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The saddest part is that SV runs on Saudi cash. https://vicki.substack.com/p/silicon-valley-runs-on-saudi https://vicki.substack.com/p/silicon-valley-runs-on-s
by m_a_g 6y ago
The saddest part is that SV runs on Saudi cash.
https://vicki.substack.com/p/silicon-valley-runs-on-saudi https://vicki.substack.com/p/silicon-valley-runs-on-saudi
- roflchoppa3 6y agoAny companies that are known to not take "dirty" cash when trying to fund money?
- zapdrive 6y agoNo.
- duxup 6y agoProbably not but when you have some who travel to Saudi Arabia to fund raise and schmooze, it's a bit more direct.
- andrewacove 6y agoThis can be difficult because the money is often funneled through other entities (as LPs to VC and growth funds, etc.) I've had more than one VC tell me they couldn't guarantee that there was no Saudi money in their fund, even though they didn't have any direct KSA LPs.
- __sy__ 6y agoI would hope we (Seam) are one of them. K, granted it's extremely hard to trace all the LPs of a fund; but at the very least we don't take calls with questionable funds/individuals. Once we've shipped our first product, I'll try to write down why, and propose a framework by which founders can better assess the money they're taking. NOT all money is green.
- sschueller 6y agoWhen you run companies like Uber that violate laws left and right I don't think the founders or boards have any issue where the money comes from.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- juskrey 6y agoThe funniest part is that most of that cash just gets burned
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- odiroot 6y agoIt's like some kind of karmic justice.
- tshaddox 6y agoNot burned, but transferred to Silicon Valley landlords!
- jandrese 6y agoMany of those landlords happen to be offshore billionaires, in some cases organizations like the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
- hef19898 6y agoSo basically zero risk for these guys?
- foolmeonce 6y agoIf you are SA, the risk that softbank will need to issue you a middleman with no ethics to manage your real estate is 100%.
- hahahahe 6y agoI remember when SA and UAE wanted to build fabs in the middle east in their never ending effort to diversify away from oil. They soon realized they don’t have the workforce without importing skilled labor. SA has one of the [hardest-to-motivate workforces] in the world.
- ampdepolymerase 6y agoThey are basically the counterexample for universal basic income.
- hahahahe 6y agoExactly. Contrast that with another oil rich country that did something: Norway.
- ampdepolymerase 6y agoNorway's scale of UBI is a lot less than the oil rich Arabic states' though. Those states may not have much civil liberties but material quality of life is undeniably not bad for most locals.
- Grustaf 6y agoNorway doesn't have UBI.
- jandrese 6y agoI don't think most proponents of UBI are suggesting we give people enough money to push them into the "rich asshole" level of wealth. But I do agree that UBI proponents have to come up with an argument against the "pay people just enough to do drugs and play videogames all day" example. Most of the population is not made of highly motivated self-starters, despite what every job posting looks for.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
- mrighele 6y agoEven worse, SV is located in a country that is not better than Saudi Arabia when we talk about extra-judicial killings (just think about Obama-era drone killings)
- sofixa 6y agoAnd still has a military-run black site for illegal detainment and torture. And not only that, they refuse international law and to subject their war criminals to prosecution. Strike that, they have a law allowing themselves to invade anyone investigating their war criminals, have sanctioned such investigators, and actively pardon war criminals.
- Chris2048 6y agoThe US has some history of politically-motivated suppression of journalists (Assange), but has yet to advance to murdering them.
- boc 6y agoTrump continued (and even increased) the drone killings, but removed the reporting requirements. Calling it the "Obama-era drone killings" ignores the unprecedented amount of killings under the previous administration. Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/22/obama-drones-trump-killings-count/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/22/obama-drones-trump-kill...
- corpMaverick 6y agoFurthermore. The Obama admin added transparency and accountability measures while the Trump admin ditched them.
- 8note 6y agoI'm sure it will be great solace to the families of those murdered by America that the Americans are proud to talk about it again
- 6y ago
- xiphias2 6y agoIsn't that a good sign? I prefer people investing in new tech than killing people just to stay in the old tech. The more they are able to diversify their profits away from oil towards renewables (or other assets), the faster we all can transition to cleaner tech.
- wombat-man 6y agooh, I think it just creates a morally hazardous situation where it's harder to push back on stuff like the Khashoggi killing because we like their money.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoThe alternative is their money goes somewhere else, possibly to those more politically aligned.
- xiphias2 6y agoI see, it's true. But the consequences of not accepting outside investment for US for moral reasons would be a disaster, as the money would just go to more corrupt countries. As Jordan Peterson expressed it quite well, the problem with United Nations is that they have too many issues to solve instead of figuring out what action has the highest ROI and focusing efforts there. Another issue is that already people in less corrupt countries prefer not to have babies, which means that the workforce in corrupt countries is growing much faster. US has to be very smart if it wants to stay relevant.
- joshjhargreaves 6y agoHow is this possibly the 'saddest' part? A man was brutally murdered. Get some perspective, jeez.
- DSingularity 6y agoI think he means what is also sad is that the powerful in SV dont care. Words matter but I doubt he meant that is sadder then the tragedy that happened in the embassy.