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95% of books are not good, therefore writing books creates no value. The article makes a similar claim, but there is no mechanism that connects the part befo

95% of books are not good, therefore writing books creates no value. The article makes a similar claim, but there is no mechanism that connects the part before therefore with the part after - it's assumed to be self evident. But that's nonsense. If you make such a claim, the onus is on you to explain how is it that failure rate, whatever it is, leads to value being not X, not Y, but <= zero

acdha 11y ago
That doesn't seem relevant to the discussion at hand in the absence of a publisher claiming that the entire world should run like a publishing house with poor quality standards and telling everyone that their only sure path to success comes from writing books. Your response does, however, nicely illustrate the problem: if someone went around telling kids that they should quit school, put everything into becoming NBA stars, hit musicians, etc. they'd rightly be mocked. When similar claims are made by Silicon Valley VCs, however, they're taken far more seriously despite not being much more realistic in practice. Similarly, there are the costs to others from startup-style churn: people losing jobs due to VC-mandated unsound business plans or replacing many jobs with automation. To be clear, that isn't automatically wrong but definitely has a real measurable cost to society which many people prefer not to take seriously. Holly Wood might not have captured every detail of that debate but she's doing a great job of reminding us that we shouldn't forget it exists.
- vasilipupkin 11y ago
  I'm specifically questioning nonsensical claims that startups create no value made by Holly Wood. I'm not sure what you are even talking about. Who is telling everyone to quit school and what does that have to do with any of this ?
  - Apocryphon 11y ago
    Peter Thiel, for one. You haven't noticed on HN and other startup circles the idealization of the college dropout who becomes a startup founder?
    - vasilipupkin 11y ago
      Peter Thiel advocated for everyone not to go to college ? I think he advocated that college may not be the necessary for some people. But, I don't see what that has to do with the discussion at hand
      - SixSigma 11y ago
        Did you like Thiel's 'women have ruined everything' polemic in 2009 ? "The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women - two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians - have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron." http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education...

acdha 11y ago

That doesn't seem relevant to the discussion at hand in the absence of a publisher claiming that the entire world should run like a publishing house with poor quality standards and telling everyone that their only sure path to success comes from writing books. Your response does, however, nicely illustrate the problem: if someone went around telling kids that they should quit school, put everything into becoming NBA stars, hit musicians, etc. they'd rightly be mocked. When similar claims are made by Silicon Valley VCs, however, they're taken far more seriously despite not being much more realistic in practice. Similarly, there are the costs to others from startup-style churn: people losing jobs due to VC-mandated unsound business plans or replacing many jobs with automation. To be clear, that isn't automatically wrong but definitely has a real measurable cost to society which many people prefer not to take seriously. Holly Wood might not have captured every detail of that debate but she's doing a great job of reminding us that we shouldn't forget it exists.

vasilipupkin 11y ago
I'm specifically questioning nonsensical claims that startups create no value made by Holly Wood. I'm not sure what you are even talking about. Who is telling everyone to quit school and what does that have to do with any of this ?
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  Peter Thiel, for one. You haven't noticed on HN and other startup circles the idealization of the college dropout who becomes a startup founder?
  - vasilipupkin 11y ago
    Peter Thiel advocated for everyone not to go to college ? I think he advocated that college may not be the necessary for some people. But, I don't see what that has to do with the discussion at hand
    - SixSigma 11y ago
      Did you like Thiel's 'women have ruined everything' polemic in 2009 ? "The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women - two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians - have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron." http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education...