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"The problem here isn’t Forbes, of course; the problem is the vision of success that we’ve been sold and the fetishizing of youth. 30 Under 30 isn’t just a list

by ftxbro 4y ago

"The problem here isn’t Forbes, of course; the problem is the vision of success that we’ve been sold and the fetishizing of youth. 30 Under 30 isn’t just a list, it’s a mentality: a pressure to achieve great things before youth slips away from you." Nah that's not it. It's selection bias. Many people are clever enough and born with some advantages and got education and good ideas and worked hard and smart etc. But some that do all of that also break some laws to get advantages. Those are going to be the ones rising even faster. Forbes' young heroes are the fastest rising ones so just by selection bias it's going to be full of lawbreakers.

kajecounterhack 4y ago
I disagree with your take. Feels more believable that the ecosystem's combination of {forward-looking + optimism + available capital} begets grifters trying to take advantage of that necessity (vs your take: that grifting is inherently advantageous). Typically grifting doesn't scale, or you're the one in a million Adam Neumann.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  Arguably, the fact they got caught proves it didn't scale well.
  - sam_goody 4y ago
    > “All the best hackers, all the best phreakers in the world, we don’t know who they are because they never got arrested. And they never went to prison. This is why you don’t know who the best ones in the world are. This is the truth. Think about it.” The closing comment in an interview with Susan Thunder [1]. That they got caught may just reflect their lack of experience at fraud. They re, after all, under thirty. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hackers-phone-phreakers-claire-evans https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hac...
    - milleniall 4y ago
      It could also be that they have gotten way with "smaller things" before, but now they have chewed on something just a little bit too big.
    - kajecounterhack 4y ago
      Except failed vs successful grifters, we _kind of_ know who they are because it's part of their personality. Like "successful" would be folks like Adam Neumann or Anthony Levandowski. Not sure if Trump counts -- maybe most of his wealth is inherited.
- pg_1234 4y ago
  "Fake it till you make it" culture. In any regulated industry this is also known as "fraud".
hilbert42 4y ago
"Forbes' young heroes are the fastest rising ones so just by selection bias it's going to be full of lawbreakers." No doubt society's go-getters take more risks and thus have high potential to get into trouble through impatience and over exuberance. Whilst impatience and exuberance likely play a role in why these young people are falling foul of the law I don't believe they are the main reasons. A few people seem to be intrinsically bad eggs and there's nothing likely to keep them on the straight-and-narrow, but for the rest Society has failed to indoctrinate them with a decent sense of ethics—they only develop pangs of guilt after being caught, not before they embark on some dubious course of action. A decent training in ethics from an early age would have provided that forewarning guilt. There's no doubt that in recent decades societal pressures to do the right/ethical thing in business has decreased significantly, and it seems to me that we'll continue to see many such cases until Society resets itself. However, I don't see that happening anytime soon. (I've thoughts on why Society's attitudes have changed for the worse when doing business but it's not feasible to expand on them here.) Incidentally, I've worked in both the private and public sectors and years ago when in the public sector I recall the frustration of trying to get things done in a lethargic rule-driven bureaucracy. There was always temptation to bypass the rules and on many occasions colleagues and I came close to nearly falling foul of them. We avoided any major trouble and kept ourselves 'clean' by adopting two approaches. The first was getting to know the auditors—not for the purposes of deceiving them but to know what they considered important—and we did this openly, this way they knew our problems and were usually more than helpfull with both official and unofficial advice (but nothing 'unlawful' of course). Second, was for us to get to know the rules well and work within them to the very limits allowed. (I recall chalking a large rectangle on the floor in front of my key staff whilst saying that doing anything inside the rectangle was permitted within the rules, stepping over the line was not. I'd then walk right around the chalked line whilst leaning over and almost falling into the 'unpermitted' outside area. I'd procede to say that to get things done this is how we have to do business—and to be successful and keep out of trouble each of us had the responsibility to hang on each others' belts to stop anyone falling into the 'forbidden' region.)
- ftxbro 4y ago
  I feel like something has gone wrong somewhere if "getting to know the auditors" has become an important part of compliance.

by ftxbro 4y ago

kajecounterhack 4y ago

I disagree with your take. Feels more believable that the ecosystem's combination of {forward-looking + optimism + available capital} begets grifters trying to take advantage of that necessity (vs your take: that grifting is inherently advantageous). Typically grifting doesn't scale, or you're the one in a million Adam Neumann.

RobotToaster 4y ago
Arguably, the fact they got caught proves it didn't scale well.
- sam_goody 4y ago
  > “All the best hackers, all the best phreakers in the world, we don’t know who they are because they never got arrested. And they never went to prison. This is why you don’t know who the best ones in the world are. This is the truth. Think about it.” The closing comment in an interview with Susan Thunder [1]. That they got caught may just reflect their lack of experience at fraud. They re, after all, under thirty. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hackers-phone-phreakers-claire-evans https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hac...
  - milleniall 4y ago
    It could also be that they have gotten way with "smaller things" before, but now they have chewed on something just a little bit too big.
  - kajecounterhack 4y ago
    Except failed vs successful grifters, we _kind of_ know who they are because it's part of their personality. Like "successful" would be folks like Adam Neumann or Anthony Levandowski. Not sure if Trump counts -- maybe most of his wealth is inherited.
pg_1234 4y ago
"Fake it till you make it" culture. In any regulated industry this is also known as "fraud".

hilbert42 4y ago

"Forbes' young heroes are the fastest rising ones so just by selection bias it's going to be full of lawbreakers." No doubt society's go-getters take more risks and thus have high potential to get into trouble through impatience and over exuberance. Whilst impatience and exuberance likely play a role in why these young people are falling foul of the law I don't believe they are the main reasons. A few people seem to be intrinsically bad eggs and there's nothing likely to keep them on the straight-and-narrow, but for the rest Society has failed to indoctrinate them with a decent sense of ethics—they only develop pangs of guilt after being caught, not before they embark on some dubious course of action. A decent training in ethics from an early age would have provided that forewarning guilt. There's no doubt that in recent decades societal pressures to do the right/ethical thing in business has decreased significantly, and it seems to me that we'll continue to see many such cases until Society resets itself. However, I don't see that happening anytime soon. (I've thoughts on why Society's attitudes have changed for the worse when doing business but it's not feasible to expand on them here.) Incidentally, I've worked in both the private and public sectors and years ago when in the public sector I recall the frustration of trying to get things done in a lethargic rule-driven bureaucracy. There was always temptation to bypass the rules and on many occasions colleagues and I came close to nearly falling foul of them. We avoided any major trouble and kept ourselves 'clean' by adopting two approaches. The first was getting to know the auditors—not for the purposes of deceiving them but to know what they considered important—and we did this openly, this way they knew our problems and were usually more than helpfull with both official and unofficial advice (but nothing 'unlawful' of course). Second, was for us to get to know the rules well and work within them to the very limits allowed. (I recall chalking a large rectangle on the floor in front of my key staff whilst saying that doing anything inside the rectangle was permitted within the rules, stepping over the line was not. I'd then walk right around the chalked line whilst leaning over and almost falling into the 'unpermitted' outside area. I'd procede to say that to get things done this is how we have to do business—and to be successful and keep out of trouble each of us had the responsibility to hang on each others' belts to stop anyone falling into the 'forbidden' region.)

ftxbro 4y ago
I feel like something has gone wrong somewhere if "getting to know the auditors" has become an important part of compliance.