But in any case, I don't quite get how folks who work at a16z can look at themselves in the mirror everyday.
But in any case, I don't quite get how folks who work at a16z can look at themselves in the mirror everyday.
One thing about Marc's biography that I couldn't square: he was supposedly working for NCSA while an undergrad at UofI. My experience as an undergrad is that you could maybe get a guided tour of one of the labs. You may be able to get in the building if your professor worked there or something. The idea that a lab like NCSA would hire an undergrad for anything beyond menial work defies my experience.
Earlier I took it to be that he was such a genius that they decided to Doogie Howser him. But know that we know he's an idiot, that theory doesn't really stand up.
I don't think it's really a good idea to classify folks as "geniuses" or "idiots", because they can often be both. In Andreesen's case, he definitely does seem "genius level" (or at least highly intelligent) when it comes to software development and business. He seems "idiot level" to me when it comes to understanding society broadly and what kind of benefits people seek from technology.
This just feels like a common thread to me for most of these folks. Like I thought Page really was a genius, but when it came out that he's basically OK with AI wiping out humanity and to argue otherwise is "speciesest" (obviously that anecdote is through the grapevine, but others have corroborated that this is Page's general feeling about AI), I'm like "forget idiot level, these folks are psychopathic level".
The ones who don't get corrupted tend to live quiet lives after they reach a high level of wealth.
They're trying to get their way, money is one means. They're trying to implement something they have in mind, outcomes, money is very useful for that in most cases. They're not trying to get more money as the thing unto itself, it's a tool of power/control/influence.
People that have never been near extreme wealth usually fall back to the very primitive reasoning of: it's just money grubbing, it's base greed. Because that's bumper sticker simple thinking that is easy to cuddle up to.
Back in reality, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, et al. these people are humans, they want things, they want outcomes, they have notions for how they think the world should be. Money helps them pursue that, it's nothing but a tool for them, a means to an end. It's comically foolish to think the money is the end.
But this is exactly why people shouldn't be able to accumulate that level of wealth and progressive taxation levels should reach 100% beyond a certain level and we should fix the tax code to tax all wealth and not just standard income.
That much wealth accumulation is anti-democracy.
Nobody elected them to have as much power as that wealth buys them.
I saw a recent interview with Bernie Sanders and they were asking him about how Elon Musk doesn't really want more money (i.e. an extremely small amount of his net worth is in cash). Sanders replied along the lines of "Sure, I agree with that, but the alternative is worse. Musk wants to buy elections, he wants to muscle his way into government in completely unelected positions, just to enforce his will on the rest of us."
It's fine to debate and critique people's actions. But these repeated sneering, belittling snarls about someone's knowledge level and even physical characteristics are off limits here, no matter who they're about.
This is a site for people who have higher standards of themselves than this. Please read the guidelines carefully and have a think about if this is really the right place for your style of discourse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Sorry, but I have no compunction when it comes to dunking on the appearance or tics of ultra wealthy white men who proudly proclaim their own free speech absolutism as cover for their support of rising authoritarianism.
I wouldn't say such things about a normal person, but punching up on powerful people who are actively harming society is always morally correct.
And what he said about the history of introspection was just absolute nonsense.
> punching up
You're not punching anyone. People like that aren't reading your garbage. The only people reading it are other HN readers who are almost all just employees and indie developers trying to make a living. If you want to make a difference to the world, come up with interesting new ideas that can actually change things. Otherwise, stop wasting everyone's time, your own most of all.
Frankly, if I had to compare that manifesto with the Unabombers', I think the Unabomber's makes a lot more sense. Everything I've ever heard out of Andreesen's mouth is "whatever advancements that have made me a mega billionaire are great, and anybody who says otherwise wants to murder children." The absolute cluelessness over even willing to contemplate that technological advancements have some real downsides is so self serving it's gross.
You say "A16Z folks are very human, terrific at what they do and good people." I accept they're very human and terrific at what they do, but no, I don't think they are good people. Hardly anybody ever really thinks "maybe we're the baddies?", and people can tell themselves all sorts of stories about why they're good people as they're raking in millions of dollars. But I'm sick of pretending that people at that level don't have a choice, and what they're choosing to do is cash in while investing in a shitload of things that have negative societal impact. I mean, someone at a16z greenlit the Doublespeed (aka "AI bot farm") investment, and I'm sure they think of themselves as a good person.