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Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

notesfrombelow.org

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

#91

Post by fluoridation »

frankest wrote: post #23

This seems like a throw back in time - as if one of the Communist propaganda arms of Eastern Europe wrote it. This article doesn’t understand tech or modern evil. It just spews worker vs equity owner arguments. Any engineer today could start their own business. They could instantly become equity owners. Especially with AI. Many giants paid salaries and equity packages to the best, to keep them from starting competiti…

>If you count human brain time and attention as the most valuable and sparse of resource

But it's not, though. Human brain time (just in general, with no additional conditions) is pretty worthless, that's why people piss it away in idle activities. Just look at services like Mechanical Turk. The so-called attention economy is not about the attention itself. It's about getting the brains that give the attention to spend money.

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

#93

Post by silexia »

The argument that profit equals theft as a fundamental misunderstanding of system mechanics. The article relies on the outdated notion that labor is the sole input for value, ignoring the critical function of capital as fuel for risk. Investors and founders absorb the high probability of total system failure, which allows employees to receive guaranteed, low-latency salaries regardless of the product's success. If workers wanted the full residual profit, they would need to accept the full downside risk, including working for zero pay until revenue stabilizes.

The preference for traditional corporate structures over cooperatives is not a conspiracy but an optimization for speed and scalability. Centralized decision-making allows startups to pivot rapidly in competitive markets, whereas committee-based governance often introduces fatal latency. Furthermore, employment is a voluntary exchange where engineers trade skills for compensation, often including equity to align incentives. Labeling this voluntary cooperation as "evil" ignores that this model has driven the greatest reduction in information costs in history. We are not victims of a theft-based institution but participants in a high-performance engine that rewards efficiency and problem-solving.

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

#94

Post by frankest »

fluoridation wrote: post #91
frankest wrote: post #23

This seems like a throw back in time - as if one of the Communist propaganda arms of Eastern Europe wrote it. This article doesn’t understand tech or modern evil. It just spews worker vs equity owner arguments. Any engineer today could start their own business. They could instantly become equity owners. Especially with AI. Many giants paid salaries and equity packages to the best, to keep them from starting competiti…

>If you count human brain time and attention as the most valuable and sparse of resource But it's not, though. Human brain time (just in general, with no additional conditions) is pretty worthless, that's why people piss it away in idle activities. Just look at services like Mechanical Turk. The so-called attention economy is not about the attention itself. It's about getting the brains that give the attention to spe…

The brains are being skewed with the content making fears disproportionate to reality and raising anxiety which disables rational thought and constructive activity.

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

#95

Post by immibis »

Avicebron wrote: post #29
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who coined the "Property is theft" quote (Proudhon if I recall) clearly made a distinction between capital-p Property and personal possession. And I think most regular people do, too. I don't necessarily think of my stocks and bonds in my retirement funds in the same category as my toothbrush, suit jacket, or even my house or garden or whatever. Classical liberalism and its descendants want to blur the dis…

> 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…

If you're trying to argue "Group X should own it instead of Group Y" then you're right - there is no good argument to fix any particular Group X - there's only special pleading. Why should it be the group who controlled it in 1600 AD, not the group who controlled it in 1600 BC or the group who controls it right now?

But there are other philosophies that don't have this problem. Philosophies where there's no notion of ownership at all, or ownership is by the entirety of humanity/the world (which makes it meaningless), and one person can only borrow something for an extended period of time. This is how a lot of native peoples viewed land, which makes sense since it cannot be created or destroyed. Or philosophies where, for example, all humans collectively own all land and houses, but it's very practical to uniquely assign one human to each house, but there's nothing special about that connection, and it doesn't give the rights to, say, hold that object hostage for money. (This is how socialists view toothbrushes, I'm told.)

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

#96

Post by immibis »

labcomputer wrote: post #70
sumuyuda wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main argument that it is theft, is that they contribute nothing to the continued surplus generated after their loan was repaid. So they effectively steal the profits like a parasite. Why should they get ownership of the business? When you get a mortgage for your house, the bank doesn’t permanently own part of your house after you pay it off.

> Why should they get ownership of the business? When you get a mortgage for your house, the bank doesn’t permanently own part of your house after you pay it off. Because the VCs are funding the startup on extremely favorable terms? If the startup fails, the founders can just walk away. They are not personally liable for anything. They can (and often do) subsequently form another startup, often funded by the very sam…

What if we created a system where startups didn't require as much funding? Is the system set up in such a funding-intensive way in order to benefit VCs, who can swoop in and save the day? If so, rich people don't get any credit for solving a problem rich people created.

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

#97

Post by immibis »

fluoridation wrote: post #88
yogurt-male wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VCs are happy to throw away money on 99 failed startups precisely because they are entitled to the continued surplus from 1 successful startup. And why is this a good thing? I think the past decade and the current bubble point to this being a bug, not a feature. What I mean to say is that VCs seem far too eager to throw money at ventures with untenable business plans or that lack any edge over competing firms, whic…

What do you mean "a bug"? A bug in what? If to someone it makes sense to pour money into an apparently non-viable business on the off chance that it succeeds, what exactly is it that you're saying is not functioning properly? The person's mind? So what do you want to do about it?

You're only reacting to a part of the system. You're starting from the axiom that businesses need a level of risky funding that only VCs will provide, and then congratulating VCs for swooping in and saving the day. But would it be possible to have a system where startups to require less funding? For example, by UBI, or normalizing bootstrapping?

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

#98

Post by immibis »

api wrote: post #73
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.

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?

> the other failed early 20th century totalistic political ideology.

I'm not sure how to square this statement with reality. Which countries were Marxist? The obvious "communist"/"socialist" country was the USSR, but it was Leninist/Stalinist.

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

#99

Post by ffsm8 »

labcomputer wrote: post #72
ffsm8 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Naw, you're making a claim that's just not true.

The company will have some value left on default. E.g if it's a software company it will have the IP for the software etc pp

Now wherever that's enough for anyone to be willing to take that risk with the loan is another story and thus I could now quote my previous comment in its entirety

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

#100

Post by dirtbag__dad »

fogzen wrote: post #60
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.

Is it really so crazy to extend democracy to the enterprise?

I think so. People will behave in the guardrails they are provided. If we have a problem with those rails, then in the US at least, democracy is (ostensibly maybe) the tool to make them more aligned with what we want.
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