6 ms·

Ok you're a troll but I'll feed you anyway. How about Paul Graham?

aaomidi 5y ago
ycombinator actively takes ownership of the means of production by providing loans. Any founder knows how predatory external funding is, but, it is the only choice to get a company up and running.
- infamouscow 5y ago
  A founder with the choice of taking YC money also is free to make the decision not to take YC money. What's the problem besides some abstract argument of moral superiority?
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    Think out of the box for a second, is this really the only possible choices we have here? Or are billionaires using and designing the system to create more opportunities to make $$$ at the expense of others work.
    - infamouscow 5y ago
      Have you visited IndieHackers.com? They are demonstrating you don't need funding to create amazing things.
      - losvedir 5y ago
        Thanks for letting me know about this site. I hadn't seen it before! I don't suppose I could beg an invite from you...?
        infamouscow 5y ago
        Unfortunately I don't have any invite codes, but I'm sure another reader on HN could help you out :)
    - krona 5y ago
      You're using corporatism to argue against capitalism. They're not the same thing.
    - splistud 5y ago
      It's not out of the box thinking. The problem is that you want to throw one of the values out of the calculation box. You want billionaires to provide capital because there is 'no other way to get a startup going (paraphrasing)' but you don't want to assign a value to that (as in, the workers are what is creating the value).
  - andrepd 5y ago
    Yes, indeed if you assume that the current system for allocating capital is good then you conclude that the current system for allocating capital is good. If you apply a bit more critical thinking you can start to question whether the fact that a small proportion of people have a monopoly on the ownership, allocation, and creation of capital, and are therefore able to extract rent from loaning it out without providing any value themselves, whether that is a good thing at all.
    - sershe 5y ago
      The "small monopoly" in this thread is Paul Graham, who created his capital himself. First-a, he deserves what he has (as far as you can make such a statement in a complex society). He provided some value, got paid for it, he now takes a risk helping others do the same. The only difference between him and me consuming X, providing X+Y value, and using the Y to buy tiny parts of public companies to have some claim on their profits is scale. First-b, and yes, if someone came and took away my Y for "fairness", I would start working less to just make what I consume. And I mostly /like/ my job, unlike most people. Second-a, after critically thinking about it, I actually believe it's better for people like him to allocate capital, instead of either some "democratic process", or even worse some semi-elected bureaucrats. I wish we could have people like Bezos, Buffett, Graham, etc. run MANY MORE things (generally speaking, not attached to a particular implementation). We have all of history to indicate who does things better. Second-a-a, even if we were to say "free market is bad in this area, no free market is allowed [e.g. healthcare or housing]" (to be clear, I disagree with that, but let's say we did) I would prefer to install a conventionally-defined-self-made billionaire from another industry to run said area, instead of a govt bureaucracy like we do now. Third, as others have mentioned you don't have to take his money, you can bootstrap (and then get rich and loan money just like him). Second-b, combining second-a and third in a more narrow scope, do you think either voters or bureaucrats would fund startups (and, do it better than the likes of VCs)? It has happened, but rarely and almost always in response to an existential threat. Viaweb FAQ says they were financed by angels to the tune of $2m 90ies-dollars. What are the alternative sources of funding you envision in the "fairer" allocation structure for such startups, be it Tesla, Google, or Viaweb, given their success rate?
    - infamouscow 5y ago
- encoderer 5y ago
  Slow down, Karl. I'm a founder. I can tell you, external funding is as generous now as it's ever been, and in my network there are YC alumns (and 2-time alums) that would disagree with your take. Also, we are in a golden age of bootstrapping, you don't need to raise to get a company up and running. All this to say: Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad? My dad is the manager of a gas station, and I am the founder of a startup with financial security. Anything really is possible when you work for it.
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    > Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad That's the best part, it isn't for a chunk of people. It destroys life for another chunk of people. So yeah, maybe, to you, it's not bad. To others? It's fucked.
    - infamouscow 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_... is a pretty long page.
      - aaomidi 5y ago
        1. I never said anything about communism. 2. Do you consider all the supply chain related deaths, all the prison related deaths, all the civilians killed in America going after oil part of "people killed under capitalism?"
        infamouscow 5y ago
        What you're describing is deaths under Crony capitalism.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    > Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad? Ironically, you know who else thought the exact same thing, lavishing praise on capitalism? Karl Marx. Maybe educate yourself and open your horizons to something outside your narrow views. I have no problem with people being ignorant (nobody knows everything), but it's grating when somebody is proud of it. > Anything really is possible when you work for it. Actually nevermind, such naivete is mind-boggling.
- irl_chad 5y ago
  Do you actually think VC money is predatory? I have a $1m MMR startup that I founded without any external funding - but mostly because I was naive to such structures existing at all. I would have saved years of struggling if I had an initial cash infusion of a few hundred thousand. Idk about you, but I would trade 10% of my $1m MMR company for more free time during my early 20s.
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    > Do you actually think VC money is predatory? Yes. But again, not a lot of options to avoid it as you said.
    - encoderer 5y ago
      There are tons of options. Like for example just build something and start selling it and make money. That's what I did. Millions others have too. You are on Hacker News, you are probably a hacker, you can just create assets out of thin air!
  - splistud 5y ago
    It is more predatory than simple business lending leading to making enough revenue to justify more private lending leading to forming a small public company. The only reason there is so much VC money in this industry is because there is little revenue in selling user data or eyeballs at small scale.
- StevePerkins 5y ago
  > "takes ownership of the means of production..." > "Warren Buffett has made his money using ... land ownership and exclusivity ... a human construct" Well, sheesh... if your starting frame of reference is that "capitalism is stealing by definition", then there's really no further discussion to be had.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    What about your starting point, that appears to be "capitalism is a natural law as inescapable as gravity"? x)
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    > then there's really no further discussion to be had. Why not? Is Capitalism the universal truth or something that we can't touch or change?
    - irl_chad 5y ago
      It’s the default system that will always arise. Even in the USSR, there was a black market.
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        The concept of markets is not exclusive to capitalism.
andrepd 5y ago
> Ok you're a troll but I'll feed you anyway Nothing like this to show you're open to healthy discussion.
- encoderer 5y ago
  Maybe not troll, what even is that, who knows. But the comment you replied to had a subtantitive point about the linked article, and you replied to a tertiary part of that post with a political message (no billionares exist without theft/etc) that had nothing to do with the thrust of the conversation. That led me to believe you were being a troll. You engaged in a way that seemed straight forward so maybe you are just somebody who feels very strongly about a political view.
markdown 5y ago
Nobody should be a billionaire. They're a symptom of a broken system. https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410 https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410

ycombinator actively takes ownership of the means of production by providing loans. Any founder knows how predatory external funding is, but, it is the only choice to get a company up and running.

infamouscow 5y ago
A founder with the choice of taking YC money also is free to make the decision not to take YC money. What's the problem besides some abstract argument of moral superiority?
- aaomidi 5y ago
  Think out of the box for a second, is this really the only possible choices we have here? Or are billionaires using and designing the system to create more opportunities to make $$$ at the expense of others work.
  - infamouscow 5y ago
    Have you visited IndieHackers.com? They are demonstrating you don't need funding to create amazing things.
    - losvedir 5y ago
      Thanks for letting me know about this site. I hadn't seen it before! I don't suppose I could beg an invite from you...?
      - infamouscow 5y ago
        Unfortunately I don't have any invite codes, but I'm sure another reader on HN could help you out :)
  - krona 5y ago
    You're using corporatism to argue against capitalism. They're not the same thing.
  - splistud 5y ago
    It's not out of the box thinking. The problem is that you want to throw one of the values out of the calculation box. You want billionaires to provide capital because there is 'no other way to get a startup going (paraphrasing)' but you don't want to assign a value to that (as in, the workers are what is creating the value).
- andrepd 5y ago
  Yes, indeed if you assume that the current system for allocating capital is good then you conclude that the current system for allocating capital is good. If you apply a bit more critical thinking you can start to question whether the fact that a small proportion of people have a monopoly on the ownership, allocation, and creation of capital, and are therefore able to extract rent from loaning it out without providing any value themselves, whether that is a good thing at all.
  - sershe 5y ago
    The "small monopoly" in this thread is Paul Graham, who created his capital himself. First-a, he deserves what he has (as far as you can make such a statement in a complex society). He provided some value, got paid for it, he now takes a risk helping others do the same. The only difference between him and me consuming X, providing X+Y value, and using the Y to buy tiny parts of public companies to have some claim on their profits is scale. First-b, and yes, if someone came and took away my Y for "fairness", I would start working less to just make what I consume. And I mostly /like/ my job, unlike most people. Second-a, after critically thinking about it, I actually believe it's better for people like him to allocate capital, instead of either some "democratic process", or even worse some semi-elected bureaucrats. I wish we could have people like Bezos, Buffett, Graham, etc. run MANY MORE things (generally speaking, not attached to a particular implementation). We have all of history to indicate who does things better. Second-a-a, even if we were to say "free market is bad in this area, no free market is allowed [e.g. healthcare or housing]" (to be clear, I disagree with that, but let's say we did) I would prefer to install a conventionally-defined-self-made billionaire from another industry to run said area, instead of a govt bureaucracy like we do now. Third, as others have mentioned you don't have to take his money, you can bootstrap (and then get rich and loan money just like him). Second-b, combining second-a and third in a more narrow scope, do you think either voters or bureaucrats would fund startups (and, do it better than the likes of VCs)? It has happened, but rarely and almost always in response to an existential threat. Viaweb FAQ says they were financed by angels to the tune of $2m 90ies-dollars. What are the alternative sources of funding you envision in the "fairer" allocation structure for such startups, be it Tesla, Google, or Viaweb, given their success rate?
  - infamouscow 5y ago
encoderer 5y ago
Slow down, Karl. I'm a founder. I can tell you, external funding is as generous now as it's ever been, and in my network there are YC alumns (and 2-time alums) that would disagree with your take. Also, we are in a golden age of bootstrapping, you don't need to raise to get a company up and running. All this to say: Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad? My dad is the manager of a gas station, and I am the founder of a startup with financial security. Anything really is possible when you work for it.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  > Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad That's the best part, it isn't for a chunk of people. It destroys life for another chunk of people. So yeah, maybe, to you, it's not bad. To others? It's fucked.
  - infamouscow 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_... is a pretty long page.
    - aaomidi 5y ago
      1. I never said anything about communism. 2. Do you consider all the supply chain related deaths, all the prison related deaths, all the civilians killed in America going after oil part of "people killed under capitalism?"
      - infamouscow 5y ago
        What you're describing is deaths under Crony capitalism.
- andrepd 5y ago
  > Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad? Ironically, you know who else thought the exact same thing, lavishing praise on capitalism? Karl Marx. Maybe educate yourself and open your horizons to something outside your narrow views. I have no problem with people being ignorant (nobody knows everything), but it's grating when somebody is proud of it. > Anything really is possible when you work for it. Actually nevermind, such naivete is mind-boggling.
irl_chad 5y ago
Do you actually think VC money is predatory? I have a $1m MMR startup that I founded without any external funding - but mostly because I was naive to such structures existing at all. I would have saved years of struggling if I had an initial cash infusion of a few hundred thousand. Idk about you, but I would trade 10% of my $1m MMR company for more free time during my early 20s.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  > Do you actually think VC money is predatory? Yes. But again, not a lot of options to avoid it as you said.
  - encoderer 5y ago
    There are tons of options. Like for example just build something and start selling it and make money. That's what I did. Millions others have too. You are on Hacker News, you are probably a hacker, you can just create assets out of thin air!
- splistud 5y ago
  It is more predatory than simple business lending leading to making enough revenue to justify more private lending leading to forming a small public company. The only reason there is so much VC money in this industry is because there is little revenue in selling user data or eyeballs at small scale.
StevePerkins 5y ago
> "takes ownership of the means of production..." > "Warren Buffett has made his money using ... land ownership and exclusivity ... a human construct" Well, sheesh... if your starting frame of reference is that "capitalism is stealing by definition", then there's really no further discussion to be had.
- andrepd 5y ago
  What about your starting point, that appears to be "capitalism is a natural law as inescapable as gravity"? x)
- aaomidi 5y ago
  > then there's really no further discussion to be had. Why not? Is Capitalism the universal truth or something that we can't touch or change?
  - irl_chad 5y ago
    It’s the default system that will always arise. Even in the USSR, there was a black market.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      The concept of markets is not exclusive to capitalism.

andrepd 5y ago

> Ok you're a troll but I'll feed you anyway Nothing like this to show you're open to healthy discussion.

encoderer 5y ago
Maybe not troll, what even is that, who knows. But the comment you replied to had a subtantitive point about the linked article, and you replied to a tertiary part of that post with a political message (no billionares exist without theft/etc) that had nothing to do with the thrust of the conversation. That led me to believe you were being a troll. You engaged in a way that seemed straight forward so maybe you are just somebody who feels very strongly about a political view.

markdown 5y ago

Nobody should be a billionaire. They're a symptom of a broken system. https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410 https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410