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Advice for SF people: Stop talking about changing the god damned world when what you're actually working on is a middleman payment processor. You sound like you

Advice for SF people: Stop talking about changing the god damned world when what you're actually working on is a middleman payment processor. You sound like your head is planted so far up into your ass you can see daylight again. E: Just to point out what I actually believe so I’m not just doing a drive-by insult - let capitalism and self interest be just that, like how a pizza delivery guy or payday loan provider probably isn’t deluding themselves about making an impact. Leave talk of societal impact to actual politics.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago
That's the magic of the whole setup. When you present the situation as "making the world a better place", it's easier to swallow ethical transgressions and other illegal or immoral behaviors (Uber is a great example of this)
- java_script 8y ago
  My favorite is how if you check out any oil companies website, pretend you knew nothing about them and you’d think they were green peace by the messaging on their site.
- java_script 8y ago
  The most basic form of this is undermining or exploiting a group of people as your core business model, and then donating a small portion to charities that help that same group. Or even better, the ceo’s unrelated pet cause, an astroturf group, or a foundation where they hire family members as a way to skirt gift taxes. Compassionate capitalism is lovely ;)
wj 8y ago
I agree with you in theory but I feel that Stripe is an exception in that they have made it vastly easier for people to start businesses that will change the world. Related to this is the talk the founder of Asana gave at Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders. If you can make the people that are on the front lines of doing good a bit more efficient then you are doing good yourself.
indogooner 8y ago
Yeah they should say "change the world in a small way" unless they are building something like Wikipedia or even Project Gutenberg.
austenallred 8y ago
> payday loan provider probably isn’t deluding themselves about making an impact Having worked at a YC-backed alternative to payday lender (https://www.//lendup.com https://www.//lendup.com) and having spent a lot of the time in the call center listening to our customers, I'd suggest that a lender to folks without access to credit can have much more impact than you could possibly imagine. Being able to instantly inject $500 into the bank account of someone that needed it for a car repair or they'd lose their job when they couldn't get it elsewhere was only one of the many, many examples. Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of customers, and the impact is not trivial by any measure. Taking something that is incredibly painful and making it a delight at scale is a beautiful thing, almost no matter how trivial that thing is. I'm reminded of when Steve Jobs forced the Apple team to shave 30 seconds off of the startup time, because multiplied by the number of people who use Apple devices it's the equivalent of years in aggregate. I love that there are thousands of companies trying to change the world by making the one thing they work on absolutely perfect. It's a great thing.
- aphextron 8y ago
  >Having worked at a YC-backed alternative to payday lender (https://www.//lendup.com https://www.//lendup.com) and having spent a lot of the time in the call center listening to our customers, I'd suggest that a lender to folks without access to credit can have much more impact than you could possibly imagine. Being able to instantly inject $500 into the bank account of someone that needed it for a car repair or they'd lose their job when they couldn't get it elsewhere was only one of the many, many examples. Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of customers, and the impact is not trivial by any measure. This is exactly the mindless "head-in-ass" crap the OP was talking about. You're not helping that person by lending them $500 at 400%+ APR [0]. You are trapping them into a debt cycle they will most likely never recover from until default. Subprime lending is a predatory practice which has been around forever, no matter how you flip it. It is legal under our system though, so you're more than welcome to do it and profit from people's financial ignorance. Just don't try to pretend like you're helping anybody. [0] https://www.lendup.com/rates-and-notices https://www.lendup.com/rates-and-notices
  - 8y ago
DoreenMichele 8y ago
I completely and totally disagree with you. I have a serious medical condition. I was sexually abused as a child. I spent nearly 6 years homeless. The last thing I want is someone trying to "rescue" me. I've spent enormous amounts of time trying to figure out how to solve some really hard problems without approaching it as charity and rescuing other people. For example, I am trying to start a program to help homeless people and others with barriers to regular employment start making money online, even if it is only in dribs and drabs. I do what I can to advocate for more development of market-rate, inexpensive housing rather than "homeless programs" per se. I want to see the fabric of society change such that we have less homelessness. I absolutely don't want to see more Big Feels (TM) efforts to Help The Homeless because that almost always means giving them temporary relief that often actively helps keep them stuck and then expecting them to grovel in gratitude. Having thought about this a whole, whole lot, I think good business models are the single best way to make the kind of civilizing impact I desire to see. We need more Ghandis, who taught India financial self sufficiency as the antidote to being Britain's bitch, not more Jesus Christ Superstars, who at this point is a meme of "the only good man is a dead man who died a martyr." I assume that was what the world needed 2000 years ago. But I would like to see less charity and more healthy fabric of society that makes the lives of ordinary people work better without them having to prove they have some problem that merits positive intervention of some sort. I"m fine if people feeling like their vision will "change the world" is the motivation they need to put themselves through the hell that starting a company can be. I'm extra fine if that framing has them thinking in terms of "How does this genuinely improve the lives of people and not just milk them for money to line our pockets?"
dang 8y ago
Please don't sling insults on HN. It degrades this place and encourages worse. As your edit shows, it's easy to make fair points without doing that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

TAForObvReasons 8y ago

That's the magic of the whole setup. When you present the situation as "making the world a better place", it's easier to swallow ethical transgressions and other illegal or immoral behaviors (Uber is a great example of this)

java_script 8y ago
My favorite is how if you check out any oil companies website, pretend you knew nothing about them and you’d think they were green peace by the messaging on their site.
java_script 8y ago
The most basic form of this is undermining or exploiting a group of people as your core business model, and then donating a small portion to charities that help that same group. Or even better, the ceo’s unrelated pet cause, an astroturf group, or a foundation where they hire family members as a way to skirt gift taxes. Compassionate capitalism is lovely ;)

wj 8y ago

I agree with you in theory but I feel that Stripe is an exception in that they have made it vastly easier for people to start businesses that will change the world. Related to this is the talk the founder of Asana gave at Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders. If you can make the people that are on the front lines of doing good a bit more efficient then you are doing good yourself.

indogooner 8y ago

Yeah they should say "change the world in a small way" unless they are building something like Wikipedia or even Project Gutenberg.

austenallred 8y ago

> payday loan provider probably isn’t deluding themselves about making an impact Having worked at a YC-backed alternative to payday lender (https://www.//lendup.com https://www.//lendup.com) and having spent a lot of the time in the call center listening to our customers, I'd suggest that a lender to folks without access to credit can have much more impact than you could possibly imagine. Being able to instantly inject $500 into the bank account of someone that needed it for a car repair or they'd lose their job when they couldn't get it elsewhere was only one of the many, many examples. Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of customers, and the impact is not trivial by any measure. Taking something that is incredibly painful and making it a delight at scale is a beautiful thing, almost no matter how trivial that thing is. I'm reminded of when Steve Jobs forced the Apple team to shave 30 seconds off of the startup time, because multiplied by the number of people who use Apple devices it's the equivalent of years in aggregate. I love that there are thousands of companies trying to change the world by making the one thing they work on absolutely perfect. It's a great thing.

aphextron 8y ago
>Having worked at a YC-backed alternative to payday lender (https://www.//lendup.com https://www.//lendup.com) and having spent a lot of the time in the call center listening to our customers, I'd suggest that a lender to folks without access to credit can have much more impact than you could possibly imagine. Being able to instantly inject $500 into the bank account of someone that needed it for a car repair or they'd lose their job when they couldn't get it elsewhere was only one of the many, many examples. Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of customers, and the impact is not trivial by any measure. This is exactly the mindless "head-in-ass" crap the OP was talking about. You're not helping that person by lending them $500 at 400%+ APR [0]. You are trapping them into a debt cycle they will most likely never recover from until default. Subprime lending is a predatory practice which has been around forever, no matter how you flip it. It is legal under our system though, so you're more than welcome to do it and profit from people's financial ignorance. Just don't try to pretend like you're helping anybody. [0] https://www.lendup.com/rates-and-notices https://www.lendup.com/rates-and-notices
- 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I completely and totally disagree with you. I have a serious medical condition. I was sexually abused as a child. I spent nearly 6 years homeless. The last thing I want is someone trying to "rescue" me. I've spent enormous amounts of time trying to figure out how to solve some really hard problems without approaching it as charity and rescuing other people. For example, I am trying to start a program to help homeless people and others with barriers to regular employment start making money online, even if it is only in dribs and drabs. I do what I can to advocate for more development of market-rate, inexpensive housing rather than "homeless programs" per se. I want to see the fabric of society change such that we have less homelessness. I absolutely don't want to see more Big Feels (TM) efforts to Help The Homeless because that almost always means giving them temporary relief that often actively helps keep them stuck and then expecting them to grovel in gratitude. Having thought about this a whole, whole lot, I think good business models are the single best way to make the kind of civilizing impact I desire to see. We need more Ghandis, who taught India financial self sufficiency as the antidote to being Britain's bitch, not more Jesus Christ Superstars, who at this point is a meme of "the only good man is a dead man who died a martyr." I assume that was what the world needed 2000 years ago. But I would like to see less charity and more healthy fabric of society that makes the lives of ordinary people work better without them having to prove they have some problem that merits positive intervention of some sort. I"m fine if people feeling like their vision will "change the world" is the motivation they need to put themselves through the hell that starting a company can be. I'm extra fine if that framing has them thinking in terms of "How does this genuinely improve the lives of people and not just milk them for money to line our pockets?"

dang 8y ago

Please don't sling insults on HN. It degrades this place and encourages worse. As your edit shows, it's easy to make fair points without doing that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html