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"Most of the race’s competitors had built automated cars, but Levandowski had constructed a self-driving motorcycle called Ghostrider—in part, he later admitted
by slivym 8y ago
"Most of the race’s competitors had built automated cars, but Levandowski had constructed a self-driving motorcycle called Ghostrider—in part, he later admitted, because he hoped that its novelty would draw attention. Although Ghostrider performed rather pitifully in its début, breaking down a few feet from the starting line, in almost every other respect it was a success: the audacity of Levandowski’s creation, coupled with his talent for charming journalists, made him the competition’s star. The National Museum of American History acquired Ghostrider for its permanent collection, and in 2007 Levandowski—then twenty-seven years old, with only a master’s degree in engineering from U.C. Berkeley—was offered a job at Google worth millions of dollars."
Silicon valley in a nut shell folks. Completely disregard ethics and hey presto a few years down the line the total fraudster you hired turns out to have been unethical! Whodathunk!
- twtw 8y agoThis article made me feel nauseated. All these big name hotshots and Google execs so full of BS they can't even manage to fire this guy. This is what a lot of Silicon Valley has become, but it has not always been this way and there are still some legitimate companies that that do in fact wear clothes - mostly semiconductor companies though.
- dilyevsky 8y agoHow are sociopathic tendencies of higher echelons of corporate management news to anyone? The only “newsworthy” part of it is it relates to google (which isn’t really news to anyone who’s been on the inside). If it was abouy some finance firm nobody would bat an eye
- acdha 8y agoIt’s not news in general but many people liked to pretend it wasn’t true of Silicon Valley or at least favorite companies like Google: sure, there are sharks in most places but we’re a strict meritocracy where only results matter! That’s been cracking over time as e.g. people noticed that all of the cool stuff Google does is a sideline for selling ads, Uber is a gypsy cab company which would fail the instant they had to comply with the law or pay for externalities, etc. Rather than letting SV redesign the world we’re hope the world will rein it in enough before more people are hurt. Given how strong that self-image has been in tech culture for decades, a lot of people are going to have strong emotions when it’s no longer possible to maintain cognitive dissonance.
- rajacombinator 8y agoDelusional. Almost all of SV’s major success stories are grade A psychopaths. Simply how the game works. The rare cases that are benevolent usually get coopted by their more devious counterparts and VCs. (See Google, Twitter, eg.)
- twtw 8y agoYou and I clearly have a different idea of what silicon valley's "major success stories" are. Some non-psychopathic successful individuals: Bill Hewlett, David Packard, Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, Federico Faggin, Ross Freeman, Bob Noyce, the Varian brothers, Bob Taylor, Jerry Sanders, Wilfred Corrigan ... It's only in the last 25 years that movie villains have become the norm.
- rajacombinator 8y agoFair enough I’m not familiar with that much older generation. But I think you’re off the mark, it’s more like 35-40 years. The notoriety of the Jobs, Gates, Ellison, and onwards era dwarfs the old school, so I think my charactization is accurate. And I doubt those old school guys were any less ruthless, it’s just how the game works.
- twtw 8y agoGates is very little like the current generation. Even jobs, who is well known for being a jerk, was still very much human and not psychopathic. Compare these guys to Page, Zuckerberg, Musk, Kalanick, Thiel, Kurzweil, ... and all of a sudden they seem very normal.
- twtw 8y agoI would also highly recommend that you become familiar with these "much older generations" before generalizing about Silicon Valley's success stories. It's called "silicon" for a reason, and being unfamiliar with these individuals is pretty disqualifying in terms of being able to say anything about the area and its history.
- deepnotderp 8y ago> legitimate companies that that do in fact wear clothes - mostly semiconductor companies though Hahahha. No. The days of Noyce's Intel and so on are long gone. Only nvidia really remains innovative
- twtw 8y agoI didn't say anything about innovative - I said legitimate.
- deepnotderp 8y agoWhat does "legitimate" mean? Global is funded by oil money and was almost sold to the Saudis. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you work in the semi industry? ;)
- twtw 8y agoLegitimate means whatever I want it to mean - that's why I like it. In this case, I used it to mean something like "profitable, with a business model that doesn't depend on monopoly, selling a product that isn't smoke and mirrors."
- deepnotderp 8y agoBoth Apple and Google make money hand over fist, quite profitable. Intel, the shining example, definitely relies on the x86 monopoly
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deepnotderp 8y agoWell, I mean aren't Dark Triad traits supposed to be good predictors of both economic and romantic success? I feel this is more a human nature problem than a "tech os evil" problem.
- opportune 8y agoThis is so true. The old adage is to under promise and over deliver... but really, if you do over promise and under deliver, things can still work out if you sell it well enough
- Gustomaximus 8y agoI refer to the latter as 'people who fail up' Every company seems to have one. They always intrigue me.