49 ms·

White House Echoes Tech: ‘Move Fast and Break Things’

42 points by fabrice_d 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago
I cannot fathom how Sam Altman thought that it would be a good idea to be a source for this article, let alone provide the specific quotes that he did. How does YC benefit from this? How does public policy benefit from it? "The Silicon Valley President in every way except the ideology is flipped"? "He did everything we tell our startups to do"? You're the CEO of Y Combinator. When you tell a New York Times reporter that Donald Trump is "the Silicon Valley President", you're speaking for all of YC --- even if you don't want to be. What the hell is the matter with you?
- bqe 10y ago
  At best, this make it looks like sama is talking without considering his words carefully. At worst, it confirms many people's fears of how those in Silicon Valley view the world.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I've twice had the pleasure of fundraising in pre-YC SFBA. I admire and respect what Paul and Sam built. I viscerally appreciate it. But stuff like this makes YC extraordinarily difficult to defend. Not worth defending. It's table-flip upsetting.
    - Danihan 10y ago
      Or perhaps that sort of visceral distaste towards anything conservative is just super biased.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        Against Donald Trump? The word "super" doesn't capture it. But don't just look at me. Before the election, Paul Graham said that if Trump won, he would join the resistance. (You misleadingly edited your comment after I wrote my response. I would not agree that I have a visceral distaste of anything conservative. In fact, I think that's an accusation more accurately leveled against Donald Trump.)
        Danihan 10y ago
        And that was an absurd, emotion-driven and wrong-headed statement. What resistance is he joining exactly.
        tptacek 10y ago
        You and me, we're wondering the same thing right now.
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        You don't need a "visceral distaste towards anything conservative" to have issues with a president who gets his political news from a guy who literally thinks that alien lizards control the world. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-news-source-alien-lizards-fluoride-mind-control-and-voter-fraud/2016/11/28/c0326c26-b5a0-11e6-b8df-600bd9d38a02_story.html?utm_term=.fcc01b428d76 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-news-source-a...
    - Gargoyle 10y ago
      >It's table-flip upsetting. Then it might be a good idea to cool down before engaging in comment. Sam is providing a different perspective for looking at Trump's presidency, which he's made it clear he's not happy with. That to me is an incredibly admirable action, and one which we could all benefit from trying out a little more often. Doesn't mean anyone is endorsing anything. It's just a different look.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Sam is providing a different perspective for looking at Trump's presidency, which he's made it clear he's not happy with. Those quotes might be reasonable on the context of an essay by Sam aimed at providing a "different perspective on Trump's presidency" (though Sam's own comments here suggest to that they wouldn't be much better in that context, but that's another discussion.) In the actual context they appear, they are normalizing of Trump a d suggest, at best, an extraordinarily naive approach to the media in his position.
    - nnnnnnnnn 10y ago
      Thomas, you're not an idiot. Please realize they've never been worth defending, and always been like this. Gut feelings are not always the best feelings.
  - MegaButts 10y ago
    He also talked quite openly in a piece for The New Yorker (1). While many people I know in the Bay Area thought "wow that's neat!" when I spoke to siblings and friends from other parts of the country, one person's exact response was "what the fuck is wrong with that person?" It was a long piece, but there was enough there where people could find things to like and dislike about him and Y Combinator in general. Sometimes I think people in Silicon Valley aren't aware of the microcosm they live in. 1. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-man...
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  [deleted]
  - tptacek 10y ago
    It is in no way true. It's dignifying Trump and his staff in ways that make it very hard to distinguish Altman from a supporter. The idea that Trump's success is in execution in any sense, let alone in the way a startup's is, is something you'd have a hard time selling in the pages of The National Review.
    - budde 10y ago
      The most concerning thing to me is that after recognizing the parallels between the Trump campaign and the Silicon Valley ethos Altman's response wasn't to be introspective and consider if SV culture has been too boorish but rather to (seemingly) pay compliment to Trump's craftiness.
    - chimeracoder 10y ago
      [deleted]
      - michaelchisari 10y ago
        putting out a travel ban which was challenged, and then revising it That's an interesting way to spin having your EO struck down as unconstitutional.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        The EO wasn't struck down as unconstitutional, it simply had a preliminary injunction issued against it, pending an actual trial on the merits. Retract and revise to reset that process to square one and avoid a final outcome on the merits is not a parricularly novel legal strategy; it's actually well-known, often abusive approach.
        LyndsySimon 10y ago
- lobotryas 10y ago
  Please elaborate on what do you see wrong with sama's quote. Are you upset that anyone had anything remotely positive to say about Trump?
- marcell 10y ago
  I'm reminded of this article by PG: http://www.paulgraham.com/wids.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wids.html Also, in Silicon Valley, there a social convention of saying controversial, potentially wrong ideas for the sake of discussion. Maybe Sam is engaging in this, with caring that he's being interviewed for a major newspaper.
- j_koreth 10y ago
  Furthermore, wouldn't Trump's want to weaken the FTC and repeal Net Neutrality kill off a significant number of startups?
- jfaucett 10y ago
  > You're the CEO of Y Combinator. When you tell a New York Times reporter that Donald Trump is "the Silicon Valley President", > What the hell is the matter with you? You're completely overreacting to this and misrepresenting Sam's quote, which is this: "Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology is flipped," "He’s an outsider. He took on a system he thought was broken and then disregarded the rules, he got to know his users well and tested his product early and iterated rapidly. That’s the start-up playbook. That’s exactly what we tell our start-ups to do" This seems like a pretty accurate assessment of events to me.
  - philwelch 10y ago
    I think it was the very recognition of this pattern that led so many in Silicon Valley to fear Trump during 2016 far more than the conventional wisdom allowed. The Clinton campaign, piggybacking as it did off of Obama's campaigns, was a textbook example of the innovator's dilemma.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ksk 10y ago
    >This seems like a pretty accurate assessment of events to me. So where exactly does pandering to racists, fear mongering against the "other", and demonizing the powerless, feature in the SV analogy? Is that "disregarding the rules"? Rules meaning, being civil, ethical and sane. I suppose under a certain Machiavellian light, slavery could also be considered as "disregarding the rules". Maybe SV should start adopting political tactics too. Robocalls that ask you how you would feel if you knew that Google employees were "perhaps" looking at your teenage daughters pictures. Demonize php developers while lying to win32 developers about bringing their jobs back, etc.. :)
    - davidw 10y ago
      Not to mention he doesn't really know WTF his product is, or outright lied about it ("our health care thing will cover everyone" to paraphrase). Silicon Valley has a lot of really competent people.
- jdoliner 10y ago
  Why shouldn't he be a source for it? His comments on Trump were insightful and very far from an endorsement. Vilifying everyone tangentially associated with Trump failed spectacularly during the election. At this point it's just beating a dead horse without any particular goal in sight. Sama realizes full well that he's speaking for all of YC, as a YC founder I'm glad he is. I agree with him here.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > His comments on Trump were insightful and very far from an endorsement. They were shallow and normalizing, rather than insightful and far from an endorsement.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      They were more than normalizing. They were suggesting that the single most frightening thing about the Trump administration --- which is not that they're Republicans, but that they're crazy --- is, to the extent it's true, actually an asset. I worry about digging too far into this because it's just going to generate a political debate. I just want to be clear about why I think this article and Sam's decision about how to participate in it is so alarming. I am less disturbed by Trump's Republican supporters, at least the level-headed ones. At least they believe what they're saying. I am far more disturbed by someone who claims to be in the opposition but rather than publicly opposing continues to give every sign of being in fact a quiet supporter of the administration. Why should I have to worry that that's true? What was the upside for YC here?
      - lobotryas 10y ago
        Pretty sure you already crossed that line. What is interesting about Trunp's canpaign is that he was able to win while spending significantly less than his opponent[1]. Given this, I would say that sama's on point with his quote. BTW, calling the Trump administration "crazy" is kind of a lazy ad hominem, don't you think? [1] - http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/donald-trump-campaign-spending/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/donald-trump-campaign-spending...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- danso 10y ago
  Shouldn't we give Altman points for being honest about one of Silicon Valley's core mentalities? In any case, quotes are chosen by the reporter. Sam may have followed up "The Silicon Valley President in every way except the ideology is flipped" with an hour-long dissertation about how SV's mentality is not at all applicable to the federal government, and how it comes to bite even the hottest SV stars that don't mature, etc., we don't know, and Altman doesn't know how he will be excerpted. As for Altman agreeing to even be interviewed: it's clear that he's passionate about civic affairs and is willing to speak out despite possible risk to reputation.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I'm sure Altman said dozens of mitigating things that were not included in the story, just as I'm sure that Altman knows how reporters work. Did he think the things he had to say about the Trump administration were so interesting and important that the risk of giving what is effectively an endorsement was worth it?
- bootload 10y ago
  "I cannot fathom how Sam Altman thought that it would be a good idea to be a source for this article, let alone provide the specific quotes that he did. How does YC benefit from this?" @tptacek follow the money. The key to understanding this [0] is the YC relationship with Thiel. It has long been my opinion that Thiel is a protected species with YC. It was obvious almost 100 days ago on ^Political Detox^ day. (message to HN, 'don't make waves for us when Thiel is meeting president) [1] A key test: Positive political stories like this one are supported, negative ones flagged. Reference [0] "Y Combinator has no problem with partner Peter Thiel funding Donald Trump" https://qz.com/810778/y-combinator-has-no-problem-with-partner-peter-thiel-funding-donald-trump-sam-altman-says/ https://qz.com/810778/y-combinator-has-no-problem-with-partn... [1] "Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Political Detox Week had nothing to do with any of this. Leave Dan and Scott out of it. I was as hopeful about that experiment as they were.
    - bootload 10y ago
      "Political Detox Week had nothing to do with any of this. Leave Dan and Scott out of it. I was as hopeful about that experiment as they were." While I agree with the sentiment, the irony of being told to pipe down, discussing a contentious issue related to YC/Whitehouse is not lost on me.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  I think you've nailed something profoundly rotten at the core of Silicon Valley, venture capital, and YC. Though also note the final paragraph: “I think all of this — the current start-up revolution, Trump and lots of other things — is largely a consequence of the internet breaking down traditional barriers,” Mr. Altman, the Y Combinator executive, wrote in an email. “This societal openness has some great consequences in my opinion, like the start-up boom of the last 20 years, and some bad ones, like Trump.”
- pizzetta 10y ago
  My take is that he's looking at the mechanics of the operation rather than the politics of the operation/governing style. From that perspective it would seem he made a reasonable statement.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I strongly disagree. The closer you look at the argument, the worse it gets. It simultaneously makes positive, normalizing claims about Trump while calling the startup ethos itself into a kind of disrepute. It is, to shoplift from a much better writer than me, a fractal of bad analysis.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sama 10y ago
  I said later in the article I thought Trump was a bad outcome of the effects of technology. I think that our side should be ashamed we got beat with out own playbook and not let it happen again. I also think if we don't realize what happened, we will not win future elections. So I hope we learn this very painful lesson soon. I could just refuse to comment for these articles, but I'm more interested in us winning elections in the future than not facing criticism. It's important to me to engage and point out what I think is important.
  - sdfjh9788 10y ago
    I'm not sure if you were intending to, but please don't attempt to represent the tech industry as a whole. Not all of "us" share the same negative opinions on the outcome of the election.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    We did not get "beat with our own playbook". The Trump that won in November was the same product launched on that golden escalator the previous year, so much so that political pundits faulted him for it in the run-up to the election. He didn't iterate. He didn't test his message carefully. He barely even won --- he lost the popular vote by a greater margin than any candidate in US history. But nobody who reads that article will realize that. They'll imagine instead a dynamo who "seized the playbook" of Silicon Valley and used it to cruise to an Silicon Valley-style 10-bagger victory. You should refuse to comment on articles like these. You have no special insight into why or how Trump won. You chose to be the CEO of Y Combinator. You can't ask for our sympathy when your words, freely given to the newspaper of record, have an impact you didn't intend.
    - willholloway 10y ago
      You are so wrong here. Trump beat the entirety of the Republican and Democratic machine with a totally new playbook in American politics. He didn't have a traditional ground game in states. He didn't spend money on the traditional unit of persuasion, the 30 second ad spot. He ran a very lean, very virtual campaign. He used guerrilla tactics to get free media, quite masterfully in my opinion. Compare Trump to Bernie Sanders. Sanders outraised Hillary and spent more on 30 second TV ads. He ran a traditional, better funded campaign and lost. Trump took on every incumbent and broke every rule and won. Sam is right here and his comment was insightful. You sir, are engaging in very reactionary politics, and have no right to tell Sam Altman what he should or should not do.
abraae 10y ago
A good philosophy for businesses that deliberately take on risk to maximise reward, and where the worst case outcome of "breaking things" is insolvency and loss of jobs and investor's money.
- ionwake 10y ago
  I've always taken that phrase to mean , be more productive. I've never been in an environment where I have heard that phrase and they were cool with the live site going down. Does anyone echo my opinion ? Or am I wrong ?
michaelchisari 10y ago
While that may work for Facebook, we're seeing what happens when applied to national security and good governance. Also, there seems to be this revisionism towards the Trump Campaign as something of a savvy, hidden genius operation. But this election was not won by Trump as much as it was lost by Hillary. There is nothing particularly remarkable about Trump's win as a Republican candidate.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Agreed. It is rare for any political party to hold the White House for more than two terms.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > But this election was not won by Trump as much as it was lost by Hillary. But both Trump partisans (who want the credit) and Clinton partisans (who don't want the blame) have an interest in the Trump team's unusually tactical genius being seen as the cause of the outcome.
suprgeek 10y ago
When governments "break things" they are usually life or death things - Like Healthcare, Environment, Clean Water, Nuclear Weapons, etc. The Trump WH could be spun as some well thought out scrappy disruption of Politics as usual, which it is not. It very much is a chaotic mess led by a massively narcissistic man-child and the cynical and dangerous people he seeks advice from. I am amazed at Sam Altman for providing anodyne quotes which almost seems like he admires the chaos that Trump is causing. The disruption is causing massive REAL damage to the US and its allies - exactly unlike a start-up that improves choices for customers - not destroys the market itself.
leggomylibro 10y ago
I might be more inclined to go for a startup-style government if startups had a better success rate. Sure there are a few great success stories, like Theranos or Uber, but...oh, hm.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Irresponsible. The difference between breaking things in the private sector and the public is that in the latter you don't have the luxury of declaring company bankruptcy and going home safe-and-sound to your penthouse. When states break things, people can suffer and die.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Actually, there are plenty of fields of private enterprise that have the same risk, though sometimes government has regulatory structures designed to (whether or not they work effectively in the face of unexpected strategies) mitigate those risks.
- Danihan 10y ago
  You don't think there are lives (and suffering) at stake when private companies mess up? Medical equipment... airlines... toxic waste dumps.. Please reconsider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-critical_system#Examples_of_safety-critical_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-critical_system#Examples_... Ironically, rarely are there examples from private industry who screw up as much as governments tend to, especially in safety-critical missions.
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    > Ironically, rarely are there examples from private industry who screw up as much as governments tend to, especially in safety-critical missions. Governments have the power to compel individuals under threat of violence. Private industry does not. People can choose not to do business with a company, limiting the impact of that company's actions on their lives and the lives of others. Individuals have no choice in government.
    - yellowapple 10y ago
      "People can choose not to do business with a company, limiting the impact of that company's actions on their lives and the lives of others." That's not always true. See also: pharmaceuticals, utilities, various other markets susceptible to monopolies/oligopolies. I mean sure, you can choose not to take your prescribed medications, but it's probably not going to end well for you.
dredmorbius 10y ago
As I noted shortly after the election, "move fast and break things" is a fundamentally fascist philosophy. Nov 23, 2016 I've been reading Umberto Eco's essay "Ur-Fascism" which has been circulating of late, as well as definitions of demagoguery, among them the idea that the demagogue is a leader who is relentlessly advocating action -- usually immediate, violent, and without deliberation. Having just run across that at Wikipedia, I turned to Eco's essay and found his comment on futurism and fascism -- a possibly unlikely pairing as one of the "weak arts": Take Futurism. One might think it would have been considered an instance of entartete Kunst, along with Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. But the early Italian Futurists were nationalist; they favored Italian participation in the First World War for aesthetic reasons; they celebrated speed, violence, and risk, all of which somehow seemed to connect with the fascist cult of youth. While fascism identified itself with the Roman Empire and rediscovered rural traditions, Marinetti (who proclaimed that a car was more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace, and wanted to kill even the moonlight) was nevertheless appointed as a member of the Italian Academy, which treated moonlight with great respect. It's helpful to realise that Futurism here refers to the Italian artistic movement,[1] not the general concept of future-directed optimism. Though with the strongly similar features of both, this also raises some interesting concerns over techno-optimists, generally. With Facebook's decision to provide censorship services to the Chinese government, having so ably demonstrated its capacity to influence and control political movements within the US, UK, and Arab worlds, I realised that this celebration of speed, violence, and risk was precisely embodied in Facebook's motto, "move fast and break things". That is, Facebook's core design philosophy is fundamentally aligned with fascism. Food for thought. ________________________________ Notes: 1. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ Originally: https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/KoWPUnb24pZ https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/KoWPUnb2...
- michaelchisari 10y ago
  I absolutely agree, but only in so far as it applies to politics or the public sphere. When it comes to code, I have a hard time correlating it much with fascist dynamism.
Upvoter33 10y ago
Please do not try to connect the shitstorm that is the White House these days to something that is actually functional (Silicon Valley). ugh.

42 points by fabrice_d 10y ago

I cannot fathom how Sam Altman thought that it would be a good idea to be a source for this article, let alone provide the specific quotes that he did. How does YC benefit from this? How does public policy benefit from it? "The Silicon Valley President in every way except the ideology is flipped"? "He did everything we tell our startups to do"? You're the CEO of Y Combinator. When you tell a New York Times reporter that Donald Trump is "the Silicon Valley President", you're speaking for all of YC --- even if you don't want to be. What the hell is the matter with you?

bqe 10y ago
At best, this make it looks like sama is talking without considering his words carefully. At worst, it confirms many people's fears of how those in Silicon Valley view the world.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I've twice had the pleasure of fundraising in pre-YC SFBA. I admire and respect what Paul and Sam built. I viscerally appreciate it. But stuff like this makes YC extraordinarily difficult to defend. Not worth defending. It's table-flip upsetting.
  - Danihan 10y ago
    Or perhaps that sort of visceral distaste towards anything conservative is just super biased.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Against Donald Trump? The word "super" doesn't capture it. But don't just look at me. Before the election, Paul Graham said that if Trump won, he would join the resistance. (You misleadingly edited your comment after I wrote my response. I would not agree that I have a visceral distaste of anything conservative. In fact, I think that's an accusation more accurately leveled against Donald Trump.)
      - Danihan 10y ago
        And that was an absurd, emotion-driven and wrong-headed statement. What resistance is he joining exactly.
        tptacek 10y ago
        You and me, we're wondering the same thing right now.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      You don't need a "visceral distaste towards anything conservative" to have issues with a president who gets his political news from a guy who literally thinks that alien lizards control the world. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-news-source-alien-lizards-fluoride-mind-control-and-voter-fraud/2016/11/28/c0326c26-b5a0-11e6-b8df-600bd9d38a02_story.html?utm_term=.fcc01b428d76 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-news-source-a...
  - Gargoyle 10y ago
    >It's table-flip upsetting. Then it might be a good idea to cool down before engaging in comment. Sam is providing a different perspective for looking at Trump's presidency, which he's made it clear he's not happy with. That to me is an incredibly admirable action, and one which we could all benefit from trying out a little more often. Doesn't mean anyone is endorsing anything. It's just a different look.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Sam is providing a different perspective for looking at Trump's presidency, which he's made it clear he's not happy with. Those quotes might be reasonable on the context of an essay by Sam aimed at providing a "different perspective on Trump's presidency" (though Sam's own comments here suggest to that they wouldn't be much better in that context, but that's another discussion.) In the actual context they appear, they are normalizing of Trump a d suggest, at best, an extraordinarily naive approach to the media in his position.
  - nnnnnnnnn 10y ago
    Thomas, you're not an idiot. Please realize they've never been worth defending, and always been like this. Gut feelings are not always the best feelings.
- MegaButts 10y ago
  He also talked quite openly in a piece for The New Yorker (1). While many people I know in the Bay Area thought "wow that's neat!" when I spoke to siblings and friends from other parts of the country, one person's exact response was "what the fuck is wrong with that person?" It was a long piece, but there was enough there where people could find things to like and dislike about him and Y Combinator in general. Sometimes I think people in Silicon Valley aren't aware of the microcosm they live in. 1. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-man...
chimeracoder 10y ago
[deleted]
- tptacek 10y ago
  It is in no way true. It's dignifying Trump and his staff in ways that make it very hard to distinguish Altman from a supporter. The idea that Trump's success is in execution in any sense, let alone in the way a startup's is, is something you'd have a hard time selling in the pages of The National Review.
  - budde 10y ago
    The most concerning thing to me is that after recognizing the parallels between the Trump campaign and the Silicon Valley ethos Altman's response wasn't to be introspective and consider if SV culture has been too boorish but rather to (seemingly) pay compliment to Trump's craftiness.
  - chimeracoder 10y ago
    [deleted]
    - michaelchisari 10y ago
      putting out a travel ban which was challenged, and then revising it That's an interesting way to spin having your EO struck down as unconstitutional.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        The EO wasn't struck down as unconstitutional, it simply had a preliminary injunction issued against it, pending an actual trial on the merits. Retract and revise to reset that process to square one and avoid a final outcome on the merits is not a parricularly novel legal strategy; it's actually well-known, often abusive approach.
      - LyndsySimon 10y ago
lobotryas 10y ago
Please elaborate on what do you see wrong with sama's quote. Are you upset that anyone had anything remotely positive to say about Trump?
marcell 10y ago
I'm reminded of this article by PG: http://www.paulgraham.com/wids.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wids.html Also, in Silicon Valley, there a social convention of saying controversial, potentially wrong ideas for the sake of discussion. Maybe Sam is engaging in this, with caring that he's being interviewed for a major newspaper.
j_koreth 10y ago
Furthermore, wouldn't Trump's want to weaken the FTC and repeal Net Neutrality kill off a significant number of startups?
jfaucett 10y ago
> You're the CEO of Y Combinator. When you tell a New York Times reporter that Donald Trump is "the Silicon Valley President", > What the hell is the matter with you? You're completely overreacting to this and misrepresenting Sam's quote, which is this: "Trump is the Silicon Valley candidate in every way except that the ideology is flipped," "He’s an outsider. He took on a system he thought was broken and then disregarded the rules, he got to know his users well and tested his product early and iterated rapidly. That’s the start-up playbook. That’s exactly what we tell our start-ups to do" This seems like a pretty accurate assessment of events to me.
- philwelch 10y ago
  I think it was the very recognition of this pattern that led so many in Silicon Valley to fear Trump during 2016 far more than the conventional wisdom allowed. The Clinton campaign, piggybacking as it did off of Obama's campaigns, was a textbook example of the innovator's dilemma.
- deleted 10y ago
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- ksk 10y ago
  >This seems like a pretty accurate assessment of events to me. So where exactly does pandering to racists, fear mongering against the "other", and demonizing the powerless, feature in the SV analogy? Is that "disregarding the rules"? Rules meaning, being civil, ethical and sane. I suppose under a certain Machiavellian light, slavery could also be considered as "disregarding the rules". Maybe SV should start adopting political tactics too. Robocalls that ask you how you would feel if you knew that Google employees were "perhaps" looking at your teenage daughters pictures. Demonize php developers while lying to win32 developers about bringing their jobs back, etc.. :)
  - davidw 10y ago
    Not to mention he doesn't really know WTF his product is, or outright lied about it ("our health care thing will cover everyone" to paraphrase). Silicon Valley has a lot of really competent people.
jdoliner 10y ago
Why shouldn't he be a source for it? His comments on Trump were insightful and very far from an endorsement. Vilifying everyone tangentially associated with Trump failed spectacularly during the election. At this point it's just beating a dead horse without any particular goal in sight. Sama realizes full well that he's speaking for all of YC, as a YC founder I'm glad he is. I agree with him here.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > His comments on Trump were insightful and very far from an endorsement. They were shallow and normalizing, rather than insightful and far from an endorsement.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    They were more than normalizing. They were suggesting that the single most frightening thing about the Trump administration --- which is not that they're Republicans, but that they're crazy --- is, to the extent it's true, actually an asset. I worry about digging too far into this because it's just going to generate a political debate. I just want to be clear about why I think this article and Sam's decision about how to participate in it is so alarming. I am less disturbed by Trump's Republican supporters, at least the level-headed ones. At least they believe what they're saying. I am far more disturbed by someone who claims to be in the opposition but rather than publicly opposing continues to give every sign of being in fact a quiet supporter of the administration. Why should I have to worry that that's true? What was the upside for YC here?
    - lobotryas 10y ago
      Pretty sure you already crossed that line. What is interesting about Trunp's canpaign is that he was able to win while spending significantly less than his opponent[1]. Given this, I would say that sama's on point with his quote. BTW, calling the Trump administration "crazy" is kind of a lazy ad hominem, don't you think? [1] - http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/donald-trump-campaign-spending/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/donald-trump-campaign-spending...
deleted 10y ago
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danso 10y ago
Shouldn't we give Altman points for being honest about one of Silicon Valley's core mentalities? In any case, quotes are chosen by the reporter. Sam may have followed up "The Silicon Valley President in every way except the ideology is flipped" with an hour-long dissertation about how SV's mentality is not at all applicable to the federal government, and how it comes to bite even the hottest SV stars that don't mature, etc., we don't know, and Altman doesn't know how he will be excerpted. As for Altman agreeing to even be interviewed: it's clear that he's passionate about civic affairs and is willing to speak out despite possible risk to reputation.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I'm sure Altman said dozens of mitigating things that were not included in the story, just as I'm sure that Altman knows how reporters work. Did he think the things he had to say about the Trump administration were so interesting and important that the risk of giving what is effectively an endorsement was worth it?
bootload 10y ago
"I cannot fathom how Sam Altman thought that it would be a good idea to be a source for this article, let alone provide the specific quotes that he did. How does YC benefit from this?" @tptacek follow the money. The key to understanding this [0] is the YC relationship with Thiel. It has long been my opinion that Thiel is a protected species with YC. It was obvious almost 100 days ago on ^Political Detox^ day. (message to HN, 'don't make waves for us when Thiel is meeting president) [1] A key test: Positive political stories like this one are supported, negative ones flagged. Reference [0] "Y Combinator has no problem with partner Peter Thiel funding Donald Trump" https://qz.com/810778/y-combinator-has-no-problem-with-partner-peter-thiel-funding-donald-trump-sam-altman-says/ https://qz.com/810778/y-combinator-has-no-problem-with-partn... [1] "Tell HN: Political Detox Week – No politics on HN for one week" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404
- tptacek 10y ago
  Political Detox Week had nothing to do with any of this. Leave Dan and Scott out of it. I was as hopeful about that experiment as they were.
  - bootload 10y ago
    "Political Detox Week had nothing to do with any of this. Leave Dan and Scott out of it. I was as hopeful about that experiment as they were." While I agree with the sentiment, the irony of being told to pipe down, discussing a contentious issue related to YC/Whitehouse is not lost on me.
dredmorbius 10y ago
I think you've nailed something profoundly rotten at the core of Silicon Valley, venture capital, and YC. Though also note the final paragraph: “I think all of this — the current start-up revolution, Trump and lots of other things — is largely a consequence of the internet breaking down traditional barriers,” Mr. Altman, the Y Combinator executive, wrote in an email. “This societal openness has some great consequences in my opinion, like the start-up boom of the last 20 years, and some bad ones, like Trump.”
pizzetta 10y ago
My take is that he's looking at the mechanics of the operation rather than the politics of the operation/governing style. From that perspective it would seem he made a reasonable statement.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I strongly disagree. The closer you look at the argument, the worse it gets. It simultaneously makes positive, normalizing claims about Trump while calling the startup ethos itself into a kind of disrepute. It is, to shoplift from a much better writer than me, a fractal of bad analysis.
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sama 10y ago
I said later in the article I thought Trump was a bad outcome of the effects of technology. I think that our side should be ashamed we got beat with out own playbook and not let it happen again. I also think if we don't realize what happened, we will not win future elections. So I hope we learn this very painful lesson soon. I could just refuse to comment for these articles, but I'm more interested in us winning elections in the future than not facing criticism. It's important to me to engage and point out what I think is important.
- sdfjh9788 10y ago
  I'm not sure if you were intending to, but please don't attempt to represent the tech industry as a whole. Not all of "us" share the same negative opinions on the outcome of the election.
- tptacek 10y ago
  We did not get "beat with our own playbook". The Trump that won in November was the same product launched on that golden escalator the previous year, so much so that political pundits faulted him for it in the run-up to the election. He didn't iterate. He didn't test his message carefully. He barely even won --- he lost the popular vote by a greater margin than any candidate in US history. But nobody who reads that article will realize that. They'll imagine instead a dynamo who "seized the playbook" of Silicon Valley and used it to cruise to an Silicon Valley-style 10-bagger victory. You should refuse to comment on articles like these. You have no special insight into why or how Trump won. You chose to be the CEO of Y Combinator. You can't ask for our sympathy when your words, freely given to the newspaper of record, have an impact you didn't intend.
  - willholloway 10y ago
    You are so wrong here. Trump beat the entirety of the Republican and Democratic machine with a totally new playbook in American politics. He didn't have a traditional ground game in states. He didn't spend money on the traditional unit of persuasion, the 30 second ad spot. He ran a very lean, very virtual campaign. He used guerrilla tactics to get free media, quite masterfully in my opinion. Compare Trump to Bernie Sanders. Sanders outraised Hillary and spent more on 30 second TV ads. He ran a traditional, better funded campaign and lost. Trump took on every incumbent and broke every rule and won. Sam is right here and his comment was insightful. You sir, are engaging in very reactionary politics, and have no right to tell Sam Altman what he should or should not do.

abraae 10y ago

A good philosophy for businesses that deliberately take on risk to maximise reward, and where the worst case outcome of "breaking things" is insolvency and loss of jobs and investor's money.

ionwake 10y ago
I've always taken that phrase to mean , be more productive. I've never been in an environment where I have heard that phrase and they were cool with the live site going down. Does anyone echo my opinion ? Or am I wrong ?

michaelchisari 10y ago

While that may work for Facebook, we're seeing what happens when applied to national security and good governance. Also, there seems to be this revisionism towards the Trump Campaign as something of a savvy, hidden genius operation. But this election was not won by Trump as much as it was lost by Hillary. There is nothing particularly remarkable about Trump's win as a Republican candidate.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Agreed. It is rare for any political party to hold the White House for more than two terms.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> But this election was not won by Trump as much as it was lost by Hillary. But both Trump partisans (who want the credit) and Clinton partisans (who don't want the blame) have an interest in the Trump team's unusually tactical genius being seen as the cause of the outcome.

suprgeek 10y ago

When governments "break things" they are usually life or death things - Like Healthcare, Environment, Clean Water, Nuclear Weapons, etc. The Trump WH could be spun as some well thought out scrappy disruption of Politics as usual, which it is not. It very much is a chaotic mess led by a massively narcissistic man-child and the cynical and dangerous people he seeks advice from. I am amazed at Sam Altman for providing anodyne quotes which almost seems like he admires the chaos that Trump is causing. The disruption is causing massive REAL damage to the US and its allies - exactly unlike a start-up that improves choices for customers - not destroys the market itself.

leggomylibro 10y ago

I might be more inclined to go for a startup-style government if startups had a better success rate. Sure there are a few great success stories, like Theranos or Uber, but...oh, hm.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

Irresponsible. The difference between breaking things in the private sector and the public is that in the latter you don't have the luxury of declaring company bankruptcy and going home safe-and-sound to your penthouse. When states break things, people can suffer and die.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Actually, there are plenty of fields of private enterprise that have the same risk, though sometimes government has regulatory structures designed to (whether or not they work effectively in the face of unexpected strategies) mitigate those risks.
Danihan 10y ago
You don't think there are lives (and suffering) at stake when private companies mess up? Medical equipment... airlines... toxic waste dumps.. Please reconsider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-critical_system#Examples_of_safety-critical_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-critical_system#Examples_... Ironically, rarely are there examples from private industry who screw up as much as governments tend to, especially in safety-critical missions.
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  > Ironically, rarely are there examples from private industry who screw up as much as governments tend to, especially in safety-critical missions. Governments have the power to compel individuals under threat of violence. Private industry does not. People can choose not to do business with a company, limiting the impact of that company's actions on their lives and the lives of others. Individuals have no choice in government.
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    "People can choose not to do business with a company, limiting the impact of that company's actions on their lives and the lives of others." That's not always true. See also: pharmaceuticals, utilities, various other markets susceptible to monopolies/oligopolies. I mean sure, you can choose not to take your prescribed medications, but it's probably not going to end well for you.

dredmorbius 10y ago

As I noted shortly after the election, "move fast and break things" is a fundamentally fascist philosophy. Nov 23, 2016 I've been reading Umberto Eco's essay "Ur-Fascism" which has been circulating of late, as well as definitions of demagoguery, among them the idea that the demagogue is a leader who is relentlessly advocating action -- usually immediate, violent, and without deliberation. Having just run across that at Wikipedia, I turned to Eco's essay and found his comment on futurism and fascism -- a possibly unlikely pairing as one of the "weak arts": Take Futurism. One might think it would have been considered an instance of entartete Kunst, along with Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. But the early Italian Futurists were nationalist; they favored Italian participation in the First World War for aesthetic reasons; they celebrated speed, violence, and risk, all of which somehow seemed to connect with the fascist cult of youth. While fascism identified itself with the Roman Empire and rediscovered rural traditions, Marinetti (who proclaimed that a car was more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace, and wanted to kill even the moonlight) was nevertheless appointed as a member of the Italian Academy, which treated moonlight with great respect. It's helpful to realise that Futurism here refers to the Italian artistic movement,[1] not the general concept of future-directed optimism. Though with the strongly similar features of both, this also raises some interesting concerns over techno-optimists, generally. With Facebook's decision to provide censorship services to the Chinese government, having so ably demonstrated its capacity to influence and control political movements within the US, UK, and Arab worlds, I realised that this celebration of speed, violence, and risk was precisely embodied in Facebook's motto, "move fast and break things". That is, Facebook's core design philosophy is fundamentally aligned with fascism. Food for thought. ________________________________ Notes: 1. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ Originally: https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/KoWPUnb24pZ https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/KoWPUnb2...

michaelchisari 10y ago
I absolutely agree, but only in so far as it applies to politics or the public sphere. When it comes to code, I have a hard time correlating it much with fascist dynamism.

Upvoter33 10y ago

Please do not try to connect the shitstorm that is the White House these days to something that is actually functional (Silicon Valley). ugh.