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Odd to see a stress on interest in a problem for its own sake from pg, who has elsewhere written that the startup economy would be crippled by raising taxes on

by rst 6y ago

Odd to see a stress on interest in a problem for its own sake from pg, who has elsewhere written that the startup economy would be crippled by raising taxes on people who had already gotten fabulously rich. If being in it for the money is "the wrong motive" to do a startup, downgrading the potential financial gains from set-for-dynasty to merely set-for-life would seem to be a way of ditching the poseurs...

didibus 6y ago
> downgrading the potential financial gains from set-for-dynasty to merely set-for-life would seem to be a way of ditching the poseurs I've really started to think that inheritance is one of the biggest problem we have. Each one has the right to their own worth and riches acquired through their own effort, but if you pass those on afterwards then you create a dynasty that defeats the point of meritocracy and equality of opportunity. The incentives then become tribal, to your family, to your friends, and not simply a realization of your earnest passion.
- selestify 6y ago
  Also, in my opinion: 1. The elite will still hand down a superior education and social connections to their progeny, so their children will still be privileged, just not ridiculously so like they are today 2. This will incentivize parents to invest more in their children's soft development, rather than just handing down their wealth and calling it a day
qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
"People's motives are as mixed in Silicon Valley as anywhere else. Even the founders motivated mostly by money tend to be at least somewhat interested in the problem they're solving, and even the founders most interested in the problem they're solving also like the idea of getting rich."
- retsibsi 6y ago
  Yeah, but the parent talks about 'raising taxes on people who had already gotten fabulously rich', not some kind of radical egalitarianism. You'd have to be very strongly money-motivated to be deterred by the prospect of merely having hundreds of millions rather than a billion, or a couple billion rather than several billion, or whatever.
  - qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
    "What matters in Silicon Valley is how much effect you have on the world." http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html I feel this... I don't want billions for myself, I want billions so I can fund moonshot projects. If starting my business in a foreign country with no wealth tax is the difference between being a millionaire and a billionaire, I will strongly consider relocating.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      > I want billions so I can fund moonshot projects It seems like it'd be easy to create a charity funded with your wealth that provides grants to innovators. You can do this even in a country with a large wealth tax. The world also has an awful lot of yachts and private jets for me to really buy the argument that billionaires really want the money to give it away. So maybe democratic control over that wealth ends up being better on average, even if you truly are committed to giving away all of your wealth in the way that maximally benefits humanity.
- disown 6y ago
  Sure, interested in how the problem they're solving may get them a pot of gold. Founders aren't motivated by the problem no more than athletes are motivated by the love of the game. Children are motivated in that manner. But not adults. Startups, like sports, are a business. The only concern is money. That is the ends. The startup, problem, etc are just the means to that end. Every founder is motivated by money. It just sounds tacky and cheap to say you did it for money, so everyone builds up some silly story - "to help people", "to solve a problem", "cause it was a passion", "to create jobs for the community", "create value for others", etc. Nope. It was all for money. No need to be embarrassed about it.
nthj 6y ago
It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many billionaires, I think, have a mental model of “I have proven I can employ this wealth more effectively than bureaucrats, and I like to solve big problems, and wealth makes it easier to solve big problems.” This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates. Anyway, I think it’s probably a fair summary of how someone like PG could simultaneously hold the two ideas “don’t start a startup for money” and “higher taxes are a bad idea” at the same time. Which is not to say that he’s right, but I don’t think he’s incongruent.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many billionaires, I think, have a mental model of “I have proven I can employ this wealth more effectively than bureaucrats, and I like to solve big problems, and wealth makes it easier to solve big problems.” > This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates. You're correct in identifying the mental model in operation, but you're missing the fact that the people in question are profoundly deluded. Staggering piles of money (including Bill Gates') were, almost without exception, a result of the ability to capture value, not the ability to create it. And this is worth noting: many of the most significant decisions that led to increasing the value being captured were value destroying, such as "Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run". That isn't to say that value wasn't created at all (quite a lot was), but only that it isn't quite what is measured by, and rewarded with, wealth. In the most benign cases of extreme wealth, much (even most) of the value captured IS also created by the person or organization doing the capturing, but invariably, more value is being captured than created (or at least, the market believes that will eventually be the case).
  - solveit 6y ago
    I don't disbelieve you, but do you have evidence to back this up? That is, do you have evidence that suggests value capture at the price of value creation is more important than value creation itself?
geofft 6y ago
That's because this essay doesn't exist in isolation, it's a defense against the (entirely accurate) claim that his interest in Lisp for its own sake hasn't changed the world, only his business skills have: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400184 If you don't have that context, then the essay is in fact very confusing: the beginning of it says that caring about money is the wrong motivation, and the end of it says how good it is that you now get money from earnestly working on things. What it's actually doing is trying to convince people that there's a connection between his financial success and his earnest work on Lisp, and more generally that successful startups (who apparently still need VC investment) tend to be successful because they deserve it, not because they happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right access to capital.

by rst 6y ago

didibus 6y ago

> downgrading the potential financial gains from set-for-dynasty to merely set-for-life would seem to be a way of ditching the poseurs I've really started to think that inheritance is one of the biggest problem we have. Each one has the right to their own worth and riches acquired through their own effort, but if you pass those on afterwards then you create a dynasty that defeats the point of meritocracy and equality of opportunity. The incentives then become tribal, to your family, to your friends, and not simply a realization of your earnest passion.

selestify 6y ago
Also, in my opinion: 1. The elite will still hand down a superior education and social connections to their progeny, so their children will still be privileged, just not ridiculously so like they are today 2. This will incentivize parents to invest more in their children's soft development, rather than just handing down their wealth and calling it a day

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago

"People's motives are as mixed in Silicon Valley as anywhere else. Even the founders motivated mostly by money tend to be at least somewhat interested in the problem they're solving, and even the founders most interested in the problem they're solving also like the idea of getting rich."

retsibsi 6y ago
Yeah, but the parent talks about 'raising taxes on people who had already gotten fabulously rich', not some kind of radical egalitarianism. You'd have to be very strongly money-motivated to be deterred by the prospect of merely having hundreds of millions rather than a billion, or a couple billion rather than several billion, or whatever.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  "What matters in Silicon Valley is how much effect you have on the world." http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html I feel this... I don't want billions for myself, I want billions so I can fund moonshot projects. If starting my business in a foreign country with no wealth tax is the difference between being a millionaire and a billionaire, I will strongly consider relocating.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    > I want billions so I can fund moonshot projects It seems like it'd be easy to create a charity funded with your wealth that provides grants to innovators. You can do this even in a country with a large wealth tax. The world also has an awful lot of yachts and private jets for me to really buy the argument that billionaires really want the money to give it away. So maybe democratic control over that wealth ends up being better on average, even if you truly are committed to giving away all of your wealth in the way that maximally benefits humanity.
disown 6y ago
Sure, interested in how the problem they're solving may get them a pot of gold. Founders aren't motivated by the problem no more than athletes are motivated by the love of the game. Children are motivated in that manner. But not adults. Startups, like sports, are a business. The only concern is money. That is the ends. The startup, problem, etc are just the means to that end. Every founder is motivated by money. It just sounds tacky and cheap to say you did it for money, so everyone builds up some silly story - "to help people", "to solve a problem", "cause it was a passion", "to create jobs for the community", "create value for others", etc. Nope. It was all for money. No need to be embarrassed about it.

nthj 6y ago

It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many billionaires, I think, have a mental model of “I have proven I can employ this wealth more effectively than bureaucrats, and I like to solve big problems, and wealth makes it easier to solve big problems.” This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates. Anyway, I think it’s probably a fair summary of how someone like PG could simultaneously hold the two ideas “don’t start a startup for money” and “higher taxes are a bad idea” at the same time. Which is not to say that he’s right, but I don’t think he’s incongruent.

webmaven 6y ago
> It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many billionaires, I think, have a mental model of “I have proven I can employ this wealth more effectively than bureaucrats, and I like to solve big problems, and wealth makes it easier to solve big problems.” > This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates. You're correct in identifying the mental model in operation, but you're missing the fact that the people in question are profoundly deluded. Staggering piles of money (including Bill Gates') were, almost without exception, a result of the ability to capture value, not the ability to create it. And this is worth noting: many of the most significant decisions that led to increasing the value being captured were value destroying, such as "Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run". That isn't to say that value wasn't created at all (quite a lot was), but only that it isn't quite what is measured by, and rewarded with, wealth. In the most benign cases of extreme wealth, much (even most) of the value captured IS also created by the person or organization doing the capturing, but invariably, more value is being captured than created (or at least, the market believes that will eventually be the case).
- solveit 6y ago
  I don't disbelieve you, but do you have evidence to back this up? That is, do you have evidence that suggests value capture at the price of value creation is more important than value creation itself?

geofft 6y ago

That's because this essay doesn't exist in isolation, it's a defense against the (entirely accurate) claim that his interest in Lisp for its own sake hasn't changed the world, only his business skills have: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400184 If you don't have that context, then the essay is in fact very confusing: the beginning of it says that caring about money is the wrong motivation, and the end of it says how good it is that you now get money from earnestly working on things. What it's actually doing is trying to convince people that there's a connection between his financial success and his earnest work on Lisp, and more generally that successful startups (who apparently still need VC investment) tend to be successful because they deserve it, not because they happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right access to capital.