8 ms·

Man, I know that conversations on HN are supposed to be constructive, but can I just say: EFF this guy. I've been keeping tabs on this story. This dude just ign

Man, I know that conversations on HN are supposed to be constructive, but can I just say: EFF this guy. I've been keeping tabs on this story. This dude just ignores the rulings and locks his gates anyway. He can afford the fines and does not care. Total tale of two cities stuff. Being very wealthy does not exclude you from the rules of the society you choose to live in. People that behave this way are a cancer and its a shame that there aren't more robust means to hold them to account.

ryguytilidie 8y ago
Doesn't stop the people in this community from working for his startups and making him richer unfortunately. I worked for a Khosla company a few years ago and it was pretty depressing to know that if we struck gold, I might get a few million dollars to set my family up, but Vinod would get hundreds of millions to trample on people who werent millionaires. There's no winning in that situation.
- i_am_nomad 8y ago
  If it makes you feel any better, you probably wouldn’t have ever seen that few million bucks, even if the company had succeeded.
api 8y ago
I sometimes wonder if I would be any better if you gave me a billion dollars. It seems like effectively unlimited wealth does something to people. I wonder if it's a result of what it does to the people around you. Basically you end up surrounded by sycophants and people saying what you want to hear because they want some of your money, so it's not unlike the ego trip cult leaders and gurus get. You no longer get any balanced social feedback. Same probably applies to power of a more political sort. Are dictators dictators because they're dictators or does placing a human in a dictatorial office turn them into one?
- ZeroGravitas 8y ago
  I was wondering the same about these mysterious big money donors that fund reactionary stuff. You could think of them as bond villains from a Handmaid's Tale or you could just think of them as the juiciest targets in the Fox viewers demographic. Why try to scare money out of thousands of sheltered old people when you can go for the big score and terrufy one super rich sheltered old person.
  - api 8y ago
    Bingo. Money does not magically render a person impervious to the same insecurities, emotional reactivity, and other failings as ordinary people. It doesn't magically make someone more rational, more secure, less depressed, less fearful, or anything else. Rich people are just big bipedal monkeys with large integers in certain columns of a SQL table.
fiter 8y ago
Unfortunately for everyone, it seems like his personality is toxic to others and himself. If you read some of the articles about him, he "regrets buying the property" and to me seems pretty conflicted about the whole ordeal. He even "support[s] the Coastal Act"! Can anyone give a reason for why he claims $30 million for the easement (6 acres, privacy)? I've heard he paid something less than $35 million for the whole property (94 acres). Articles say that the village is part of what he purchased; clearly all those beach homes are worth more than $5 million. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-beach.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-b... [1] https://medium.com/@vkhosla/martins-beach-a-matter-of-principle-property-rights-b32f4de1c97 https://medium.com/@vkhosla/martins-beach-a-matter-of-princi...
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  What's a pity is that people this wealthy never reveal their true personalities and can pay for praise while deflecting shame. Khosla can pay for a PR campaign to say a bunch of nice things about him and how wonderful of a person he actually is while simultaneously having an army of his lawyers go fight his petty battles because how dare a bunch of 'low-income commoners' tell him what he can't do. Just because he owns a VC firm doesn't mean he isn't a douchebag in real life.
  - sverige 8y ago
    > Just because he owns a VC firm doesn't mean he isn't a douchebag in real life. In fact, that may be a key indicator that he might be a douchebag. Though to me the more likely indicator is his involvement with real estate, which has been a pretty consistent tell in my experience.
    - ganoushoreilly 8y ago
      To be fair a lot of people invest in real estate, including those with modest income. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a larger percentage of people with defined wealth have some sort of Property or holdings.
  - 8y ago
throwaway456321 8y ago
you're right: Fuck Off Davros !
ProAm 8y ago
> Being very wealthy does not exclude you from the rules of the society you choose to live in In the US it pretty much does.
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  There's a reason the term "fuck you money" is thrown around.
  - abawany 8y ago
    I thought that term was for scenarios where one didn't have to continue to engage in wage slavery: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuck%20you%20money https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuck%20you%2... .
    - quasse 8y ago
      It seems fair to say that there are two stratums to the phrase then. One for the working class, where they can take full ownership of their working lives and one for the super rich where they can ignore or abuse the legal and political system to their own gain.
      - rconti 8y ago
        With apologies to Rage Against The Machine, For the working class it's "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" money. For the super rich, it's "fuck you, you'll do what I tell you" money.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      I think the first level of FU money is to say "fuck my boss". But as multibillionaire you can say "fuck everybody". That requires significantly more money.
rhizome 8y ago
This dude just ignores the rulings and locks his gates anyway Chop it down like anything else that essentially is trash on public property.
- eps 8y ago
  Gates and the access road are on his private land.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Illegal structures on private land are regularly destroyed.
  - jhayward 8y ago
    I believe they are on a public right-of-way which is mandated by the Coastal Commission under the California Coastal Act.
ahoy 8y ago
> Being very wealthy does not exclude you from the rules of the society you choose to live in It does that literally in most cases!
sgift 8y ago
> He can afford the fines and does not care That's the reason that a) fines should be a percentage of your net worth and b) escalating. I'm pretty sure if the first 50 million go down the gutter he'll start to notice.
- gist 8y ago
  > a) fines should be a percentage of your net worth Not an easy process to determine net worth of anyone let alone someone like Vinod. Most likely he does not even know his net worth. For one, things that you own can vary greatly in value. Now multiply that by hundreds or even thousands of things that are owned by a wealthy person (I don't mean the furniture in the house either). And it simply does and should not work that way. Because what that means is that someone who is poor and has nothing does not get dinged much because they are poor and have nothing (hence they have 'nothing to lose'). Sure you could adjust the penalties but just the same simply not the way it works. Even Elon Musk, so big deal $20m fine for someone worth billions (non liquid of course). So what is the correct 'fine'? And what if he was in bankruptcy? Then what is the correct fine?
  - Eric_WVGG 8y ago
    All true, but lowballing would be effective enough.
  - tw04 8y ago
    That all presumes there's no way around the fine. If he had no warning, sure all those things matter. For something that is extremely easy to comply with, and that he's intentionally not complying with: too bad? This isn't a one-time whupps. It's no different than a DUI - the first one sort of sucks, but not in a life-changing way. The 3rd one you're into some serious, serious shit. He should be at this point.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Simply adopt the Finnish model - everyone's tax return is public, and fines are based on income in your last return. I think Sweden operates similarly. $100,000 speeding fine anyone? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm and that was in 2002!
shobith 8y ago
[deleted]
- jazzyk 8y ago
  You don;t get it. Access to coast is guaranteed to be public in most countries I have visited - it simply is not for sale. This is about super-rich people demanding special treatment, saying - EVERYTHING is for sale, it is just a question of price. He should be in jail for repeatedly violating the law.
  - sverige 8y ago
    It's happening throughout the West with access to rivers and lakes that billionaires have "purchased." It is definitely a cancer since it weakens the idea that some real estate is public domain. (And I'm an unironic capitalist saying this.)
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Khosla bought the property knowing it was subject to the public access easement (and it was priced accordingly).
  - fiter 8y ago
    If someone could find evidence to support this, I think this would be even more damaging for his persona. All this fight "for principle" that comes down to $X million.
    - URSpider94 8y ago
      These easements aren’t usually documented, but it would be blindingly obvious to anyone who bought the property, especially anyone with an attorney worthy of representing a billionaire. He absolutely knew, and figured he could bully, buy, litigate and delay his way out of it. I’m betting the whole strategy was written up before the sale was complete.
Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
> He can afford the fines and does not care. Perhaps that's not a problem per se. If the fines are equal to or greater than the Pigouvian tax you would put on this naughty behavior, then moving from a fine to a hard ban (however that is done) is a net negative move. The real problem here is extreme inequality.
vl 8y ago
This article says that he bought a private business that operated private road, private parking and convenience store for profit. Then he closed the business. Surely state shouldn't be able to compel a person to run business they don't want to run? Even if road is opened, where are they going to park? Who is going to pay for maintaining the road? For maintaining the restrooms?
- JamesBarney 8y ago
  He bought a business in the state of California which has the California Coastal Act which regulates "activities broadly defined by the Coastal Act to include (among others) construction of buildings, divisions of land, and activities that change the intensity of use of land or public access to coastal waters". And closing the private road and parking lot definitely do this.
  - vl 8y ago
    I.e. your position is that state should be able to compel individual to run unwanted business?
    - URSpider94 8y ago
      He doesn’t have to run a business. He can let people park for free, or he can ban all parking and only open the road for drop-offs and walk-ins, and tow any cars that park there. What he can not do, is block the right-of-way providing access to the coastline.
    - hirsin 8y ago
      Forced to maintain a road that was included in the easement he agreed to upon purchasing it, yes.
    - arrosenberg 8y ago
      No, but the individual should not be able to block access because he doesn't want to run the business either. In California, the public has full access rights to the beaches. The individual has no right to deny the public access under State law.

ryguytilidie 8y ago

Doesn't stop the people in this community from working for his startups and making him richer unfortunately. I worked for a Khosla company a few years ago and it was pretty depressing to know that if we struck gold, I might get a few million dollars to set my family up, but Vinod would get hundreds of millions to trample on people who werent millionaires. There's no winning in that situation.

i_am_nomad 8y ago
If it makes you feel any better, you probably wouldn’t have ever seen that few million bucks, even if the company had succeeded.

api 8y ago

I sometimes wonder if I would be any better if you gave me a billion dollars. It seems like effectively unlimited wealth does something to people. I wonder if it's a result of what it does to the people around you. Basically you end up surrounded by sycophants and people saying what you want to hear because they want some of your money, so it's not unlike the ego trip cult leaders and gurus get. You no longer get any balanced social feedback. Same probably applies to power of a more political sort. Are dictators dictators because they're dictators or does placing a human in a dictatorial office turn them into one?

ZeroGravitas 8y ago
I was wondering the same about these mysterious big money donors that fund reactionary stuff. You could think of them as bond villains from a Handmaid's Tale or you could just think of them as the juiciest targets in the Fox viewers demographic. Why try to scare money out of thousands of sheltered old people when you can go for the big score and terrufy one super rich sheltered old person.
- api 8y ago
  Bingo. Money does not magically render a person impervious to the same insecurities, emotional reactivity, and other failings as ordinary people. It doesn't magically make someone more rational, more secure, less depressed, less fearful, or anything else. Rich people are just big bipedal monkeys with large integers in certain columns of a SQL table.

fiter 8y ago

Unfortunately for everyone, it seems like his personality is toxic to others and himself. If you read some of the articles about him, he "regrets buying the property" and to me seems pretty conflicted about the whole ordeal. He even "support[s] the Coastal Act"! Can anyone give a reason for why he claims $30 million for the easement (6 acres, privacy)? I've heard he paid something less than $35 million for the whole property (94 acres). Articles say that the village is part of what he purchased; clearly all those beach homes are worth more than $5 million. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-beach.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-b... [1] https://medium.com/@vkhosla/martins-beach-a-matter-of-principle-property-rights-b32f4de1c97 https://medium.com/@vkhosla/martins-beach-a-matter-of-princi...

siruncledrew 8y ago
What's a pity is that people this wealthy never reveal their true personalities and can pay for praise while deflecting shame. Khosla can pay for a PR campaign to say a bunch of nice things about him and how wonderful of a person he actually is while simultaneously having an army of his lawyers go fight his petty battles because how dare a bunch of 'low-income commoners' tell him what he can't do. Just because he owns a VC firm doesn't mean he isn't a douchebag in real life.
- sverige 8y ago
  > Just because he owns a VC firm doesn't mean he isn't a douchebag in real life. In fact, that may be a key indicator that he might be a douchebag. Though to me the more likely indicator is his involvement with real estate, which has been a pretty consistent tell in my experience.
  - ganoushoreilly 8y ago
    To be fair a lot of people invest in real estate, including those with modest income. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a larger percentage of people with defined wealth have some sort of Property or holdings.
- 8y ago

throwaway456321 8y ago

you're right: Fuck Off Davros !

ProAm 8y ago

> Being very wealthy does not exclude you from the rules of the society you choose to live in In the US it pretty much does.

JimboOmega 8y ago
There's a reason the term "fuck you money" is thrown around.
- abawany 8y ago
  I thought that term was for scenarios where one didn't have to continue to engage in wage slavery: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuck%20you%20money https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuck%20you%2... .
  - quasse 8y ago
    It seems fair to say that there are two stratums to the phrase then. One for the working class, where they can take full ownership of their working lives and one for the super rich where they can ignore or abuse the legal and political system to their own gain.
    - rconti 8y ago
      With apologies to Rage Against The Machine, For the working class it's "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" money. For the super rich, it's "fuck you, you'll do what I tell you" money.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I think the first level of FU money is to say "fuck my boss". But as multibillionaire you can say "fuck everybody". That requires significantly more money.

rhizome 8y ago

This dude just ignores the rulings and locks his gates anyway Chop it down like anything else that essentially is trash on public property.

eps 8y ago
Gates and the access road are on his private land.
- Retric 8y ago
  Illegal structures on private land are regularly destroyed.
- jhayward 8y ago
  I believe they are on a public right-of-way which is mandated by the Coastal Commission under the California Coastal Act.

ahoy 8y ago

> Being very wealthy does not exclude you from the rules of the society you choose to live in It does that literally in most cases!

sgift 8y ago

> He can afford the fines and does not care That's the reason that a) fines should be a percentage of your net worth and b) escalating. I'm pretty sure if the first 50 million go down the gutter he'll start to notice.

gist 8y ago
> a) fines should be a percentage of your net worth Not an easy process to determine net worth of anyone let alone someone like Vinod. Most likely he does not even know his net worth. For one, things that you own can vary greatly in value. Now multiply that by hundreds or even thousands of things that are owned by a wealthy person (I don't mean the furniture in the house either). And it simply does and should not work that way. Because what that means is that someone who is poor and has nothing does not get dinged much because they are poor and have nothing (hence they have 'nothing to lose'). Sure you could adjust the penalties but just the same simply not the way it works. Even Elon Musk, so big deal $20m fine for someone worth billions (non liquid of course). So what is the correct 'fine'? And what if he was in bankruptcy? Then what is the correct fine?
- Eric_WVGG 8y ago
  All true, but lowballing would be effective enough.
- tw04 8y ago
  That all presumes there's no way around the fine. If he had no warning, sure all those things matter. For something that is extremely easy to comply with, and that he's intentionally not complying with: too bad? This isn't a one-time whupps. It's no different than a DUI - the first one sort of sucks, but not in a life-changing way. The 3rd one you're into some serious, serious shit. He should be at this point.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Simply adopt the Finnish model - everyone's tax return is public, and fines are based on income in your last return. I think Sweden operates similarly. $100,000 speeding fine anyone? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm and that was in 2002!

shobith 8y ago

[deleted]

jazzyk 8y ago
You don;t get it. Access to coast is guaranteed to be public in most countries I have visited - it simply is not for sale. This is about super-rich people demanding special treatment, saying - EVERYTHING is for sale, it is just a question of price. He should be in jail for repeatedly violating the law.
- sverige 8y ago
  It's happening throughout the West with access to rivers and lakes that billionaires have "purchased." It is definitely a cancer since it weakens the idea that some real estate is public domain. (And I'm an unironic capitalist saying this.)
gamblor956 8y ago
Khosla bought the property knowing it was subject to the public access easement (and it was priced accordingly).
- fiter 8y ago
  If someone could find evidence to support this, I think this would be even more damaging for his persona. All this fight "for principle" that comes down to $X million.
  - URSpider94 8y ago
    These easements aren’t usually documented, but it would be blindingly obvious to anyone who bought the property, especially anyone with an attorney worthy of representing a billionaire. He absolutely knew, and figured he could bully, buy, litigate and delay his way out of it. I’m betting the whole strategy was written up before the sale was complete.

Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago

> He can afford the fines and does not care. Perhaps that's not a problem per se. If the fines are equal to or greater than the Pigouvian tax you would put on this naughty behavior, then moving from a fine to a hard ban (however that is done) is a net negative move. The real problem here is extreme inequality.

vl 8y ago

This article says that he bought a private business that operated private road, private parking and convenience store for profit. Then he closed the business. Surely state shouldn't be able to compel a person to run business they don't want to run? Even if road is opened, where are they going to park? Who is going to pay for maintaining the road? For maintaining the restrooms?

JamesBarney 8y ago
He bought a business in the state of California which has the California Coastal Act which regulates "activities broadly defined by the Coastal Act to include (among others) construction of buildings, divisions of land, and activities that change the intensity of use of land or public access to coastal waters". And closing the private road and parking lot definitely do this.
- vl 8y ago
  I.e. your position is that state should be able to compel individual to run unwanted business?
  - URSpider94 8y ago
    He doesn’t have to run a business. He can let people park for free, or he can ban all parking and only open the road for drop-offs and walk-ins, and tow any cars that park there. What he can not do, is block the right-of-way providing access to the coastline.
  - hirsin 8y ago
    Forced to maintain a road that was included in the easement he agreed to upon purchasing it, yes.
  - arrosenberg 8y ago
    No, but the individual should not be able to block access because he doesn't want to run the business either. In California, the public has full access rights to the beaches. The individual has no right to deny the public access under State law.