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> I’m not saying one leadership style is better than the other, I just hope we recognize good consensus based leadership should be valued as well, and it’s rath

> I’m not saying one leadership style is better than the other, I just hope we recognize good consensus based leadership should be valued as well, and it’s rather undervalued in tech culture in favor of people that sometime make a lot of noise, but end up being completely full of it. It seems likely that some leadership styles are better than others and plausible that techbrocracy is better than a more circumspect style for companies like this. Variety of styles at various similar firms might have benefits, but I don't think it's fair to assume that variety is worth while without an actual argument or evidence.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> techbrocracy is better than a more circumspect style for companies like this. I haven't seen solid evidence that that is the case. Here's an alternate hypothesis: high-capital investors & wall street types aren't actually that good at determining quality management at all, they grew up in affluent social circles where "professional bro"-esque (be it finance or tech) people were common and respected, and they project those views onto the companies they invest in. Getting investment capital from these people is as much about cultural homogeneity with the "old money" types as it is about having a brilliant idea or a good execution plan. It's worth remembering that most of this capital is being invested by people who just inherited the wealth from their parents, they're not necessarily genius market participants. e: And I'm downvoted, why?
- caturopath 5y ago
  > I haven't seen solid evidence that that is the case. (Note, I called this plausible, not correct or even likely.)
- bluecalm 5y ago
  You would also need a source for most of the capital being sourced from inheritance. It sounds like unsupported assertion especially when you look at the landscape of the richest tech people. Gates, Jobs, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk all have built the capital themselves even if they had a nice start in life. Seeing how much more wealth there is now than there was 40-60 years ago it just doesn't seem plausible that most of the investors just inherited it. Extraordinary claims - extraordinary evidence please.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > It sounds like unsupported assertion Sure, the estimates range from 50% to 65% of all private wealth in the US being inherited by the 5% most affluent households [0]. This logically implies most of the wealth held by affluent households is inherited. Certainly, those at the very, very top (ie. the literal top 10, like Gates, Bezos, Musk) of households are likely to have built their own capital, but I'd also point out that there are plenty on the top list that have inherited it, if you look at the top 15 wealthiest Americans, 5 of those arguably did not earn their wealth (the Waltons, MacKenzie Scott, and Charles Koch). [1] [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-like-estate-tax-whole-lot-more-when-they-learn-how-wealth-is-distributed/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-l... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_by_net_worth#Top_25_richest_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_by_net_worth...
    - bluecalm 5y ago
      I don't think it's fair to say that MacKenzie Scott or the Waltons didn't earn their wealth. I mean I am on conservative side economically but the case of MacKenzie Scott seems like a classic "we form a team, split tasks and try to do as well for ourselves as we can" kind of deal. Exactly the way marriages should be. If a family runs a business and a lot of family members are involved one way or another it's not fair to say the wealth is inherited. Nor is it fair to say a wife who supported her husband in both everyday and business matters didn't earn her wealth. As to sources: what politically motivated newspaper claims in an opinion piece isn't meaningful. I look at the list of richest Americans and I see the vast majority (90%+) or even all of them were involved in building the fortune. When googling around for numbers it seems most sources claim that vast majority of world population millionaires are self made and even bigger percentage of billionaires are. Personally all the people I know who did well for themselves didn't inherit anything. I am sure my perspective is shaped by being born in a very poor communist country but it seems the actual numbers worldwide don't contradict my intuition that fortunes bigger and smaller are mainly built and rarely inherited.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
marcus_holmes 5y ago
> plausible that techbrocracy is better than a more circumspect style for companies like this. Given that the company was founded and formed under Zhu's leadership, it was probably exactly suited to his leadership style[0]. The new factor appears to be the VC's. It's not so common now, but VC's used to have a reputation for replacing founders with "experienced" CEOs - y'know: their mates from the golf club who could be counted on to play ball nicely. This was especially common if the founder was unconventional in any way. [0] TFA doesn't mention any internal management problems, so I'm assuming all was well and there wasn't any dissatisfaction with the leadership style. That assumption could be wrong.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > y'know: their mates from the golf club who could be counted on to play ball nicely. This was especially common if the founder was unconventional in any way. And it's a pretty obvious conclusion from: 1. the fact that GPs have to put up $10s of millions into the fund to get the job 2. most (>50%) wealth held by affluent people (like the people who become GPs) is inherited from their parents. These are people who grew up in affluent social circles and want people like them managing the companies they invest in.

whimsicalism 5y ago

> techbrocracy is better than a more circumspect style for companies like this. I haven't seen solid evidence that that is the case. Here's an alternate hypothesis: high-capital investors & wall street types aren't actually that good at determining quality management at all, they grew up in affluent social circles where "professional bro"-esque (be it finance or tech) people were common and respected, and they project those views onto the companies they invest in. Getting investment capital from these people is as much about cultural homogeneity with the "old money" types as it is about having a brilliant idea or a good execution plan. It's worth remembering that most of this capital is being invested by people who just inherited the wealth from their parents, they're not necessarily genius market participants. e: And I'm downvoted, why?

caturopath 5y ago
> I haven't seen solid evidence that that is the case. (Note, I called this plausible, not correct or even likely.)
bluecalm 5y ago
You would also need a source for most of the capital being sourced from inheritance. It sounds like unsupported assertion especially when you look at the landscape of the richest tech people. Gates, Jobs, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk all have built the capital themselves even if they had a nice start in life. Seeing how much more wealth there is now than there was 40-60 years ago it just doesn't seem plausible that most of the investors just inherited it. Extraordinary claims - extraordinary evidence please.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > It sounds like unsupported assertion Sure, the estimates range from 50% to 65% of all private wealth in the US being inherited by the 5% most affluent households [0]. This logically implies most of the wealth held by affluent households is inherited. Certainly, those at the very, very top (ie. the literal top 10, like Gates, Bezos, Musk) of households are likely to have built their own capital, but I'd also point out that there are plenty on the top list that have inherited it, if you look at the top 15 wealthiest Americans, 5 of those arguably did not earn their wealth (the Waltons, MacKenzie Scott, and Charles Koch). [1] [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-like-estate-tax-whole-lot-more-when-they-learn-how-wealth-is-distributed/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-l... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_by_net_worth#Top_25_richest_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_by_net_worth...
  - bluecalm 5y ago
    I don't think it's fair to say that MacKenzie Scott or the Waltons didn't earn their wealth. I mean I am on conservative side economically but the case of MacKenzie Scott seems like a classic "we form a team, split tasks and try to do as well for ourselves as we can" kind of deal. Exactly the way marriages should be. If a family runs a business and a lot of family members are involved one way or another it's not fair to say the wealth is inherited. Nor is it fair to say a wife who supported her husband in both everyday and business matters didn't earn her wealth. As to sources: what politically motivated newspaper claims in an opinion piece isn't meaningful. I look at the list of richest Americans and I see the vast majority (90%+) or even all of them were involved in building the fortune. When googling around for numbers it seems most sources claim that vast majority of world population millionaires are self made and even bigger percentage of billionaires are. Personally all the people I know who did well for themselves didn't inherit anything. I am sure my perspective is shaped by being born in a very poor communist country but it seems the actual numbers worldwide don't contradict my intuition that fortunes bigger and smaller are mainly built and rarely inherited.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago

marcus_holmes 5y ago

> plausible that techbrocracy is better than a more circumspect style for companies like this. Given that the company was founded and formed under Zhu's leadership, it was probably exactly suited to his leadership style[0]. The new factor appears to be the VC's. It's not so common now, but VC's used to have a reputation for replacing founders with "experienced" CEOs - y'know: their mates from the golf club who could be counted on to play ball nicely. This was especially common if the founder was unconventional in any way. [0] TFA doesn't mention any internal management problems, so I'm assuming all was well and there wasn't any dissatisfaction with the leadership style. That assumption could be wrong.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> y'know: their mates from the golf club who could be counted on to play ball nicely. This was especially common if the founder was unconventional in any way. And it's a pretty obvious conclusion from: 1. the fact that GPs have to put up $10s of millions into the fund to get the job 2. most (>50%) wealth held by affluent people (like the people who become GPs) is inherited from their parents. These are people who grew up in affluent social circles and want people like them managing the companies they invest in.