7 ms·

Silicon Valley’s Titans Are Realizing a Lot of People Don’t Like Them

75 points by miguelazo 4y ago

dragontamer 4y ago
In this case in particular, it's because we all know that Silicon Valley is filled with Cryptocoin Bros and Libertarians. Who all of a sudden, in less than 24 hours into a crisis, came crying to FDIC for a bailout on bank deposits of size $100+ Million. You know, after telling millions of artists that AI is here to replace them and that government regulation is dumb. (Disruption of Taxis and Hotels through Uber and AirBnB, etc. Etc) ------- I'm not really an AI Luddite (I think ChatGPT is overrated and think that StableDiffusion is cool). But I understand that the Silicon Valley response to the public's concerns over AI, invasion of privacy, over-the-top Libertarian / antigovernment rants (see Cryptocoin Bros)... It is a delicious irony that it's this group begging for money. Anyway, I agree with some of the political discussion points of the stereotypical Silicon Valley techbro, and I disagree with others. But I think everyone can agree that what happened this past weekend was completely against those political discussion points we've heard for the past decade.
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  "In sum: This is not a culture that respects either its workers or its neighbors, and they should not be surprised when workers and neighbors don’t respect it in turn." It is a culture that loathes human dignity in general. to them, people are biological robots, stochastic parrots, attention algorithms to be gamed for profit, and resources to be exploited until they are used up and replaced with something superior. They moved fast. They broke their bank. And now, since it hurts them instead of everyone else, they're sad. Well to them I say stop being ungrateful brats and delight in the chaos and carnage like you always do. :)
  - mindslight 4y ago
    The problem isn't libertarianism per se, but rather that by the time it's been chopped up by surveillance companies and sold to the public, it's ultimately just marketing used to carry weight for digital authoritarianism - essentially freedom for me but not for thee. The exact same dynamic occurs in the two mainstream political parties, where the grassroots start from decent places which then get transmuted into supporting corporate authoritarianism. Society is more used to the pathologies of mainstream parties, and I suspect the hypocrisy is more jarring when claiming an attitude of fierce individualism while actually creating something that "loathes human dignity". Libertarianism is ultimately rooted in individualism, which I think is a great basis for political understanding. The ability to "exit" and go one's own way is a powerful dynamic, even though it is impractical for most people to do so and impractical for anyone to do so for most things. Personally I can't understand how one can even determine what's right and wrong in this world without the starting point of individualism (eg human rights). But from that starting point, it's critically necessary to go in a positive direction - viewing things from others' perspective and extending them the same freedoms you expect, rather than the domination and hierarchy of short-sighted self interest. But yes, back to the larger Surveillance Valley culture? My thoughts are summarized right there in that name. Web 2.0 is just today's version of proprietary software, with the "innovations" of telemetry and centralized control. So is every corporate operating system / platform / etc, not wanting to be left out of owning a piece of the dystopia. So is most every product that gets thoroughly marketed to consumers, if not right out of the gate then definitely down the road after some pivots and acquisitions. Digital technology can provide a lot of freedom, but Surveillance Valley has done fuck all to actually get that unrestricted freedom into end users' hands, as there's no profit in doing so. Ultimately the only thing "libertarian" about Surveillance Valley is that same hypocritical dynamic of freedom for me but not for thee. It remains to be seen if anything worthwhile for non-techies comes out of web 3.0. Cryptocurrency is itself a bust, having been thoroughly colonized by finance douchebags even quicker than web 2.0. Perhaps fungible currencies have long term futures or perhaps not (non-fungible Bitcoin et al certainly do not). Or perhaps there are enough newly minted millionaires that some will actually continue to build solid human-empowered technology and reject the VC playbook of business disruption masquerading as "tech" in name only. Only time will tell.
    - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
      I'm working through both The Loop and Your Computer Is On Fire which discuss the authoritarian tendencies of computing as it exists today. Everyone's been saying for years that democracy's at a breaking point, capitalism's at a breaking point, now technology is at a breaking point. Unless we stop flirting with fractures and actually hit that breaking point and survive, this paradigm will only continue to squeeze. Precious little time to find a future that isn't annihilation or incredibly bleak. I would wish best of luck to the techbros that anointed themselves our enlightened leaders and refer to everyone outside of tech as "normies" and "lemmings", but I've also read Survival of the Richest.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Absolutely. For some reason Twitter is pushing the rantings of David Sacks at me. The stream of hysterical crying and whining coming out of that guy is hilarious. Suddenly when shit gets hard we abandon the principles of libertarian thought and start making appeals to think about the poor founders and their families. (And presumably the poor investors) If it were an evolution in thought it would be one thing, but I’m sure the normal programming of smartass techbro tough talk and whining about big media persecution will resume in a week or two.
- WWLink 4y ago
  And if you go look at /r/wallstreetsilver you'll see those same assholes are shitting all over the hand that fed them.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  At least the exposure happened at the beginning of the AI adoption curve. Thats a first compared to previous fads. Recall it took a long time for society to wise up to Uber/Airbnb relatively speaking(as an example). It will be interesting to see how society reacts given that the scam was exposed early this time.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  As Warren Buffett basically says- they need America a lot more than America needs them. They are able to be wildly successful due to American dynamism, law and order, safety nets, educated workforce, etc.
recuter 4y ago
Some of those people are even here. Who knows why.
- lloydatkinson 4y ago
  ? I think it's perfectly valid to be interested in the discussion or posted links on a technical site like HN while concurrently not be interested in or dislike the "big tech culture" of geographic places.
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  First they built the social media echo chambers. Then they lamented that people stayed inside their social media echo chambers. Then they expressed befuddlement that people refused to stay in their social media echo chambers. As someone who's not in tech, I read this site so I can see what you insiders are going to enshitten next. :)
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Well? Don't keep us hanging. What do you see is the next thing to enshitten? I'm always behind the curve so thats why I ask. I'd be nice to get ahead of something for once in my life.
    - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
      It's not like I strung you along like an ad-infested youtube video about how to get rich quick that ends with buying my book... "I read this site." It shows up on the front page, I make note and see how long it takes to go cockeyed. (You really should buy my book though. It doesn't exist and never will but I promise it's the most riveting thing you'll ever read.)
      - nebula8804 4y ago
        There is too much crud that goes nowhere on the front page of HN. How many articles do you specifically remember from a year ago? Im not clever enough to pick out the ones that are destined to become that next big enshitten. I will stand by with my credit card for that book though.
LatteLazy 4y ago
People loved them when it was cool. People hate them now it is cool. People are fickle and stupid.
- c-hendricks 4y ago
  Yeah that's not why we hate them
- CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  People are sick of being manipulated, exploited, commoditized, mocked, and dehumanized. Yeah they're so fickle and stupid.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Naw in the 90s people spent their time following another group of abusers(the people who controlled the idiot box known as TV and before that the Radio). We shifted who the abusers are but the people still yearn to be abused.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >but the people still yearn to be abused Reminds me of Agent Smith's PoV from the Matrix, that humans define their existence through suffering. The first version of the matrix had everyone living in paradise and made the system unstable as humans couldn't accept it and would try to wake up from it, dying in the process. Once they introduced misery, humans accepted the programming. Yeah, it's a fantasy movie, but it has great symbolisms that rings true.
      - nebula8804 4y ago
        Hmm thats some good insight I forgot about. My thinking was that humans have too much time on their hands and thus have accepted to filling their time by being abused because what else are they going to do?
      - DesiLurker 4y ago
favorited 4y ago
I remember seeing Jeff Bezos trash someone on Twitter for saying harsh things about Queen Elizabeth II as she was dying. It was like he had a sudden realization that people are going to post about him when he dies, and maybe not solely respectful things.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  People already don't post respectful thing about him while he's alive.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
    I fully support these people. The meat grinder he has created is not worth the slight convenience afforded by Amazon. Bezos will be considered a robber baron by historians, rightfully so.
    - recuter 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
        Them too. And the gates, and Musk, and all the billionaires are robber barons. Got a point or is this whataboutism?
        recuter 4y ago
        Are these billionaires also robber barons? https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2022/06/02/lebron-james-is-officially-a-billionaire/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2022/06/02/lebron-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan#Business_ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan#Business_ventur... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Entrepreneurship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Entrepreneurship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z#Business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z#Business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Business_ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Business_ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey
justinclift 4y ago
https://archive.is/uDgXs https://archive.is/uDgXs
ea550ff70a 4y ago
A lot of them are truly awful greedy and individualistic people. The SVB collapse is just unmasking how truly influential (to the negative side) they can also be. Zero sympathy for them.
musicale 4y ago
Took them long enough.
GenericDev 4y ago
I mean, I work in this industry and have worked for big companies in Silicon Valley and I freaking hate these companies and people. These companies are all about profits at the cost of degrading living conditions and "disrupting" businesses, but in my experience it's all been a trend downward. One of my most favorite example is the whole Real Page renting price fiasco[1]. A bunch of a-holes who help landlords be worse. And this is just one example. There's this other great example of companies and people using technology for terrible things like murdering people better. [2] I mean, one of the most pernicious things to come out of the rise of technology is the complete lack of ownership of anything, ever. Streaming services have removed media ownership. Day one patches on games make it impossible to play games 20 years down the line, and that completely ignores the whole issue of trying to archive games that obligate you to have an internet connection for experiencing content. I miss peer-to-peer lan content. And don't get me started on how tech has helped people be more "secure". Services and tools like Ring have only aided and abetted the worst types of community members in actively antagonizing neighbors and people because now they can watch people when they're away. I cannot emphasize enough how upset I am that I grew up during the 90s where there was so much hope and optimism for technology only to see it grow and distort into ecosystems, fiefdoms, and toxic patterns that actively affect people physically, mentally, financially in ways that are negative. So yeah, (apologies for the bad language), but fuck Silicon Valley, and fuck all these a-hole tech assholes who drink the kool-aid of "bUt wE'Re dIsRuPtInG ThE WoRlD To mAkE A BeTtEr pLaCe", because they're not, and I fucking hate them all. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-makes-rent-setting-software-for-landlords-sued-for-collusion https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-mak... [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tXbrrQH36e8 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tXbrrQH36e8
- recuter 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - GenericDev 4y ago
    This comment adds no value to the discussion. Posting links without elaborating does nothing to engage, and actively diminishes the discussion.

75 points by miguelazo 4y ago

In this case in particular, it's because we all know that Silicon Valley is filled with Cryptocoin Bros and Libertarians. Who all of a sudden, in less than 24 hours into a crisis, came crying to FDIC for a bailout on bank deposits of size $100+ Million. You know, after telling millions of artists that AI is here to replace them and that government regulation is dumb. (Disruption of Taxis and Hotels through Uber and AirBnB, etc. Etc) ------- I'm not really an AI Luddite (I think ChatGPT is overrated and think that StableDiffusion is cool). But I understand that the Silicon Valley response to the public's concerns over AI, invasion of privacy, over-the-top Libertarian / antigovernment rants (see Cryptocoin Bros)... It is a delicious irony that it's this group begging for money. Anyway, I agree with some of the political discussion points of the stereotypical Silicon Valley techbro, and I disagree with others. But I think everyone can agree that what happened this past weekend was completely against those political discussion points we've heard for the past decade.

CatWChainsaw 4y ago
"In sum: This is not a culture that respects either its workers or its neighbors, and they should not be surprised when workers and neighbors don’t respect it in turn." It is a culture that loathes human dignity in general. to them, people are biological robots, stochastic parrots, attention algorithms to be gamed for profit, and resources to be exploited until they are used up and replaced with something superior. They moved fast. They broke their bank. And now, since it hurts them instead of everyone else, they're sad. Well to them I say stop being ungrateful brats and delight in the chaos and carnage like you always do. :)
- mindslight 4y ago
  The problem isn't libertarianism per se, but rather that by the time it's been chopped up by surveillance companies and sold to the public, it's ultimately just marketing used to carry weight for digital authoritarianism - essentially freedom for me but not for thee. The exact same dynamic occurs in the two mainstream political parties, where the grassroots start from decent places which then get transmuted into supporting corporate authoritarianism. Society is more used to the pathologies of mainstream parties, and I suspect the hypocrisy is more jarring when claiming an attitude of fierce individualism while actually creating something that "loathes human dignity". Libertarianism is ultimately rooted in individualism, which I think is a great basis for political understanding. The ability to "exit" and go one's own way is a powerful dynamic, even though it is impractical for most people to do so and impractical for anyone to do so for most things. Personally I can't understand how one can even determine what's right and wrong in this world without the starting point of individualism (eg human rights). But from that starting point, it's critically necessary to go in a positive direction - viewing things from others' perspective and extending them the same freedoms you expect, rather than the domination and hierarchy of short-sighted self interest. But yes, back to the larger Surveillance Valley culture? My thoughts are summarized right there in that name. Web 2.0 is just today's version of proprietary software, with the "innovations" of telemetry and centralized control. So is every corporate operating system / platform / etc, not wanting to be left out of owning a piece of the dystopia. So is most every product that gets thoroughly marketed to consumers, if not right out of the gate then definitely down the road after some pivots and acquisitions. Digital technology can provide a lot of freedom, but Surveillance Valley has done fuck all to actually get that unrestricted freedom into end users' hands, as there's no profit in doing so. Ultimately the only thing "libertarian" about Surveillance Valley is that same hypocritical dynamic of freedom for me but not for thee. It remains to be seen if anything worthwhile for non-techies comes out of web 3.0. Cryptocurrency is itself a bust, having been thoroughly colonized by finance douchebags even quicker than web 2.0. Perhaps fungible currencies have long term futures or perhaps not (non-fungible Bitcoin et al certainly do not). Or perhaps there are enough newly minted millionaires that some will actually continue to build solid human-empowered technology and reject the VC playbook of business disruption masquerading as "tech" in name only. Only time will tell.
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    I'm working through both The Loop and Your Computer Is On Fire which discuss the authoritarian tendencies of computing as it exists today. Everyone's been saying for years that democracy's at a breaking point, capitalism's at a breaking point, now technology is at a breaking point. Unless we stop flirting with fractures and actually hit that breaking point and survive, this paradigm will only continue to squeeze. Precious little time to find a future that isn't annihilation or incredibly bleak. I would wish best of luck to the techbros that anointed themselves our enlightened leaders and refer to everyone outside of tech as "normies" and "lemmings", but I've also read Survival of the Richest.
Spooky23 4y ago
Absolutely. For some reason Twitter is pushing the rantings of David Sacks at me. The stream of hysterical crying and whining coming out of that guy is hilarious. Suddenly when shit gets hard we abandon the principles of libertarian thought and start making appeals to think about the poor founders and their families. (And presumably the poor investors) If it were an evolution in thought it would be one thing, but I’m sure the normal programming of smartass techbro tough talk and whining about big media persecution will resume in a week or two.
WWLink 4y ago
And if you go look at /r/wallstreetsilver you'll see those same assholes are shitting all over the hand that fed them.
nebula8804 4y ago
At least the exposure happened at the beginning of the AI adoption curve. Thats a first compared to previous fads. Recall it took a long time for society to wise up to Uber/Airbnb relatively speaking(as an example). It will be interesting to see how society reacts given that the scam was exposed early this time.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
As Warren Buffett basically says- they need America a lot more than America needs them. They are able to be wildly successful due to American dynamism, law and order, safety nets, educated workforce, etc.

recuter 4y ago

Some of those people are even here. Who knows why.

lloydatkinson 4y ago
? I think it's perfectly valid to be interested in the discussion or posted links on a technical site like HN while concurrently not be interested in or dislike the "big tech culture" of geographic places.
CatWChainsaw 4y ago
First they built the social media echo chambers. Then they lamented that people stayed inside their social media echo chambers. Then they expressed befuddlement that people refused to stay in their social media echo chambers. As someone who's not in tech, I read this site so I can see what you insiders are going to enshitten next. :)
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Well? Don't keep us hanging. What do you see is the next thing to enshitten? I'm always behind the curve so thats why I ask. I'd be nice to get ahead of something for once in my life.
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    It's not like I strung you along like an ad-infested youtube video about how to get rich quick that ends with buying my book... "I read this site." It shows up on the front page, I make note and see how long it takes to go cockeyed. (You really should buy my book though. It doesn't exist and never will but I promise it's the most riveting thing you'll ever read.)
    - nebula8804 4y ago
      There is too much crud that goes nowhere on the front page of HN. How many articles do you specifically remember from a year ago? Im not clever enough to pick out the ones that are destined to become that next big enshitten. I will stand by with my credit card for that book though.

LatteLazy 4y ago

People loved them when it was cool. People hate them now it is cool. People are fickle and stupid.

c-hendricks 4y ago
Yeah that's not why we hate them
CatWChainsaw 4y ago
People are sick of being manipulated, exploited, commoditized, mocked, and dehumanized. Yeah they're so fickle and stupid.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Naw in the 90s people spent their time following another group of abusers(the people who controlled the idiot box known as TV and before that the Radio). We shifted who the abusers are but the people still yearn to be abused.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >but the people still yearn to be abused Reminds me of Agent Smith's PoV from the Matrix, that humans define their existence through suffering. The first version of the matrix had everyone living in paradise and made the system unstable as humans couldn't accept it and would try to wake up from it, dying in the process. Once they introduced misery, humans accepted the programming. Yeah, it's a fantasy movie, but it has great symbolisms that rings true.
    - nebula8804 4y ago
      Hmm thats some good insight I forgot about. My thinking was that humans have too much time on their hands and thus have accepted to filling their time by being abused because what else are they going to do?
    - DesiLurker 4y ago

favorited 4y ago

I remember seeing Jeff Bezos trash someone on Twitter for saying harsh things about Queen Elizabeth II as she was dying. It was like he had a sudden realization that people are going to post about him when he dies, and maybe not solely respectful things.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
People already don't post respectful thing about him while he's alive.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
  I fully support these people. The meat grinder he has created is not worth the slight convenience afforded by Amazon. Bezos will be considered a robber baron by historians, rightfully so.
  - recuter 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
      Them too. And the gates, and Musk, and all the billionaires are robber barons. Got a point or is this whataboutism?
      - recuter 4y ago
        Are these billionaires also robber barons? https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2022/06/02/lebron-james-is-officially-a-billionaire/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2022/06/02/lebron-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan#Business_ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan#Business_ventur... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Entrepreneurship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Entrepreneurship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z#Business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z#Business_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Business_ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Business_ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Perry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey

justinclift 4y ago

https://archive.is/uDgXs https://archive.is/uDgXs

ea550ff70a 4y ago

A lot of them are truly awful greedy and individualistic people. The SVB collapse is just unmasking how truly influential (to the negative side) they can also be. Zero sympathy for them.

musicale 4y ago

Took them long enough.

GenericDev 4y ago

I mean, I work in this industry and have worked for big companies in Silicon Valley and I freaking hate these companies and people. These companies are all about profits at the cost of degrading living conditions and "disrupting" businesses, but in my experience it's all been a trend downward. One of my most favorite example is the whole Real Page renting price fiasco[1]. A bunch of a-holes who help landlords be worse. And this is just one example. There's this other great example of companies and people using technology for terrible things like murdering people better. [2] I mean, one of the most pernicious things to come out of the rise of technology is the complete lack of ownership of anything, ever. Streaming services have removed media ownership. Day one patches on games make it impossible to play games 20 years down the line, and that completely ignores the whole issue of trying to archive games that obligate you to have an internet connection for experiencing content. I miss peer-to-peer lan content. And don't get me started on how tech has helped people be more "secure". Services and tools like Ring have only aided and abetted the worst types of community members in actively antagonizing neighbors and people because now they can watch people when they're away. I cannot emphasize enough how upset I am that I grew up during the 90s where there was so much hope and optimism for technology only to see it grow and distort into ecosystems, fiefdoms, and toxic patterns that actively affect people physically, mentally, financially in ways that are negative. So yeah, (apologies for the bad language), but fuck Silicon Valley, and fuck all these a-hole tech assholes who drink the kool-aid of "bUt wE'Re dIsRuPtInG ThE WoRlD To mAkE A BeTtEr pLaCe", because they're not, and I fucking hate them all. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-makes-rent-setting-software-for-landlords-sued-for-collusion https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/company-that-mak... [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tXbrrQH36e8 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tXbrrQH36e8

recuter 4y ago
[flagged]
- GenericDev 4y ago
  This comment adds no value to the discussion. Posting links without elaborating does nothing to engage, and actively diminishes the discussion.