10 ms·

Michael Moritz: Silicon Valley Would Be Wise to Follow China's Lead

48 points by jkuria 9y ago

untilHellbanned 9y ago
This guy has never created anything.
thaumaturgy 9y ago
There is always a backlash. Those kids growing up with absent parents are going to have some psychological problems and some desires in common. The US had its "greatest generation", followed by their children, the boomers; China will not escape that cycle. Despite their cultural isolation and the Great Firewall, they will have a generation that will want to live very differently from their parents. There's no denying China's incredible growth over the last couple of decades, but there's an excellent debate to be had about the long-term effects of that growth. Of course, VC's aren't known for their long-term thinking.
bitL 9y ago
In Germany there is a push for 6-hour workdays, yet on the other side of the Atlantic the trends seem to be opposite. Hey human, the only reason for your existence is to work! Now stop thinking about it, work yourself to death, so that VCs can scrap more money off you. You know, that Lambo my daugther destroyed after 2 days costs something! Seriously, you see workers dying at work in China weekly from exhaustion; due to their cultural and political repression they have to stick with it; now what does that say about people in the West calling for the same?
- WalterBright 9y ago
  > workers dying at work in China weekly from exhaustion I don't think they were better off before China turned to capitalism. Colonial Americans also pretty much worked themselves to death (according to archaeological evidence). Things got steadily better as the industrial revolution took hold.
superquest 9y ago
Elon's take: https://youtu.be/GtaxU6DZvLs?t=1m36s https://youtu.be/GtaxU6DZvLs?t=1m36s
dang 9y ago
All: this sort of "We’ve interpreted what he’s really saying" riler-upper is off topic for HN. Please don't post those here. To see why, read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The purpose of HN to gratify intellectual curiosity. I'm impressed that a number of users responded to this post in that spirit, but that's unusual. In general, internet rage is a self-licking ice cream cone, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194750 is far more typical.
- jkuria 9y ago
  I debated if I should post it after failing to get a non-pay-walled link to the original post on Financial Times. I figured that since they quote him and are clear they are interpreting then it is okay. By the way, why do I get less than half the karma points my contributions get? I am a long time quality contributor. Why am I getting penalized?
  - dang 9y ago
    It's true that FT's paywall prevents its articles from being accessible here, which is bad and contradicts what https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html says. In practice, though, people usually post workarounds in the threads. Not all votes on submissions count towards karma because of HN's anti-gaming software, which has measures to prevent karma-building rings and whatnot. You're not treated differently from any other user.
- keithwhor 9y ago
  Daniel, this is just my opinion, but I'm not sure if it was fair for you to take this down / flag it. I understand your concerns, but maybe give this one a pass? This is obviously a controversial topic. You say you're impressed with how people have responded - why not let "the market" sort itself out? Mike is a very influential figure in SV, and it might be good for the community as a whole to air their grievances and try and work out how they themselves feel about the issue, and broader implications about the world of VC and how it interplays with companies, founders and employees. I worry that by moderating this HN is artificially contributing to the echo chamber here; flagging this post doesn't remove the Facebook posts and Tweets proclaiming the evils of VC without room for discussion.
keithwhor 9y ago
You know, I feel like a huge part of this is just founder motivation. I don't agree with Mike's assertions. But I can understand reasons why an article like this might actually be productive, though it feels a little tone deaf. I'm not sure if this thinkpiece is really meant for Silicon Valley employees. I think the goal (conscious or otherwise) is to inspire and align incoming or yet-to-prove-themselves Sequoia-backed founders. I expect the veteran Sequoia founders (some of them which treat their employees tremendously well and fairly) will take this advice a little more lightly: they understand how to motivate and get the most out their employees far better than Mike Moritz does and it's certainly not by saying, "work harder because of China and reasons also your happiness means nothing to us muahahah." But the subtext here is: if you're a founder looking for an investment from Sequoia, China is in play in a big way, and you'd do well to follow their lead. Founders intentionally burn the midnight oil and give up their lives to pursue a dream or vision, and willingly sacrifice a large chunk of their careers to generate returns for their investors with the understanding that this is how you play in the big leagues. The coach says "jump" and you ask "how high?" There's a big kerfuffle raised, this article gets blasted around tech circles, every founder reads it, and the point gets made. The implication is that if you don't want to work harder than you've worked in your life, don't think about Sequoia money. Whether that's the reality of actually working with Sequoia or not is immaterial, there's a cult of personality and a commitment. Some part of me believes (maybe naively) that 10/10 times Mike Moritz would prefer the balanced, brilliant strategist and product founders who keep fit and still work a solid work-week to the narcissists willing to burn themselves out being easily manipulated by an article like this. My impression is that's all this is - a filter. I could be wrong, but we don't need to manufacture outrage here. VC gonna VC. Maybe this is a tone deaf opinion piece, or maybe in the current bull market of (potentially irrational) exuberance, Mike feels the need to make this assertion to new and upcoming founders to keep them aligned, public image be damned. Employees say, "hogwash" but if a founder puts in even an extra 2%, that's going to be have multiplicative effects. The founders willing to burn their teams out will fail quickly and be selected against. If you work for a Sequoia-backed company and this is concerning to you (or you feel like you're being burned out), ask your founder(s) their opinion and voice concerns. VCs don't make the decisions at the end of the day, the CEO does, and you likely joined your company for a reason and trust your CEO: they're human beings, they're responsible for your wellbeing, a good CEO will keep your best interests in mind as best they can. (That said, maybe I'm reading too much into it and it's just a poorly timed opinion piece. Either way. Bring up concerns with your founders if you're worried. Not sure we need to run the outrage train on the age-old story of "VCs expect founders to work hard.")
tzakrajs 9y ago
Michael Moritz would be wise to stay in China since it's so damned awesome.
- tzakrajs 9y ago
  Look at this Steve Jobs wannabe wanker: https://gigaom.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2011/11/1z5o5233.jpg https://gigaom.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2011/11/1z5o52...
  - dang 9y ago
    Personal attacks will get you banned here. You may not owe anything to that guy but you owe much better to the community if you want to keep commenting here.
    - tzakrajs 9y ago
      He is a public figure. Edit: Also, please don't ban me. Edit: I will refrain from future attacks in return for not being banned.
      - dang 9y ago
        Sure, if you'll follow the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, we won't ban you. The basic idea is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. (Public figure doesn't enter into it, btw, because the issue is the effect of such posts on the community here.)
- Hydraulix989 9y ago
  Is it satire?
  - joshuatopolsky 9y ago
    The piece linked to here is my annotation on a very real post by Michael Moritz. Yes, my take is... a form of satire.
untilHellbanned 9y ago
Money is power for stupid people.
- jbigelow76 9y ago
  It’s also a power multiplier for intelligent people.
  - untilHellbanned 9y ago
    Multiplying by 0 is still 0.
kawera 9y ago
Tweetstorm by David Heinemeier Hansson: https://twitter.com/dhh/status/954319522151976960 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/954319522151976960
- tomasien 9y ago
  No need to read it - you know what it says
vtange 9y ago
At some point though money ends up being a means to obtain a standard of living / a world worth living in. There is no point earning money if you never spend it to get something you want. Money also takes precious time and opportunity to earn. Know what you want and aim for it asap. All the money in the world won't buy you fond memories of an adventurous youth if you spent all of your teens, 20s and 30s slaving away for currency that can be inflated to nothingness over time. All the money in the world won't save you if you end up accepting a totalitarian world where you or your loved ones can be cast away by armed police or where making one-too-many Taiwanese friends endangers your social standing.
jorblumesea 9y ago
> Beyond the week-long breaks for Chinese new year and the October national holiday, most will just steal an additional handful of vacation days. Wow.
superquest 9y ago
I can see why people hate on this POV, but one thing is very reasonable: Imagine company A and company B are equal in all ways, except company B's workers work twice as much. If they come into competition, company A will be crushed. All the SF tech companies will come into competition with Chinese companies in the next 20 years. And there's a chance they just get outworked.
- vtange 9y ago
  Except "work twice as much" is a very vague term. Do they work twice as long? Do they have twice the amount of resources? What is the value of their output - is it twice higher than A? For how long do they work "twice as much" before burnout and overwork deaths happen like in Japan? In Japan it is well-known that a long-hours work culture doesn't translate to actual productive work. People end up being masters of "looking productive" rather than actually being productive.
  - superquest 9y ago
    I'm deliberately being vague for the sake of argument. Of course there are many details in practice. A similar argument applies to the economies of Europe and the USA in parts the 20th century. A lot was similar, but Americans had the better work ethic. Of course, work ethic doesn't explain everything. But it's really freaking important.
    - watwut 9y ago
      Which part of 20th century was the same for Europe except work ethics? America did not had two world wars on its soil, that alone will make majority of that century different.
      - superquest 9y ago
        I can't find any evidence from 20th century, but here's a study from 2016: http://ftp.iza.org/dp10179.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp10179.pdf It says Americans work 25% more. This is usually the conclusion of this kind of thing.
wellboy 9y ago
Yes, so that they can accumulate wealth, so that they can build a safety net, welfare, better education, freedom of speech, so that they finally can start working less in maybe 10 years. Working so much loses its importance once your country already has those things, because it burns an entire generation, where people aren't humans, but just working machines. Another really short sighted article by a very very smart VC.
tanilama 9y ago
As always there is some truth from his piece. What would SV do, when their competing edge is waning? How do SV keep its perks when employers discover they can do the same thing elsewhere with less money? The realization should be, software is not a novel technique it uses to be, more people and more countries can do it now possibly cheaper. To justify the money, SV needs to do better. Whether it is to take the perks away and work longer, or find a new competing edge, only time would tell.

48 points by jkuria 9y ago

This guy has never created anything.

There is always a backlash. Those kids growing up with absent parents are going to have some psychological problems and some desires in common. The US had its "greatest generation", followed by their children, the boomers; China will not escape that cycle. Despite their cultural isolation and the Great Firewall, they will have a generation that will want to live very differently from their parents. There's no denying China's incredible growth over the last couple of decades, but there's an excellent debate to be had about the long-term effects of that growth. Of course, VC's aren't known for their long-term thinking.

bitL 9y ago

In Germany there is a push for 6-hour workdays, yet on the other side of the Atlantic the trends seem to be opposite. Hey human, the only reason for your existence is to work! Now stop thinking about it, work yourself to death, so that VCs can scrap more money off you. You know, that Lambo my daugther destroyed after 2 days costs something! Seriously, you see workers dying at work in China weekly from exhaustion; due to their cultural and political repression they have to stick with it; now what does that say about people in the West calling for the same?

WalterBright 9y ago
> workers dying at work in China weekly from exhaustion I don't think they were better off before China turned to capitalism. Colonial Americans also pretty much worked themselves to death (according to archaeological evidence). Things got steadily better as the industrial revolution took hold.

superquest 9y ago

Elon's take: https://youtu.be/GtaxU6DZvLs?t=1m36s https://youtu.be/GtaxU6DZvLs?t=1m36s

dang 9y ago

All: this sort of "We’ve interpreted what he’s really saying" riler-upper is off topic for HN. Please don't post those here. To see why, read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The purpose of HN to gratify intellectual curiosity. I'm impressed that a number of users responded to this post in that spirit, but that's unusual. In general, internet rage is a self-licking ice cream cone, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194750 is far more typical.

jkuria 9y ago
I debated if I should post it after failing to get a non-pay-walled link to the original post on Financial Times. I figured that since they quote him and are clear they are interpreting then it is okay. By the way, why do I get less than half the karma points my contributions get? I am a long time quality contributor. Why am I getting penalized?
- dang 9y ago
  It's true that FT's paywall prevents its articles from being accessible here, which is bad and contradicts what https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html says. In practice, though, people usually post workarounds in the threads. Not all votes on submissions count towards karma because of HN's anti-gaming software, which has measures to prevent karma-building rings and whatnot. You're not treated differently from any other user.
keithwhor 9y ago
Daniel, this is just my opinion, but I'm not sure if it was fair for you to take this down / flag it. I understand your concerns, but maybe give this one a pass? This is obviously a controversial topic. You say you're impressed with how people have responded - why not let "the market" sort itself out? Mike is a very influential figure in SV, and it might be good for the community as a whole to air their grievances and try and work out how they themselves feel about the issue, and broader implications about the world of VC and how it interplays with companies, founders and employees. I worry that by moderating this HN is artificially contributing to the echo chamber here; flagging this post doesn't remove the Facebook posts and Tweets proclaiming the evils of VC without room for discussion.

keithwhor 9y ago

You know, I feel like a huge part of this is just founder motivation. I don't agree with Mike's assertions. But I can understand reasons why an article like this might actually be productive, though it feels a little tone deaf. I'm not sure if this thinkpiece is really meant for Silicon Valley employees. I think the goal (conscious or otherwise) is to inspire and align incoming or yet-to-prove-themselves Sequoia-backed founders. I expect the veteran Sequoia founders (some of them which treat their employees tremendously well and fairly) will take this advice a little more lightly: they understand how to motivate and get the most out their employees far better than Mike Moritz does and it's certainly not by saying, "work harder because of China and reasons also your happiness means nothing to us muahahah." But the subtext here is: if you're a founder looking for an investment from Sequoia, China is in play in a big way, and you'd do well to follow their lead. Founders intentionally burn the midnight oil and give up their lives to pursue a dream or vision, and willingly sacrifice a large chunk of their careers to generate returns for their investors with the understanding that this is how you play in the big leagues. The coach says "jump" and you ask "how high?" There's a big kerfuffle raised, this article gets blasted around tech circles, every founder reads it, and the point gets made. The implication is that if you don't want to work harder than you've worked in your life, don't think about Sequoia money. Whether that's the reality of actually working with Sequoia or not is immaterial, there's a cult of personality and a commitment. Some part of me believes (maybe naively) that 10/10 times Mike Moritz would prefer the balanced, brilliant strategist and product founders who keep fit and still work a solid work-week to the narcissists willing to burn themselves out being easily manipulated by an article like this. My impression is that's all this is - a filter. I could be wrong, but we don't need to manufacture outrage here. VC gonna VC. Maybe this is a tone deaf opinion piece, or maybe in the current bull market of (potentially irrational) exuberance, Mike feels the need to make this assertion to new and upcoming founders to keep them aligned, public image be damned. Employees say, "hogwash" but if a founder puts in even an extra 2%, that's going to be have multiplicative effects. The founders willing to burn their teams out will fail quickly and be selected against. If you work for a Sequoia-backed company and this is concerning to you (or you feel like you're being burned out), ask your founder(s) their opinion and voice concerns. VCs don't make the decisions at the end of the day, the CEO does, and you likely joined your company for a reason and trust your CEO: they're human beings, they're responsible for your wellbeing, a good CEO will keep your best interests in mind as best they can. (That said, maybe I'm reading too much into it and it's just a poorly timed opinion piece. Either way. Bring up concerns with your founders if you're worried. Not sure we need to run the outrage train on the age-old story of "VCs expect founders to work hard.")

tzakrajs 9y ago

Michael Moritz would be wise to stay in China since it's so damned awesome.

tzakrajs 9y ago
Look at this Steve Jobs wannabe wanker: https://gigaom.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2011/11/1z5o5233.jpg https://gigaom.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2011/11/1z5o52...
- dang 9y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned here. You may not owe anything to that guy but you owe much better to the community if you want to keep commenting here.
  - tzakrajs 9y ago
    He is a public figure. Edit: Also, please don't ban me. Edit: I will refrain from future attacks in return for not being banned.
    - dang 9y ago
      Sure, if you'll follow the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, we won't ban you. The basic idea is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. (Public figure doesn't enter into it, btw, because the issue is the effect of such posts on the community here.)
Hydraulix989 9y ago
Is it satire?
- joshuatopolsky 9y ago
  The piece linked to here is my annotation on a very real post by Michael Moritz. Yes, my take is... a form of satire.

untilHellbanned 9y ago

Money is power for stupid people.

jbigelow76 9y ago
It’s also a power multiplier for intelligent people.
- untilHellbanned 9y ago
  Multiplying by 0 is still 0.

kawera 9y ago

Tweetstorm by David Heinemeier Hansson: https://twitter.com/dhh/status/954319522151976960 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/954319522151976960

tomasien 9y ago
No need to read it - you know what it says

vtange 9y ago

At some point though money ends up being a means to obtain a standard of living / a world worth living in. There is no point earning money if you never spend it to get something you want. Money also takes precious time and opportunity to earn. Know what you want and aim for it asap. All the money in the world won't buy you fond memories of an adventurous youth if you spent all of your teens, 20s and 30s slaving away for currency that can be inflated to nothingness over time. All the money in the world won't save you if you end up accepting a totalitarian world where you or your loved ones can be cast away by armed police or where making one-too-many Taiwanese friends endangers your social standing.

jorblumesea 9y ago

> Beyond the week-long breaks for Chinese new year and the October national holiday, most will just steal an additional handful of vacation days. Wow.

superquest 9y ago

I can see why people hate on this POV, but one thing is very reasonable: Imagine company A and company B are equal in all ways, except company B's workers work twice as much. If they come into competition, company A will be crushed. All the SF tech companies will come into competition with Chinese companies in the next 20 years. And there's a chance they just get outworked.

vtange 9y ago
Except "work twice as much" is a very vague term. Do they work twice as long? Do they have twice the amount of resources? What is the value of their output - is it twice higher than A? For how long do they work "twice as much" before burnout and overwork deaths happen like in Japan? In Japan it is well-known that a long-hours work culture doesn't translate to actual productive work. People end up being masters of "looking productive" rather than actually being productive.
- superquest 9y ago
  I'm deliberately being vague for the sake of argument. Of course there are many details in practice. A similar argument applies to the economies of Europe and the USA in parts the 20th century. A lot was similar, but Americans had the better work ethic. Of course, work ethic doesn't explain everything. But it's really freaking important.
  - watwut 9y ago
    Which part of 20th century was the same for Europe except work ethics? America did not had two world wars on its soil, that alone will make majority of that century different.
    - superquest 9y ago
      I can't find any evidence from 20th century, but here's a study from 2016: http://ftp.iza.org/dp10179.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp10179.pdf It says Americans work 25% more. This is usually the conclusion of this kind of thing.

wellboy 9y ago

Yes, so that they can accumulate wealth, so that they can build a safety net, welfare, better education, freedom of speech, so that they finally can start working less in maybe 10 years. Working so much loses its importance once your country already has those things, because it burns an entire generation, where people aren't humans, but just working machines. Another really short sighted article by a very very smart VC.

tanilama 9y ago

As always there is some truth from his piece. What would SV do, when their competing edge is waning? How do SV keep its perks when employers discover they can do the same thing elsewhere with less money? The realization should be, software is not a novel technique it uses to be, more people and more countries can do it now possibly cheaper. To justify the money, SV needs to do better. Whether it is to take the perks away and work longer, or find a new competing edge, only time would tell.