Here’s the HN post that Paul Graham, BDFL of Silicon Valley, won’t let me write.
michaelochurch.wordpress.com
michaelochurch.wordpress.com
I was using it as metaphor, but I suppose that token is negatively correlated with post quality.
I'm sure it matters to you, but I wish you'd take it somewhere else.
The VCs have basically filled technology with petty high-school drama. By funding people like Jack Dorsey and Evan Speigel, they're directly responsible for the toxic climate.
The fact that Paul Graham goes to extremes to manicure the reputation of the VC-funded ecosystem deserves attention. Why? Because it shows the underlying weakness of this system. Things that are strong can stand to have bad things said about them, because the truth favors them.
The reason it's of interest is that Hacker News has been assigning personal penalties to the posts of people who are critical of venture capital. This is just one episode in an ongoing campaign of nonsense.
I'm not upset about this stuff. It doesn't bother me. In fact, the degree to which I was personally targeted (my posts invariably appear below where they should based on votes and post age, but I still have a 5+ karma average) makes me happy. I just like to draw attention to it because it shows how obsessively PG is working to manicure the reputation of a pseudomeritocracy that apparently can't handle people saying bad things about it.
VCs are passive-aggressive little girls if they can't handle people telling the truth about them.