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The answer to the question of 'where the non-conformist tech nerds hang out' is almost too obvious. It's where the money isn't. There's a lot of cool stuff th
by throwaway13337 4y ago
The answer to the question of 'where the non-conformist tech nerds hang out' is almost too obvious.
It's where the money isn't.
There's a lot of cool stuff that isn't obviously a path to money. The blender community is full of it, for instance.
YC isn't a part of that because YC is primarily concerned with making money.
This isn't a very satisfying answer because it does not lead to investment and money but that's kinda the point.
- the-grump 4y agoPlus making money is the whole point of creating a company. There are many weirdos (I mean that as a positive thing) building things like popcorn time and its successors, creating models for vrChat, modding games, building rockets, automating their homes with ESP Home/Tasmota, using esoteric languages to solve solved problems, playing with ML models, etc. They don't need to come to YC. Like it or not, status follows money, and YC has proven itself to be an effective step to a successful exit. Seekers of money and status (what the discussion refers to as conformists) will find you if you're at YC. Weirdos are weirded out by you.
- throwaway13337 4y agoI agree. The tech nerds were a great investment recently and so people are trying to spot the real ones in a sea of fakes now. The investors think that spotting the real ones will lead to more of the same. Maybe that was a moment in time. Another way to to look at it is through value capture. The things you listed often create a lot of value for the community they're a part of or for humanity as a whole. But these things do not generate as much value to the creators. The creators are unable to capture the value they created but do it anyway. The last decade can be seen through the lens of tech companies (mostly big ones) capturing the overall value of the tech created at the expense of the communities it once subsidized. Value capture isn't bad in itself but the immense focus on it kills a lot of the utility of the thing created. More loose forms of value capture created the tech revolution that were then monetized often by a separate group. The cynically monetized tech will hopefully be outcompeted by the looser forms due to increased utility inherent in its looseness as happened previously.
- EarlKing 4y ago> The tech nerds were a great investment recently and so people are trying to spot the real ones in a sea of fakes now. The investors think that spotting the real ones will lead to more of the same. The good news is that there are real tech nerds out there. The bad news is that any attempt at a general solution to spotting them is probably equivalent to finding a general solution to the halting problem. The worse news is that most investors have no idea what the hell I mean when I say that and so are doomed to piss their money away. Oh well.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bbor 4y agoIdk “X is like this other really hard/maybe impossible thing” is within the grasp of even the jockiest of Wharton grads ;)
- lambdasquirrel 4y agoI think there’s a subtlety to the halting problem here that’s the catch though. :P
- layer8 4y ago> Plus making money is the whole point of creating a company. There is a whole spectrum between (a) having profit maximization as the main or only goal, and (b) first and foremost wanting to create a specific product or service while being able to make a living from that. It would be strange (or sad?) to categorize the latter as non-conformist.
- lazide 4y agoWell, the latter is more the description of ‘a job’, no? Accumulation of capital, and hence more effectiveness as a capitalist, tends to be more effective if you look to make the maximum amount of capital, no? Which is more than just ‘a job’.
- layer8 4y agoAs an employee, you usually don't choose what you work on, your employer does. With your own company, you decide. The question is what is your motivation? Some only want to make the most money and/or gain the most status, others want to spend their time creatively, and/or they have a specific vision ("be the change you want to see in the world"), and having it be profitable only serves the secondary function of paying their bills. I'd argue that the world would be better off having more of the latter than of the former.
- hinkley 4y ago> Plus making money is the whole point of creating a company. It really isn’t. There’s lots of other reasons to make a company, and making money is the means, not the ends. Money isn’t even the point of money. You have a whole life of misery ahead of you if you don’t figure that out and figure it out soon.
- msla 4y ago> It really isn’t. There’s lots of other reasons to make a company, and making money is the means, not the ends. If you didn't want money at some level, you wouldn't make a company, you'd make a social club or other hobbyist group. > Money isn’t even the point of money. Eh, for some people it is, and for some people bragging rights are the point, which means they want more money so they can brag about having more money than anyone else. Which leads to precisely the same observed behavior, so it doesn't really matter to anyone else.
- enos_feedler 4y agoa social club and hobbyist group can't make big world changes without the cycle of capital pumping through it's veins. For that, you need a company. Or a really good non-profit message.
- lazide 4y agoIf the cycle of capital is required…. Isn’t making money literally the necessary sustaining part?
- enos_feedler 4y agoMake it yes. Put it in your pocket no
- lazide 4y agoSeems like a whole lot of yak shaving then. Seems pretty dumb? Or self delusional?
- bayindirh 4y ago> Plus making money is the whole point of creating a company. Just no. As somebody else said, the point of the money is not the money itself, even. Life is too short for just earning money.
- yusufnb 4y agoI think the whole point of creating a company should be to provide value in a sustainable manner. And you need to make money for that. So the end goal should be to maximize value and not money. When money becomes the main goal, companies eventually turn on evil side.
- ren_engineer 4y agobasically just think about what direction MBAs or Wall Street personality types are going and go the opposite direction. FAANG companies are filled with people who would have went to Wall Street 20 years ago. Google and company messed up by trying to make tech "cool" and now their middle management layer is filled with political ladder climber types rather than non-conformists/nerds just watched the video fully and they actually talk about this, how people now prepare for tech interviews like banking and all talk about promotions and bonus stuff
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI have a fairly "conservative" approach to software development. It's all geared towards Quality, shipping, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness. I don't especially care if anyone thinks it's "conformist," or not. In fact, looking at the way people work, these days, it's actually fairly radical, I guess. People hereabouts sometimes react as if I'm playing a kazoo from the mezzanine, during a Bach concerto. I work for free, on software for people that can't afford people like me. I think I do a really good job on it. It doesn't seem to get me much respect (at least with the standard tech crowd), but I'm enjoying it.
- dgb23 4y agoFor what it’s worth I recognize your handle and I’ve seen a lot of interesting comments and good advice from you. In fact I think the software community benefits very much from battle hardened programmers who’ve been around long enough to put things into perspective.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoThanks! It's weird. A couple of folks, hereabouts seem to have an almost pathological hatred of me. Not exactly sure how I pissed in their beer. Eh. Whatevs. It's payback. I used to be a bit of a troll.
- ravagat 4y agoI just spent the last few minutes browsing through your catalogue-- GitHub, your businesses's websites, and your Leave a Legacy article. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate documentation and writing that you've done. I know it's quite long and all but I've found a new liking towards better, concise documentation as of late. It's nice to see writing like yours. Cheers
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoThanks so much!
- mvkel 4y agoYes and no. Many have already made their money so they can spend the rest of their lives tinkering. Ex: exiting at 9 figures and starting a pinball machine company for funsies. I'd also argue Openai follows the same.
- derrida 4y agoPlus I mentioned where once on here then a whole bunch of here turned up there (berlin)
- kalimanzaro 4y agoPeter Thiel is ad-dicted to lecturing about how nonconformism precisely leads to effyoumony (in the 0->1 book he has a para or 2 about how the early PayPals were all into bombmaking) but clearly his investment action is more nuanced: Zuck was not clearly contrarian, for example, nor was Peter into bombmaking. A more accurate take is VCs are looking for founders that seek to hire exceptional engineers. As usual, second order effects can be more illuminating, but at the expense of clickbaitiness
- goodpoint 4y agoIndeed. In US here is nothing more conformist that greed and the SV crowd is homogeneous enough that HBO made a show based on stereotypes.
- blippage 4y agoGeeks, MOPs and sociopaths in subculture evolution https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
- John23832 4y agoI always pan to the camera when I see the "business cult of making everything a uniform platform for the sake of monetary extraction" complain about "conformity". We're at the part of the cycle where VCs complain about why it's not as easy for them to leach onto the people doing interesting stuff. As soon as they can find that thing, guess what they'll try to do? Unify, platform-ize, and mass market... then they'll complain again.
- auggierose 4y agoAt some point you need money to build what you want, at least if you want to do it full-time. I guess that's where YC comes in.
- P_I_Staker 4y agoblender community?
- danjoredd 4y agoI find that the alternative operating system space is full of non-conformist types as well. Everybody knows nobody is going to use their operating system...but they develop nearly full time anyway just for the heck of it because its fun.
- lifeisstillgood 4y agoThe next rather obvious question is how do they afford to do it ? The sad answer is often only for a little while, at the expense of other parts of their lives and families. OSS development is either a funded day job or a burning baton to be passed on to the next person real soon.