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PG's recent articles have changed from what they used to be. Recently (last few years) there is a dramatic change towards defending riches, logical fallacies to

PG's recent articles have changed from what they used to be. Recently (last few years) there is a dramatic change towards defending riches, logical fallacies to explain why being rich is okay, a lot of focus on wealth and how to get it and why it's okay. A lot less technically interesting than he used to post. I used to send Startup=Growth to everyone I knew. I think people are used to high-quality content from PG and so the upvotes fly - but honestly, recently, the quality isn't there. And often the content of his posts I now find quite offensive and wrong. Not very interesting any more. Mostly wealth defenses and fallacies.

FpUser 6y ago
>"being rich is okay" Sure being rich is ok. As long as they make mortals better off which is not what is happening now. Rather majority of the people are getting worse for wear in the process.
iur12 6y ago
This isn’t a surprise. The religion that formed here hanging off his every word subscribed to it to get rich, just like he started YC to get rich. Now he’s happily rich, barely even looks in the mirror at these adherents that he left behind, and is writing for his new friends who are also rich. It was always pointless snake oil but the Sand Hill Greed here made everyone overlook that because maybe, just maybe, the key to get into YC and skip the bread line was buried in the ninth paragraph of some polemic from a guy who figured out retail in Lisp and somehow convinced a greed-seeking generation of hackers that he had all the answers. I’ll take my -4 for hitting close to home. The grayer I get — silencing unpopular ideas by making them grayer was his idea too — the more confident I’m right. We stopped telling you folks you were following someone who only cared about your impact on his RoI because that sort of unwashed heathen isn’t welcome here. Paul Graham, YC, and this creation of his on which we speak now has done more to distort and destroy any foundation of computing remotely paying attention to making the world better than almost anything before it, and while I’m happy to see people finally figuring out that it just might be bullshit, it’s a bit too late.
- exhaze 6y ago
  Maybe one day, you'll even be confident enough to not make a throwaway account to say something like this.
  - iur12 6y ago
    This is kind of like a Clippy suggestion: hi there, it looks like you’re criticizing the forum. Would you like to establish a reputation on the forum?
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      How does one get to make more than three comments a day? Maybe that's why some people create new accounts, because they've filled their daily quota on the other ones.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Downvoted not because you're right, but because you're mostly wrong. I mean, you're maybe 10% right. You take that 10% and inflate it to the point that it's almost completely wrong, though.
  - iur12 6y ago
    I appreciate your well-defended and reasoned argument. I learned a lot from your countless examples of what I got wrong and given that I’ve missed the mark on earning your vote, I’ll be sure to factor your feedback into my future comments.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      Your post is just a bunch of empty accusations, too. You're trying so hard to be snarky but everything you said might as well be applied to your own post. You just had to talk big hiding behind a throwaway, didn't you?
- nvr219 6y ago
closeparen 6y ago
The political messaging has also changed from “people in poverty have specific material needs that we need money to fix” (war on poverty) to “actually, people having or making different amounts of money is inherently wrong” (war on inequality). The war on poverty can be waged with a modest tax on the PGs of the world. The war on inequality is different. Venture capital always seeks to create wealth that will flow to some more than others; a very efficient way to fight inequality is to simply abolish venture capital. Along with anything else that facilitates creation of personal (rather than societal) wealth.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > actually, people having or making different amounts of money is inherently wrong” (war on inequality). This is a misrepresentation though. There isn't anything inherently wrong with people having or making different amounts of money. The complaint, as I see it usually, is that the degree of inequality is unacceptable. That is, millionares aren't inherently unethical, heck people who make millions annually aren't inherently unethical. But people who make billions a week, might be. That is, I can comfortably and easily donate enough each year to support a few working families. Bezos could match the Child Poverty Tax Credit to every child in poverty in the US each year and still turn a profit. (For the math here, its ~$3000 * 11 million children, which comes out to ~35 billion, or half his income this year). And remember: he could do that every year and his wealth would increase. The key issue is that personal wealth, after a point is wasted. Creation of vast personal wealth doesn't really serve society, so why should society encourage it? That, again, doesn't mean that no one should have any personal wealth, just that the ROI, after a point, should lessen. How much do you really care after your second billion anyway?
  - waterhouse 6y ago
    > The key issue is that personal wealth, after a point is wasted. Creation of vast personal wealth doesn't really serve society ... How much do you really care after your second billion anyway? What do you think the billionaires' billions are doing? Sitting in a bank account? I think the majority of their wealth is invested, i.e. it is funding industry, which is a good thing. If we assume for illustration that billionaires will spend $1B on things like private jets and invest the rest, then if we have $1T divided among 10 billionaires, we'll have $10B spent on jets and $990B invested, while if we have $1T divided among 1000 billionaires, we'll have $1T spent on jets and $0 invested. Given that, at least for the concern of "how it's being spent", it's actually best to have the megawealth concentrated among a relative few.
blablabla123 6y ago
They come definitely from a privileged niche point of view although they usually have some really interesting insights. For instance this one article about how suburbs are created and that kids in the past were at their parents' workplaces and learned how they work. [1] Or another article about quality of discussion, ranging from collaboration to ad hominem. Still I hesitate to share them outside of the typical startup crowd because parts of them might offend people. [2] [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
jdonaldson 6y ago
PG's articles are like a modern day Siddhartha. He illustrates the glories of growth and change initially, but by the end he illustrates the glories of stability and security.

FpUser 6y ago

>"being rich is okay" Sure being rich is ok. As long as they make mortals better off which is not what is happening now. Rather majority of the people are getting worse for wear in the process.

iur12 6y ago

This isn’t a surprise. The religion that formed here hanging off his every word subscribed to it to get rich, just like he started YC to get rich. Now he’s happily rich, barely even looks in the mirror at these adherents that he left behind, and is writing for his new friends who are also rich. It was always pointless snake oil but the Sand Hill Greed here made everyone overlook that because maybe, just maybe, the key to get into YC and skip the bread line was buried in the ninth paragraph of some polemic from a guy who figured out retail in Lisp and somehow convinced a greed-seeking generation of hackers that he had all the answers. I’ll take my -4 for hitting close to home. The grayer I get — silencing unpopular ideas by making them grayer was his idea too — the more confident I’m right. We stopped telling you folks you were following someone who only cared about your impact on his RoI because that sort of unwashed heathen isn’t welcome here. Paul Graham, YC, and this creation of his on which we speak now has done more to distort and destroy any foundation of computing remotely paying attention to making the world better than almost anything before it, and while I’m happy to see people finally figuring out that it just might be bullshit, it’s a bit too late.

exhaze 6y ago
Maybe one day, you'll even be confident enough to not make a throwaway account to say something like this.
- iur12 6y ago
  This is kind of like a Clippy suggestion: hi there, it looks like you’re criticizing the forum. Would you like to establish a reputation on the forum?
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    How does one get to make more than three comments a day? Maybe that's why some people create new accounts, because they've filled their daily quota on the other ones.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Downvoted not because you're right, but because you're mostly wrong. I mean, you're maybe 10% right. You take that 10% and inflate it to the point that it's almost completely wrong, though.
- iur12 6y ago
  I appreciate your well-defended and reasoned argument. I learned a lot from your countless examples of what I got wrong and given that I’ve missed the mark on earning your vote, I’ll be sure to factor your feedback into my future comments.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    Your post is just a bunch of empty accusations, too. You're trying so hard to be snarky but everything you said might as well be applied to your own post. You just had to talk big hiding behind a throwaway, didn't you?
nvr219 6y ago

closeparen 6y ago

The political messaging has also changed from “people in poverty have specific material needs that we need money to fix” (war on poverty) to “actually, people having or making different amounts of money is inherently wrong” (war on inequality). The war on poverty can be waged with a modest tax on the PGs of the world. The war on inequality is different. Venture capital always seeks to create wealth that will flow to some more than others; a very efficient way to fight inequality is to simply abolish venture capital. Along with anything else that facilitates creation of personal (rather than societal) wealth.

joshuamorton 6y ago
> actually, people having or making different amounts of money is inherently wrong” (war on inequality). This is a misrepresentation though. There isn't anything inherently wrong with people having or making different amounts of money. The complaint, as I see it usually, is that the degree of inequality is unacceptable. That is, millionares aren't inherently unethical, heck people who make millions annually aren't inherently unethical. But people who make billions a week, might be. That is, I can comfortably and easily donate enough each year to support a few working families. Bezos could match the Child Poverty Tax Credit to every child in poverty in the US each year and still turn a profit. (For the math here, its ~$3000 * 11 million children, which comes out to ~35 billion, or half his income this year). And remember: he could do that every year and his wealth would increase. The key issue is that personal wealth, after a point is wasted. Creation of vast personal wealth doesn't really serve society, so why should society encourage it? That, again, doesn't mean that no one should have any personal wealth, just that the ROI, after a point, should lessen. How much do you really care after your second billion anyway?
- waterhouse 6y ago
  > The key issue is that personal wealth, after a point is wasted. Creation of vast personal wealth doesn't really serve society ... How much do you really care after your second billion anyway? What do you think the billionaires' billions are doing? Sitting in a bank account? I think the majority of their wealth is invested, i.e. it is funding industry, which is a good thing. If we assume for illustration that billionaires will spend $1B on things like private jets and invest the rest, then if we have $1T divided among 10 billionaires, we'll have $10B spent on jets and $990B invested, while if we have $1T divided among 1000 billionaires, we'll have $1T spent on jets and $0 invested. Given that, at least for the concern of "how it's being spent", it's actually best to have the megawealth concentrated among a relative few.

blablabla123 6y ago

They come definitely from a privileged niche point of view although they usually have some really interesting insights. For instance this one article about how suburbs are created and that kids in the past were at their parents' workplaces and learned how they work. [1] Or another article about quality of discussion, ranging from collaboration to ad hominem. Still I hesitate to share them outside of the typical startup crowd because parts of them might offend people. [2] [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

jdonaldson 6y ago

PG's articles are like a modern day Siddhartha. He illustrates the glories of growth and change initially, but by the end he illustrates the glories of stability and security.