4 ms·

I expect this essay to be the target of criticism. Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! Wh

by kick 7y ago

I expect this essay to be the target of criticism. Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! What do you think we should build? There’s an excellent chance I’ll agree with you. It's interesting that he manages to say completely uncontroversial things, yet do so in such a way that even he finds them controversial. Is there a word for this phenomenon? Reworded in a way that doesn't generalize quite so intensely and that doesn't use such an ineffective tone, this 'essay' (I don't really think it counts as one; it's more what you'd expect to hear in a speech) might have actually had legs.

staticautomatic 7y ago
It's called being defensive.
anoncareer0212 7y ago
It's partly because this is fantasy land stuff, it's provacative in that it spends the first paragraph wiping away any connection to reality, unwinds a lot of hope, then puts you in a position to be put down for being negative. It's sort of a Jonathan Swift-style critique of American plutocracy in the early millennium. Very clever!
MattGaiser 7y ago
I don't have an issue with the ideas. I agree with many of them. I just find it a bit absurd that one of the top 1000 people capable of putting them into action is telling other people to go do it while he spends his time investing in them. Capital is obviously helpful and crucial for building companies, but he is obviously satisfied waiting for solutions to walk in the door rather than chasing them himself.
- coolswan 7y ago
  Him funding many effective people working on big ideas at once is probably more effective than him doing one idea himself.
  - MattGaiser 7y ago
    Except his essay is about people not doing those ideas... His objection is that those ideas are not being worked on.
- whb07 7y ago
  You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right? Then you somehow proceed to say “well why is Michael Jordan talking about how X player isn’t performing!? He should be out there playing right now”... uh what? So a player moves to becoming a coach or some support character after decades in the game and that’s your great comment?
  - kick 7y ago
    You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right? This is a drastic over-generalization, and a very controversial one at that. He played a big role in popularizing the Web, which many people believe to be the worst of available options at the time of creation. He also arguably started the trend of "Make the WWW browser do as much as possible." I personally don't share most of these views, but let's not go overboard here.
  - MattGaiser 7y ago
    > You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right? I know who he is. > Then you somehow proceed to say “well why is Michael Jordan talking about how X player isn’t performing!? He should be out there playing right now”... uh what? If he is on the bench and is talking about how performance is desperately needed, yes. Michael Jordan is old. He can't play as well anymore. Marc Andreessen is in the best position to be a builder in his life. > So a player moves to becoming a coach or some support character after decades in the game and that’s your great comment? Players generally stop playing once they for some reason can't (injury, age, etc) or begin to have other priorities and don't view the effort of playing as worth it. I don't see a reason that he can't, so this is of lesser significance to him than the essay alone would indicate.
viraptor 7y ago
> Is there a word for this phenomenon? Taunting? If you stand in a room full of people and say "the sky is blue", you'll get a weird look at most. If you say instead "Most of you will think it's controversial and criticise me, but I think the sky is blue - you're free to voice your opinion though", you'll get lots of people commenting (as you did) that this is not controversial and the sky is indeed blue. You can get people to spread and talk about your idea this way.
- kick 7y ago
  I don't think he'd waste his reputation in that way intentionally, especially when pretty much every word he utters gets to the top of the charts on this site and goes semi-viral elsewhere.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    I think you're overestimating his popularity here. There's A LOT of his links submitted https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=a16z.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=a16z.com Yet, this is the first one which crossed 300 votes, as far as I can tell (only checked 8 pages back or so) and is currently the highest scoring one. It may be that it's the most interesting one too. But adding popularity didn't hurt.
    - kick 7y ago
      Consider instead: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=andreessen https://hn.algolia.com/?q=andreessen https://hn.algolia.com/?query=andreessen&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=andreessen&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?q=pmarca https://hn.algolia.com/?q=pmarca

by kick 7y ago

staticautomatic 7y ago

It's called being defensive.

anoncareer0212 7y ago

It's partly because this is fantasy land stuff, it's provacative in that it spends the first paragraph wiping away any connection to reality, unwinds a lot of hope, then puts you in a position to be put down for being negative. It's sort of a Jonathan Swift-style critique of American plutocracy in the early millennium. Very clever!

MattGaiser 7y ago

I don't have an issue with the ideas. I agree with many of them. I just find it a bit absurd that one of the top 1000 people capable of putting them into action is telling other people to go do it while he spends his time investing in them. Capital is obviously helpful and crucial for building companies, but he is obviously satisfied waiting for solutions to walk in the door rather than chasing them himself.

coolswan 7y ago
Him funding many effective people working on big ideas at once is probably more effective than him doing one idea himself.
- MattGaiser 7y ago
  Except his essay is about people not doing those ideas... His objection is that those ideas are not being worked on.
whb07 7y ago
You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right? Then you somehow proceed to say “well why is Michael Jordan talking about how X player isn’t performing!? He should be out there playing right now”... uh what? So a player moves to becoming a coach or some support character after decades in the game and that’s your great comment?
- kick 7y ago
  You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right? This is a drastic over-generalization, and a very controversial one at that. He played a big role in popularizing the Web, which many people believe to be the worst of available options at the time of creation. He also arguably started the trend of "Make the WWW browser do as much as possible." I personally don't share most of these views, but let's not go overboard here.
- MattGaiser 7y ago
  > You realize he’s one of the main players in your enjoyment of the internet as we see it today right? I know who he is. > Then you somehow proceed to say “well why is Michael Jordan talking about how X player isn’t performing!? He should be out there playing right now”... uh what? If he is on the bench and is talking about how performance is desperately needed, yes. Michael Jordan is old. He can't play as well anymore. Marc Andreessen is in the best position to be a builder in his life. > So a player moves to becoming a coach or some support character after decades in the game and that’s your great comment? Players generally stop playing once they for some reason can't (injury, age, etc) or begin to have other priorities and don't view the effort of playing as worth it. I don't see a reason that he can't, so this is of lesser significance to him than the essay alone would indicate.

viraptor 7y ago

> Is there a word for this phenomenon? Taunting? If you stand in a room full of people and say "the sky is blue", you'll get a weird look at most. If you say instead "Most of you will think it's controversial and criticise me, but I think the sky is blue - you're free to voice your opinion though", you'll get lots of people commenting (as you did) that this is not controversial and the sky is indeed blue. You can get people to spread and talk about your idea this way.

kick 7y ago
I don't think he'd waste his reputation in that way intentionally, especially when pretty much every word he utters gets to the top of the charts on this site and goes semi-viral elsewhere.
- viraptor 7y ago
  I think you're overestimating his popularity here. There's A LOT of his links submitted https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=a16z.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=a16z.com Yet, this is the first one which crossed 300 votes, as far as I can tell (only checked 8 pages back or so) and is currently the highest scoring one. It may be that it's the most interesting one too. But adding popularity didn't hurt.
  - kick 7y ago
    Consider instead: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=andreessen https://hn.algolia.com/?q=andreessen https://hn.algolia.com/?query=andreessen&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=andreessen&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?q=pmarca https://hn.algolia.com/?q=pmarca