4 ms·

> > Permanently divorcing physical location from economic opportunity gives us a real shot at radically expanding the number of good jobs in the world while als

> > Permanently divorcing physical location from economic opportunity gives us a real shot at radically expanding the number of good jobs in the world while also dramatically improving quality of life for millions, or billions, of people. > This doesn't seem consistent with what is happening in A16Z's own backyard. Either Marc knows something we don't or this is unwarranted hyperbole. Well, let's run that through the VC->English converter: "We hope to lay off all the first world engineers living in Silicon Valley and hire exclusively the cheapest possible people living in the cheapest countries. We can hire twice as many bodies (double the good jobs, just not in the USA!) for one-tenth as much money, pocket all the profits, and if anyone complains (perhaps all the laid off engineers) we can talk about how we're raising people out of poverty, how dare they complain." My version is admittedly not as flowery as the original.

klelatti 5y ago
Or maybe: "Some of our partners want to move to Texas. All the money they will spend there will move 10s of people out of poverty in Austin."
the_gipsy 5y ago
Don’t conflate “cheaper” with “cheapest”. Ideally, it would be the same talent, in cheaper regions now. Cut out the landlord middleman. I know, the worker is getting less, the company is simply subsidising a cheaper home. But many workers, not all but significantly many, will prefer a better lifestyle outside of cities.
handrous 5y ago
When you fire 500,000 highly-paid workers, and distribute half their pay to dramatically raise the wages of 5,000,000 workers in very poor places and the other half to 50 extremely rich capitalists, you've "expand[ed] the number of good jobs in the world" and "dramatically improv[ed] the qualify of life for millions [...] of people". It's hard to even argue against, ethically—except that, conveniently, the people most vocally pushing it always seem to be in a "heads I win, tails you lose" position and are never the ones who will lose anything to make it happen. Usually quite the opposite.

klelatti 5y ago

Or maybe: "Some of our partners want to move to Texas. All the money they will spend there will move 10s of people out of poverty in Austin."

the_gipsy 5y ago

Don’t conflate “cheaper” with “cheapest”. Ideally, it would be the same talent, in cheaper regions now. Cut out the landlord middleman. I know, the worker is getting less, the company is simply subsidising a cheaper home. But many workers, not all but significantly many, will prefer a better lifestyle outside of cities.

handrous 5y ago

When you fire 500,000 highly-paid workers, and distribute half their pay to dramatically raise the wages of 5,000,000 workers in very poor places and the other half to 50 extremely rich capitalists, you've "expand[ed] the number of good jobs in the world" and "dramatically improv[ed] the qualify of life for millions [...] of people". It's hard to even argue against, ethically—except that, conveniently, the people most vocally pushing it always seem to be in a "heads I win, tails you lose" position and are never the ones who will lose anything to make it happen. Usually quite the opposite.