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The tech industry has, historically and in aggregate, had pretty solid rates of returns. If I was sitting on a dwindling store of natural resources as my prima
by megaman22 9y ago
The tech industry has, historically and in aggregate, had pretty solid rates of returns. If I was sitting on a dwindling store of natural resources as my primary store of wealth, I would probably want to try to diversify that wealth into other areas and grow that wealth aggressively while my potentially limited income source is still highly profitable.
I'm not sure that more nefarious aims need to be posited than simple avarice.
- diogenescynic 9y agoEven if it isn’t nefarious, maybe we still shouldn’t let them profit off our liberal democracy while they exploit their own citizens, enslave foreigners, fund terrorism, and abuse women. Maybe we shouldn’t let them have their cake and eat it too. Make them pick between human rights and investing in the S&P500.
- QAPereo 9y ago...How? How do you get a diverse and often quarrelsome world to agree on something that huge?
- toomuchtodo 9y agoYou apply pressure on companies taking investment from the Saudis collectively. If you can’t support Uber because of an atmosphere of sexually harassment, how can you support them when their investment dollars are coming from a country that subjugates women? That creates an indentured servant class from imported labor? That sort of argument. It’s blood money, and that’s the narrative you use (if one was so inclined). Failing that, you’ll have to resort to politics.
- QAPereo 9y agoYou apply pressure on companies taking investment from the Saudis collectively. That's just rephrasing it... how do you apply pressure? Everyone needs oil, many don't care about these issues, so how do we make them toe a line? What pressure do we exert? How much political capital do we burn without a hope of return? At the end of the day though, you say "blood money" as though both sides aren't drenched in it. Moreover, whoever the Saudis are killing, it's with our weapons systems. They're newcomers to a game that the US has been playing for centuries, and Europe much longer. They're something between our rogue asset in the region, and our abusive soon-to-be-ex-spouse. Everyone sees it coming, especially the Saudis who are going so far as to clean house and contemplate an Aramco IPO to avoid being reclaimed by the desert.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoDiplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. We’re not to the rock yet. I’d agree with your sentiment that they’re too much of an ally for anything meaningful to be done about their investments, but the winds shift quickly.
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- SubiculumCode 9y agoMinimum standards of conduct before a nation is allowed to do trade another nation or to join a trade agreement...or basically like most other negotiations.
- themihai 9y agoJust quoting @l33tbro <<Well if you want to talk sanctions, I'd say selling them $110 billion in weapons a few months back is slightly more concerning than where they invest.>>
- alphakappa 9y agoThis is the same country that the US funnels weapons into, and uses for leverage in the region. Does it make the US complicit in the actions that Saudi Arabia does? Now does it make sense to ask for Saudi Arabia to be sanctioned when it comes to business investments?
- noobermin 9y agoI think we are arguing it is.
- QAPereo 9y agoSo party A has high standards, parties B and C don't and just trade with each other. Party A withers and and its resources are eventually aligned with B and C anyway. This is not an effective way to fight anything, it's just suicide.
- stale2002 9y agoOk, and if one country does that, then other countries have an incentive to ignore the agreement, and accept all that sweet sweet money.
- l33tbro 9y agoWell if you want to talk sanctions, I'd say selling them $110 billion in weapons a few months back is slightly more concerning than slamming shut the bank counter screens on them.
- pizza 9y ago"Psst.. You wanna see how far the nefariousness goes? Follow the money.., follow the orb..." https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8559731/GettyImages_686580132.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8559731/Ge...
- 3131s 9y agoAnd learn who the guy in the red head scarf is: http://www.almrsal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/king-abdullah-with-bush.jpg http://www.almrsal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/king-abdul... http://s4.freebeacon.com/up/2015/05/AP95102601735-540x439.jpg http://s4.freebeacon.com/up/2015/05/AP95102601735-540x439.jp... http://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51959359-620x444.jpg http://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Gett...
- rs999gti 9y agoIt goes back further than that, all the way back to 1940's and the meeting between FDR and the King of Saud: https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2015/01/Merlin_425808.jpg&w=1484 https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://... > They eventually came to an agreement that centered around U.S. support and military training for Saudi Arabia, then a fledgling country surrounded by stronger nations, in return for oil and political support in the region. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27/the-first-time-a-u-s-president-met-a-saudi-king/?utm_term=.3858fe84d5ec https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27...
- pizza 9y agoBitter Lake (by Adam Curtis) is a good documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbq63r7rys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbq63r7rys
- throwaway76543 9y agoThe best way to bring countries into the fold of western civilization, to convince them to adopt our beliefs and values, is to engage with them in trade. Exclusionary tactics have not had great results, historically.
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- Keeeeeeeks 9y agoI see your point, but practically speaking they can give tech company is money and still stop women from driving. It seems like they take the profits from trade and give it to terrorists, so we should probably brainstorm other solutions and not create dead ends with pseudo-platitudes
- throwaway76543 9y agoWe've come from far, far worse. To suggest that global trade is a dead end is an absurdity -- founding the UN and fostering trade has brought enormous and unprecedented levels of progressive prosperity across the globe. Dead end? Only if you're ignoring the last century of history.
- dba7dba 9y agoWest has been buying oil from ME for decades... That is a trade no?
- noobermin 9y agoI agree with a lot of what you're saying, but we aren't innocent either. I'd say perhaps on a spectrum they are worse than us on human rights, but there was the Iraq war, Vietnam , etc. Are we supposed to no longer pay taxes or use government provided infrastructure?
- dba7dba 9y agoYou are correct, but not quite applicable in this debate. SV companies didn't actively order/control invading other nations or violate human rights. In fact, they are very vocally against US/West doing such things. But the sovereign funds from ME that are providing funding are pretty much the same people in charge of those nations.
- smsm42 9y agoMaybe the problem is the point where they exploit their own citizens, enslave foreigners, fund terrorism, and abuse women - not where they do all that and then invest money in US tech industry? Otherwise it sounds like we're ok with all this enslavement, abuse and all, but just to a point - and the breaking point where we say "no more! we really need to have a serious talk about it now!" is buying AAPL stock. Doesn't sound good to me.
- psergeant 9y agoThis sounds exactly like sanctions, and they’re a pretty well-established concept
- smileysteve 9y agoIsolation has been proven not to spread capitalism as well as trade. China, Iran, and more got better at human rights with free trade with free capitalistic societies
- ssalazar 9y agoWe don’t have any moral or ethical ability to police the Saudis or any other foreign state on those issues, and moralizing from afar accomplishes nothing. But the tech industry and the individuals within it can choose who we do business with, cries of “fiduciary duty” notwithstanding.
- tyingq 9y agoI take your point, but I never found SV to be particularly more moral or just than any other money hub. We aren't particularly surprised when Wall Street makes decisions purely based on money.
- smsm42 9y agoSV is not particularly moral in relationship to the rest of the society, neither should it be - there's no reason why knowing how to program or assemble electronic gadgets makes one more morally advanced. However, when all that stuff in Saudia happens, I don't see too many articles in the Big Press worrying about it day and night. But when they buy some AAPL stock suddenly NYT wakes up and cries out for the inhumanity of the Saudi regime. Where were you all the time before?! I wouldn't expect any particular moral advancedness from SV and Wall Street. But I would expect that the same people who slept through decades of Saudis being around, doing what they do, sending money into the US and buying all kind of stuff won't wake up now and start crying "but how can SV accept money from evil Saudis!" I mean it's good we're talking morals. But it is very questionable that we are only talking morals in very isolated cases. It is good to have principles, but when principles are taken out of the pocket when it's convenient and hidden back what that is more convenient, those aren't principles one can respect.
- candiodari 9y agoYou don't understand people. The purpose of political rhetoric is political. The purpose of pro-human-rights language in the west is to change the political order in the west to the advantage of the orators. It is NOT to make things pro-human-rights. So you're violating the rules. You propose actual change. This is not allowed. You only get to propose putting the current favorites into "power" (for them of course the same rules apply: they don't get to make actual change except on the edges of the sidelines. E.g. assign construction projects to their favorites). This is as true in San Francisco as it is in Washington.
- quickthrower2 9y agoEnsuring human rights for everything in the tech value chain is going to be almost impossible. Also consider that if you do this, then the investors will just set up trusts. They'll invest in the companies that invest in the investment companies.
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- RingwormOne 9y agoAgreed. Occam's razor is well applied here. Everyone else is investing in tech to get rich, I see no reason to suppose card carrying capitalist Saudi's wouldn't be driven by the allure of profit as well.
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- zodiac 9y agoThe article is really asking "why does the tech industry accept Saudi money?", not "why does Saudi Arabia invest in tech companies?"
- harryh 9y agoSame answer: simple avarice. There is a lot of Saudi money and they are willing to invest it. And their money is just as good for hiring programmers and renting servers as anyone else's.
- icantdrive55 9y agoSo--money is money? I was going to bring up ethics/morality, but maybe it's all basically dirty?
- zodiac 9y agoYeah, of course that's probably the reason.
- Barrin92 9y agoyep kind of confused to. The silicon valley is a for-profit sector, when they write "diversity, inclusiveness, fairness" and so forth on their banners they are very much qualifying this within a business context. People need to be a little more honest and accept that those slogans are marketing messages, nobody in the valley is seriously going to turn an investment away for moral reasons
- harryh 9y agoI wouldn't say "nobody." I am personally aware of people who have, for example, turned down money from Yuri Milner/DST for reasons that were at least somewhat moral in nature. So it does happen. But these people had other good options so it was really a choice of who they were going to take money from. It's when you don't have a choice or a questionably moral party offers significantly better terms that it's hard to turn it down.
- ganish786 9y agoyes
- ganish786 9y agotheir banners they are very much qualifying this within a business context.
- mbesto 9y ago> need to be posited than simple avarice. Are we more likely to see more inherited value come from net negative cash ROI investments? (example - campaign donation) Sure. However, I think it's wrong to assume that just because we return a net positive cash ROI on a financial investment that we shouldn't assume that a non-cash ROI value is achievable.
- bickfordb 9y agoIt's not clear what you mean by "tech industry", but total VC returns have been negative for at least a decade
- fnl 9y agoSource(s)?
- conanbatt 9y agoI don't get the reasoning to be against it. If your goal is "global liberation", taking money from oppressive regimes its a pretty darn fast way to do it. You make the oppressors pay for the future liberation. We should applaud if thats whats happening.
- remarkEon 9y agoI think it's naive to think that taking money from oppressive regimes has no other effect than depleting their cash reserves. Google and Facebook seem to have no qualms about acquiescing to Chinese censorship demands. I think it's folly to think Saudi money won't or doesn't have at least some nefarious influence somewhere. It's worth at least taking a look.
- conanbatt 9y agoIts worth 'taking a look', sure, but its definitely been the other way around. The article itself reminds us of how Twitter was important during the Arab Spring. Wouldn't that Saudi money have been instrumental in the opposite of what the article points at?
- remarkEon 9y agoIt is not “definitely” the other way around. Quite the contrary. The Arab Spring began in 2010 and lasted several years. The (first) Saudi investment in Twitter didn’t happen until December of 2011, and by then much of the region was already on fire. In fact, it’s notable that after the $300M investment, the following summer is when Syria devolved into total Civil War - with February being when Assad invaded Homs. So, no, I’m still skeptical that we should be allowing this. Given the regional alignment of the Saudis, seeing Syria (an Iranian ally) devolve into chaos wouldn’t have been something they’d exactly move mountains to stop.
- conanbatt 9y ago"I’m still skeptical that we should be allowing this." Who is we. It's a very different thing to say that there is an ideological compromise or hipocrisy, to State enforced commercial blockades. And the dire situation of syria doesn't have anything to do with Tweeter. Its as relatable as saying that we should ban dates because they come from the middle east, funding terrible wars.
- daniel-cussen 9y agoMakes perfect sense to me too. Islam forbids them from charging compound interest, but allows them to seek riches in the shared profits of successful ventures.
- lostboys67 9y agoIts interest at all which is banned, which is why there are Sharia compliant bank accounts and investments.
- daniel-cussen 9y agoNo, they allow interest for inflation. A Muslim may ask for interest provided the end result is the same amount of specie, no matter how it's cast.
- lostboys67 9y agoThat's interesting I sit corrected but who decides what to use as the inflation measure ?
- daniel-cussen 9y agoSame amount of specie, same amount gold or other precious metal.
- lostboys67 9y agoYes the new crown prince is positioning his country for when the oil runs out - this is no different to how Norway does it. Is it just me or does the NYC article sound screamly racist
- antod 9y agoYou can't think of any other reasons apart from racism why people would think differently of Saudi Arabia vs Norway?
- lostboys67 9y agoYou mean aside from tarring all Muslims or all Saudis as the same as ISIS (a millennial cult) and Norway isn't as pure as you might think - Scandinavia kept on with eugenics long after the rest of the world recoiled in horror
- antod 9y agoYou seem to be picking very narrow but randomly arbitrary things to compare both countries with, or making wild assumptions about what others would use to compare them on. How about an overall view of broader things like human rights, corruption, democracy etc?
- Boothroid 9y agoDo we not keep on with eugenics individually? Most people, all else being equal, would prefer a healthier, more physically attractive partner.
- hackerguy99 9y agoHackerNews: where the CEO of Wells Fargo should see the guillotine for pushy salesmen, but taking money from regimes with a century of human rights abuses is ok.
- jamesrcole 9y ago> I'm not sure that more nefarious aims need to be posited than simple avarice. Without making any comment on the issue of Saudi money, I take issue with the reasoning there. That's effectively saying "there is a simple potential explanation, therefore there's no need to investigate". It's not like being simple therefore means it is the correct explanation, not does it mean that other potential explanations are therefore wrong or invalid.