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Comment by snacksmcgee | Hacker News Reader

A crucial point that is lost on this venture capital-funded forum: scummy garbage makes money. Taking sales people out for steak and whiskey makes money. Lying makes money. (That last point is especially funny considering how startups lie, too, like having a landing page and no product but collecting emails like you do.)

The economy is built on grifting, at this point, and every time, people here are shocked, SHOCKED that that is the case.

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> The economy is built on grifting, at this point

I agreed until here. Obviously, lying isn't the only way to make money. I make furniture and fix windows in old houses for a living. Am I grifting?

When you stretch into hyperbole, you lose the ability to convince people in the middle.

It's not that hyperbolic. I'd say the economy isn't built on you making furniture and fixing windows in old houses for a living.

Do folks like you exist? Yes. Is the economy built on folks like you? No.

> Do folks like you exist? Yes. Is the economy built on folks like you? No.

Are you sure?

If you ignore human constructs such as companies and organisations and quantify based on classifications that make more sense for aggregates of workers, you might be surprised how little of the economy is built on the F500 let alone venture capital unicorns.

What do you think the economy is built on? Do you realize how much is spent on basic things like energy, food, construction of roads, buildings, houses?

It’s very obvious when people straight up lie in these industries because the physical thing never materializes.

Yeah, if people were lying about utilities and infrastructure we'd have a right mess... like sewage pumped into rivers and onto beaches whilst water executives take home £millions. Those same companies begging for taxpayers money to do maintenance whilst paying out billions to shareholders. And infrastructure projects that look weirdly like ways to divert £billions of tax resources into private hands whilst achieving essentially no benefit.

/crying-in-UK

One of many stories about HS2 -- they managed to not document procurement though, so the judges didn't turn find evidence of corruption in that aspect (different story) -- https://www.railtech.com/all/2023/10/23/british-high-speed-r...

> It’s very obvious when people straight up lie in these industries because the physical thing never materializes.

Sort of. The trick in these industries is to instead cheat on quality of materials and workmanship. Which is how we're drowning in physical products to buy, and yet most of them are barely functioning garbage - they've all been "value engineered" to near breaking point.

Here is a breakdown of the US GDP in 2023:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-u-s-gdp-by-indu...

I think it's fair to say that a large component of the top two industries (professional services and real estate) are shady. OTOH, there are a lot of industries that seem less prone to corruption and more likely to reward people for honest work.

That's just my POV, though.

I'd actually say it's opposite. The economy is built on folks like him but rewards other folks making it seems like his contribution to the economy is nil.

What percentage of the GDP is furniture making and window fixing? Yours is a noble profession, and like most noble professions is barely a blip in the grand Machiavellian scheme of capitalism

People building physical things makes up far more of the GDP than VC-backed startups producing vaporware

If you mean manufacturing vs tech sector, then yes; however much of manufacturing has become automated. I was referring to actual craftsmen crafting things. Point being, when people talk bad about capitalism, they’re not talking about artisans or craftspeople or other tradespeople plying their trade, they are referring to the system by which capital is accrued and hoarded by the owner class

I get what you mean, but one could argue its a bit hyperbolic (maybe false equivalence?) to draw a line between the economic impact of small biz/single proprietor and the economy writ large.

That said...thank gawd there's still room for biz like yours.

"...like you do" Is this a typo or a personal attack to the parent?

I think it's just a grammar thing, meant to read "having a landing page and no product, but collecting emails like you do [have a product]" - so not the parent being disingenuous but the general practice.

"like" = "as if", and not in a Clueless inflection.

VC is an absolute cancer. All of these grifters claim to love free markets, but the entire ecosystem is just propping up companies operating at a loss until all their competitors fold. At least these useless buzzword B2B companies actually have some gormless entity willing to pay them enough to keep the lights on without another 500 million dollar check from Daddy Andreessen lol

> That last point is especially funny considering how startups lie, too, like having a landing page and no product but collecting emails like you do.

How dare companies do market research with potential buyers to know what to build before they start building it! If only we could setup massive factories that pump out hot garbage that nobody wants and build roads to nowhere like the soviets did.

A crucial point that is lost on this venture capital-funded forum: scummy garbage makes money.

I don't think you quite understand how VC works.

Let me explain it to them, then: it's not simply that "scummy garbage makes money". It's that scummy but shiny garbage is given away for free, which makes the company look great to potential buyers - typically large corporations or the public (via IPO) - which allows the company to be sold for stupid amounts of money before the buyer realizes they bought a garbage factory, and this is what makes investors money.

People who got the free shiny scummy garbage? They don't matter, their only role is to grow a counter on financial reports, and to serve as a backup plan - because when the potential buyers realize too soon what they were about to buy, the people holding the previously free garbage can be squeezed for some money to hopefully make the investors whole.

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