT/sales tax rates, which created a very politically palatable opportunity for very significant tax breaks, with a perfect confluence of overlap between those who wanted an environmentally friendly policy, and those who wanted less tax.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#83

Post by mihaic »

> If you are hiring “professional fakers” that means you are a poor manager. > Tech has become all Jobs and no Woz.

If the expectation for your average Woz is to handle seasoned bullshitters, how can you expect them to also be hackers?

It's true that VCs and an ossified economy contribute more to the blandness of new companies, but ignoring the problems with the hiring market leaves you with half a picture. I'm not blaming employees for doing what's best for them, but it feels naive and unempathetic to put the blame of aligning incentives to founders, when the problems are systemic.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#84

Post by TeMPOraL »

wg0 wrote: post #80
TeMPOraL wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco isn't a purpose-built lab, it's a real city that grew organically over centuries, like every other city. So if it works only in San Francisco now, it means it's 99% to working everywhere else on the planet.

That reads like 99% cities are like San Francisco. The world unfortunately is lot more diverse than that.

> The world unfortunately is lot more diverse than that.

It is, but only at the surface level.

99% of the actual problem of driving in urban areas is the same everywhere on the planet, because all human cities are pretty much the same, because all humans are pretty much the same - once you start comparing with the rest of the universe, and not just with other people. San Francisco, Moscow, Cape Town and Prague are almost entirely unlike each other, yet they're all obviously the same when you compare them against ant hills or forests or coral reefs.

Self-driving is a physical reality problem, not social diversity perception problem.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#85

Post by KaiserPro »

alextingle wrote: post #74
KaiserPro wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amphetamines solved obesity in the 60s (this is from the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obetrol )

I don't see anything in there about efficacy. Did it actually work to combat obesity?

THis paper from 1947 sums up the state of the science(and opinion) at the time: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/29572...

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#86

Post by andrew311 »

> it’s difficult to look at people like Graham — people who aren’t as bright as they think they are

Graham’s (alleged) arrogance about his brightness isn’t really the issue here. Let’s face it, he is bright. That’s not what is causing this boredom/dismay, though.

The issue is that somehow the rest of us became entranced by the “cult of Graham” and his thinking about startups/founders, and collectively we made his way into the way, ostracizing those that lived their life outside the idealized startup paradigm that Graham crafted. Creation of this dismay isn’t on him alone, it’s on all of us.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#87

Post by namaria »

thr0w wrote: post #18
dannyobrien wrote: post #4

I think another way to explain "being bored" (and a bunch of other features that this post describes). These people are getting old: Andreessen is 53, Graham is 59, the author is in his fifties; I am too. Nothing too surprising about having older people be the supposed "blowhard" voices of an industry -- except during the golden age that these posts harken back too, all of these pundits were twenty or so years younge…

While it seems clear that general vibe is trending to the negative, it's interesting to me that everyone has their own slant on it. My personal issue with Graham is that his writings are all trite common sense-isms dressed up as complicated analogies or profound insight. Like the way people claim Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field", as if the term "charisma" wasn't coined for good reason a billion years ago..…

> Like the way people claim Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field", as if the term "charisma" wasn't coined for good reason

Back in the day that was called 'being charming', not 'charismatic', and it was an offense: you're being intentionally dishonest and manipulative. Now it just means it's cute. Language changes...

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#88

Post by Mistletoe »

tptacek wrote: post #26

When the post came out, for the first time in a long time I found myself nodding my head with Graham, because I feel like basically everyone who has worked in a company that has found some form of product/market fit and started staffing and and delegating has had the experience of watching pasteurized process cheese food faceplant trying to understand and further a sane goal a founding team got some traction with whe…

I wonder if we really will be talking about Woz vs. Jobs in 50 years? It has already been about 50 years. I don’t think that many people still talk about Rockefeller vs. Carnegie. Really the way Carnegie is still talked about is for his philanthropy and building 2500 libraries, etc. Those things remain.

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#89

Post by sulandor »

WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #22

The industry is mostly run by opportunists, I refused to make career despite my appetite for low level programming I have no desire to contribute to this whole circus full for fraudsters

> industry is mostly run by opportunists

yes, non-participation is hardly possible though

Re: Founder Mode, hackers, and being bored by tech

#90

Post by namaria »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #77
dannyobrien wrote: post #4

I think another way to explain "being bored" (and a bunch of other features that this post describes). These people are getting old: Andreessen is 53, Graham is 59, the author is in his fifties; I am too. Nothing too surprising about having older people be the supposed "blowhard" voices of an industry -- except during the golden age that these posts harken back too, all of these pundits were twenty or so years younge…

There are just as many young blowhards. A lot of "tech" is mature now. People whine "where's the innovation" in phones, for example. At this point, WTF do you want them to do? Where's the "innovation" in spreadsheets or word processors? It IS kinda boring. And it's not going to get better when it's a bunch of recycled pablum shat out by "AI."

You're being downvoted possibly because of the tone, but there's something to what you're saying. People keep creating toil because they want to re-invent databases or distributed systems when we already know how to do them properly.

I blame greed. It was all the people coming into the field for the money and trying to entertain themselves at work because they don't like tech, they like feeling smart.

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