Hacker News Reader

Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

Ah yes, those fucking selfish SV people. The fact that these people invent services to edit annoyance out of one's life is horrible. (insert eyes rolling here)

Seriously, I could practically taste the bile dripping off of those words as the author decried services which handle groceries and parking. What's the goal of that paragraph? Are we supposed to feel bad some people trade money for time? Guilty? Angry? My read is that they're trying to direct moral outrage at something, but didn't quite get around to telling me what or why I'm supposed to be outraged.

I'm starting to think "SV/startups suck because.." is the new rehash of "I quit $social_network and you should too" from a year or two ago. It's tired, it's preachy, it's shrill, and it doesn't contribute to any kind of productive discourse.

View on HN

You're missing the point.

The problem is, we're focused on trivial bullshit. Parking, car services, groceries, housekeeping.

We're blessed with the most powerful software, hardware, all infinitely scalable and at the lowest cost ever (open source, AWS, cloud, whatever) and we're building bullshit lifestyle apps.

We're a long way off from the 70's and 80's. Steve and Woz's "bicycle for the mind" - Google's "information instantly for everyone" - we're building toys for the rich.

Make no mistake, Uber is for the rich. Taskrabbit is for the rich.

Average household income in the US. Remember, HOUSEHOLD. Is something like ~52K.

Do you think what you're working on will help that $52K household? Because Uber won't. Taskrabbit won't. Your new social network won't.

I know there are outliers. Theranos. 23andMe. Tesla (once it trickles down).

But most of us on here? We want a gadget, some sort of highly-viral network effect app that nets us a liquidity/exit event.

We don't care about income inequality, sexism, or the (middle) class. We want our stupid fucking house in Palo Alto, our Tesla S, and fuck all for anyone outside the bubble.

Maybe step back and decide if you're just selling digital sugar water or if you're actually going to change the world.

The author is cherry-picking, there's loads of tech startups that aren't "lifestyle apps." They're not outliers, it's just that a lot fewer people are interested in reading about payroll companies as compared to SnapChat

Agreed completely, but look at what is systemically rewarded in SV.

What do you think the Google X's and the Teslas and the Rosa Labs' of the world are doing?

Your kind of argument takes the same kind of judgmental tone i'd expect from someone criticizing what particular charity you decided to donate to, as if choosing to donate money to feed the children vs doctors without borders vs NPR vs the local animal shelter... is some kind of value judgement.

Really, it isn't. You're advocating a moral imperative which does not exist in the real world. You don't get to pooh-pooh someone that actually does something which solves some kind of problem as not solving the right kind of problem (and expect to be taken seriously, anyways).

No piece of code any of us can write is going to solve the problems of:

>income inequality, sexism, or the (middle) class.

And as to not caring, speak for yourself.

Google X hasn't shipped a product. Let me know when they do. I won't hold my breath.

I mentioned Tesla. Unfamiliar with Rosa.

I am being judgmental, because if most of us are honest with ourselves it's what is the motivation in the Valley.

Where do you live, where do your kids go to school? East Bay? East Palo Alto? Doubtful.

You mean the usual motivation of creating a business at the end of the day is some kind of profit?

Color me fucking shocked! What makes you think SV is unique in that regard?

At the end of the day, a corporation's job is to generate profit. If that is not their job, they are a nonpofit or similar.

We live in a capitalist society. There's no sense hating the player when you can hate the rules of the game.

> " Yet it’s hard not to notice its passion for issues that look like problems only to people who look like Silicon Valley itself: overwhelmingly white, male, young, educated, and affluent."

That stood out to me. The author is rather bitter as that they feel like they have to make a race point. SV responds to one thing: Money. They respond to people who will give them money. If they don't they won't exist; money doesn't care what race you are. California, and SV in particular, is not a cheap place to live.

You do realize that white, male, educated -- are usually the ones with the money, right?

Race baiting seems to be the order of the day anymore, and it's disheartening to see it getting play among rational people.

"White males are bad, mmkay?" That's all this is. Guilt tripping.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com