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Tech companies are flocking to the Middle East
- godzillabrennus 2y agoSilicon Valley was once open and collaborative until Apple was gifted the gui from xerox and Microsoft took it from Apple.
- jmspring 2y agoThat’s a shallow take. The Bay Area used to have a plethora of different types of companies and innovation. Sadly social media and ad companies took over.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoGoogle AdSense became a load-bearing pillar of the Internet before we realized what that meant, and now we (seemingly) can't get rid of it. Every new product is Yet Anotherᵀᴹ free service with a paid subscription tier, which will get more expensive, and the free tier is ad supported. Then the ads get more egregious. Then the free tier becomes a cheap, ad supported tier. Then the ads infiltrate the original paid tier. Then a new service with a fresh round of VC funding sets up to be the "ad free" version of the service that's now infested with ads, and as soon as their AWS bills creep up, the ads enter the new service, but hey there's a cheap subscription if you don't want ads... Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
- drawkward 2y ago1. All advertising is spam. 2. Advertising is a virus or tumor that will consume all available space in an ecosystem until there is no non-ad content left; it ultimately kills its host.
- fallingknife 2y agoHN has advertisement. It has the sponsored hiring posts from YC, Show HN posts to projects, and the monthly who is hiring / wants to be hired posts, which are all advertisements. Seems far from cancerous.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoHN is also not profitable and is not driven to be so. I don't think it's the ads in and of themselves that's the cancer, but rather that in order to make money, you need just shit-tons of the things. And as the number of ads goes up the amount of attention they get drops which just demands more ads to offset the lower-valued ones. That being said, I absolutely vibe with the notion of ads being cancer. I would classify personally HN's "ads" as you describe as less advertisements and more just posted notices of things relevant to the community. I don't suspect money changes hands for those to be put up which I would personally classify as the line between the two. And, more importantly, they are likely to be relevant to a fair chunk of the users here, and for those they aren't, they're ignored easily enough too.
- fallingknife 2y agoHN is only able to bet be profitable because it is backed by a company that is. And if you combine "posted notices of things relevant to the community" with a commercial intent, that is basically the definition of ads. Also, when you say relevant to the community, what exactly is the definition of that? A job posting on "who is hiring" is likely to be relevant to maybe 0.001% of HN readers. If Apple put a big banner on the site saying "HN users get $100 off a MBP," I bet a much higher percentage of users would click on that (I would). But nobody would ever deny that is an ad. So I don't think community relevance is a great way to determine it. That community relevance factor is exactly what advertisers pay so much to targeted ad companies for anyway. I do find ads annoying myself and use ad blockers to get rid of them. But I take exception to the idea that they are this cancerous destroying force. Published media has been an advertising platform since well before the internet and I just don't see a feasible way that business model can be replaced just because the medium is now the internet. Yes, there is subscription revenue, but even newspapers back in the day had ads on every page.
- fallingknife 2y agoStill does. Yes, two of the biggest are social media / ads, but out of all the engineers I know in the Bay Area only a small fraction work at ad / social media companies.
- JohnFen 2y agoYes, Silicon Valley now bears little resemblance to Silicon Valley during its heyday in most ways.
- deadbabe 2y agoWhat was it like back then?
- bayindirh 2y agoTwo words: "Xerox PARC".
- michaelt 2y agoWell, the American tech industry as always had some big corporate players who are more than happy to sell census counting and alphabetization equipment to the third reich, and won't look too closely at what they're doing with it - so long as it's profitable and complies with local laws. So we shouldn't pretend there was some glorious golden age. But there was a time when SV was a lot more passionate and freewheeling, and beliefs like "information wants to be free" were a lot more widely repeated.
- deadbabe 2y agoIsn’t “information wants to be free” the rallying cry of hackers who want to leak all private data?
- JohnFen 2y agoNot really. That rallying cry was subverted by crackers, but to hackers it means something very different.
- eesmith 2y agoI think this view is only of the hacker subculture of SV in the 1970s. I don't think it was shared by the semiconductor industry which gave SV it name, nor the defense industry which was also there.
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- lordleft 2y agoMost alarmingly, many of the fruits of SV can be used to make dictatorships even more capable in crushing dissenters and extending the aegis of state into everyday life. Technology is morally neutral, it can be used for ill as well as good, and our worship of it as a panacea has blinded us to this possibility
- fidotron 2y agoIt is worse than that: the most efficient way to make money in SV is to make the tools for enabling totalitarianism while covering them in a twee veneer of folksiness so people don’t notice.
- dotnet00 2y agoAdd in the time tested classic of simultaneously gaslighting the customers by claiming to be doing it for their own good.
- holonsphere 2y agoWhile building the knowledge, skills, and staff required to apply these exact same tools towards ordinary americans.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> the most efficient way to make money in SV is to make the tools for enabling totalitarianism Any specificity to this example that doesn’t apply to any game-changing technology?
- fidotron 2y agoYou mean the Unabomber was right? Technology inevitably leads to totalitarianism? Cars are not inherently tools of government, it's just they've been regulated such that that is their direction of development. Personal computers were similarly not that way either. The key problem in both cases is imposing the requirement to be connected to the internet, after which it's game over.
- drawkward 2y agoMoney and power consolidate like a fundamental force of economics. Unsurprising that the 0.1% finds more in common with itself than hoi polloi. What changed is that SV used to have neither power nor money.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago> What changed is that SV used to have neither power nor money. Surely SV had to have power (including knowledgeable people) and money to develop semiconductor manufacturing facilities (famously expensive). Not to mention the support of US federal government spending.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jpalawaga 2y agoThe thinkers and tinkerers were joined by business men.
- fallingknife 2y agoYou say that like it's a bad thing, but it isn't. There are pretty much three options for a thinker / tinkerer: 1. work for a business man 2. become a business man yourself 3. do some other job to support yourself and think / tinker only as a hobby
- rachofsunshine 2y agoThere's nothing wrong with doing business. But current business culture is not in a (morally) good state, and your average businessperson is not very interested in making the world better if it plays against their personal ambitions. And being answerable to investors (who almost by nature are focused on shortish term returns to the near-exclusion of all else) only exacerbates that. The distinction between business and capital is pretty blurred right now, and it shouldn't be. Operating a charity that delivers donated food to orphaned victims of war is a business in the broad sense of the word, and there are many things that go into operating it well, including things like management and finance. Those things do not, inherently, have to be in the pursuit of capital growth; there are many humanistic ends they can be directed to. But in our world as it stands they usually aren't - they're directed towards capital growth and that fact corrupts them like it corrupts everything else. Or, put another way, there is a difference between "making enough money to run a sustainable business" and "making all the money it is possible to make". Many large businesses run reasonably substantial profit margins, and every dollar of profit a business makes is a dollar it could afford not to make in the pursuit of more humanistic ends if it so chose.
- fallingknife 2y agoHow can you separate capital from human interest when the majority of people on earth spend the majority of their time in pursuit of it? Less people starve today than ever in the past, and that is because we have more capital, not because we are more charitable than back then. Charity is not any less corrupt, it is just more emotionally appealing because of the illusion of selflessness and a whole lot less effective. You say "your average businessperson is not very interested in making the world better if it plays against their personal ambitions." But I claim that it's not your average businessperson it's your average person with business people just being a subset of that. And that's not even getting into the problem of how does anybody really know how to make the world a better place. In my experience people with a "just doing my job" attitude make much better bosses than those who act like they have a higher purpose.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- maxglute 2y agoWhat's left after cheap money is gone? Defense money. Oil money. Money is money.
- topspin 2y agoPension funds.
- karaterobot 2y agoIn case you're not a WaPo subscriber, like all the people who've already commented on the article, here's a link so you can read it: https://archive.is/fF4NG https://archive.is/fF4NG
- treflop 2y agoI’ve been to the UAE and they’ve been in a super fast track to modernization. In the 60s, the whole country had less than 90,000 people and now they are over 8 million. As a foreigner I could buy alcohol and this wasn’t even possible until more recently. I expect in time the UAE might soften up even further. Many of their orthodox/conservative values have been eroding away for decades now. Their native Emirati population is an absolute minority now and there is no way they’re not going to be forced to continue liberalization.
- deepsun 2y agoBe careful now. I'm old enough to have seen how quickly it can be reversed back into dark ages. Big money can silence and oppress even 8 millions, no problem.
- treflop 2y agoIn the case of the UAE, it wouldn’t be the money. It would be a change in leader. The current president (one of only 2) is the son of the first and he isn’t as liberal or as charitable, although his dad did create the country by unifying the region after Great Britain pulled out. But he isn't too bad, but if he goes away, UAE being an authoritarian dictatorship, it could go both ways. Inconsistent and unpredictable governance is the death knell of many countries and any organization. That’s why authoritarian governments are never stable long term.
- adolph 2y agoNot especially a SV thing. See also: The Middle East’s play to rule global sports - Washington Post November 7, 2023 - How Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are upending the sports world — and what they want from their newfound power. Texas A&M pulls branch out of Qatar, citing regional instability - The Washington Post February 11, 2024 - The Qatari government pays hundreds ... to the universities each year and in return the branches provide elite higher education for hundreds of Qatari students as well as others from around the region. Related: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI don’t know what the past was like, but the tech industry seems happy to take anyone’s money. I’m not sure I can blame individuals - if you’re desperate to survive and are working hard, it’s difficult to throw it all away and say no. It’s not surprising to see a Middle East gold rush when you have companies saying yes to China, to private equity, etc. If we want any of this to change, it’ll take regulation. Singling out Silicon Valley or the Middle East also doesn’t make sense when most of the economy has been outsourcing manufacturing to China, which annexed Tibet illegally and subjected them to re education, committed genocide in Xinjiang against Uyghurs, suppressed its citizens with the great firewall and social credit scores, violated agreements around Hong Kong’s governance, illegally attacked other countries ships in the South China Sea, etc. Comparatively, the UAE and Saudi Arabia feel friendly.
- Der_Einzige 2y agoWhen I see the eye-watering amounts of money that sovereign wealth funds are willing to pay for talent, I get very concerned for our countries national security. They regularly throw out 7 figures for the right folks. All you have to do is starting reading about DarkMatter or G42 group. Somehow, working in AI on training new LLMs can put you into a direct line to the guys who murdered Khashoggi I think back to that movie "Cube" and the philosophical discussion they have about the creators of the system that they're in. They end up agreeing that the individual cubes were built for possible benign or even good reasons, but in their combining together does it turn into a "torture" chamber. That individual good intentions can be subverted at scale to have "tyranny" without the mitigating factor of the tramua that it normally induces is scary indeed.
- programjames 2y agoI thought you were talking about DarkMatter2525, and wondering why they would be working in the Middle East.
- dumbobaggins999 2y agoThe "Twitter Revolution" and the promise of changing the world to spread democracy seem so quaint now. These are tools for surveillance and crushing dissent.
- JohnClark1337 2y ago[dead]
- ang_cire 2y agoSilicon Valley was once the domain of nerds and introverts trying to build a better future. Now it's the domain of MBA-bros and idea guys- sorry, Thought Leaders- trying to measure themselves with their bank accounts. They ditched even the most basic principles (like, "Don't be evil") in pursuit of obscene wealth and unsustainable growth, so why is anyone shocked they sold away their political principles as well?
- jf22 2y agoIt was always about money, and it always will be about money. "Don't be evil" was a silly cultural builder mantra and marketing tool.
- gumby 2y ago> It was always about money, and it always will be about money. There were people like that in the old days (TJ Rogers, Larry Ellison) but also a lot of hippie-influenced folks with an idealistic world view. People literally talked about making the world a better place without irony. But when the .com boom appeared people flooded here for the money and, since it appeared "make the world better" was one of the things people said, it was cargo-culted widely ("we're making the world a better place by allowing advertisers to reach audiences they were previously excluded from"). Fortunately the density of idealists is higher in SV and density of narcissists higher in SF. But yes, the quality has gone down.
- jf22 2y agoI'm sure those people existed, but money and power is money and power and influences everything as it always does.
- gwbas1c 2y agoIt was always like that; just plenty of people naive enough not to realize that.
- silverquiet 2y ago
- moi2388 2y agoSeriously stop posting f-ing paywalls. At least post an archived version with it. Such bad form
- dang 2y agoThis was settled many years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989): if there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
- moi2388 2y agoJust because you are allowed to shit in your living room does not mean it’s good form
- kjkjadksj 2y agoI concur, screw the policy that was decided unilaterally anyhow. I never got the point of posting an article to a discussion board knowing it has a paywall that prevents a lot of people from engaging with it, unless you are some sort of a shill account looking to pad subscriptions. If archive posts are tolerated, probably in violation of publishers wishes anyhow, might as well pin these comments or even replace the link.
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- msarrel 2y agoI thought it was ethically questionable when the startup I worked for sold to the Saudi DOD. I'm glad the concept of ethics isn't getting in anyone else's way either.
- itsafarqueue 2y agoEthics are what you say when there’s no money on the table.
- overstay8930 2y agoethics are for broke hippies, we are here to print USD
- neonate 2y agohttps://archive.ph/F8G2j https://archive.ph/F8G2j
- 23B1 2y agoAuthoritarian regimes have learned from China how to puppeteer with both hands.
- nordstreem 2y ago[flagged]
- avnfish 2y agoThe big tech co I work at has filled thousands of back office roles in UAE this year. Political neutrality + fundraising + tax advantages have pulled them away from US/Europe/Asia
- rchaud 2y agoPolitical neutrality? The UAE owns the biggest soccer club in England, and UK MPs do not dare criticize the country's policies anymore. Perhaps you mean that companies are insulated from politics because they operate in a business-friendly dictatorship where the majority of residents are migrant workers with no rights. No unionization worries when you can just confiscate passports and delay payment of wages as needed.
- opyate 2y ago> UK MPs do not dare criticize the country's policies anymore We have to remember that the UK is not a real country. It does not have a real government. It's all Potemkinised. It's all for show. It's not real. It's not run by serious people. It's run for oligarchs and money launderers. Besides, the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is now a massive 6 years in the past, so no-one is tweeting about it or shaming any Saudi-friendly folks publicly about it any more, so the startup CEOs can come and busk on the Riyadh street corners without fear of retribution.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoDon't forget a favorable immigration environment for the many many smart people in India who don't win visa lotteries to western countries
- roncesvalles 2y agoIt's basically just this. Dubai is a way to hire Indians without having to set up shop in India. Likewise, Singapore for the Chinese. And all of Canada. Much of this immigration-driven offshoring or, shall I coin it, "glamorshoring" will stop or even reverse once H1B fraud is reduced in the next few years.
- LightBug1 2y agoMy boss is currently on a visit to Saudi to drum up business ... the last 12 months has been nothing short of the full on capitulation of western businesses to Saudi money ... all concept of ethics has been completely dropped or 'explained away'.
- autoexec 2y ago[flagged]
- paulryanrogers 2y agoHas this always been true of the decision makers at all corporations for all time? I suspect societal morals do still carry some weight. And the corps do listen if the backlash is loud enough.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoNot really and not all companies are like this even today. E.g. I knew someone who ran a business repairing some equipment for other businesses. He wasn't hustling. He wasn't interested in expanding globally. He wasn't battling competitors or doing anything like that. He was friends with his clients and workers, and ran a business that brought in enough to pay everyone fairly and that was that. Probably 25 workers I'd guess, if that. Of course its different when you are a public company or take on a lot of investor money.
- nickff 2y agoMost corporations are not run by psychopaths (even the big ones); the idea that they are has become a sort of meme, with little evidence in its favor, and a great deal against it. There's even a book about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Psychopath_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Psychopath_Test
- redserk 2y agoPerhaps psychopath might be an exaggeration here but the primary desire for many is to grow income. The options chosen generally favor the path of least/resistance. Until there's a law mandating morality in business decision making, why should a business entity care? Perhaps it might find comfort in using morality as a differentiator, but the companies that primarily focus on morality are the exception, not the norm.
- sackfield 2y agoIn Dubai right now, one of the things I really like about this place is the optimism they have for the future. It's exhausting working in tech and being in places that don't believe engineering will usher in a better future (but somehow think legal policy will). I'm visiting the museum of the future tomorrow, can't wait.
- croes 2y agoSounds really like the future https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Dubai https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Dubai
- sackfield 2y agoHaving optimism about the future means it will change for the better. You are referring to the present. Weird how many people find this concept uncomfortable, and perhaps is a good example of my original argument.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoThere's foolish optimism too. E.g. what is stopping the dubai government from ending laws like death penalty for homosexuals and atheists, or being put on trial for violating ramedan as a nonmuslim? Nothing, except for their cruel leadership who is interested in harming groups they don't agree with in this manner. Why would you expect to change if it hasn't already? What evidence does the leadership need to wake up from their bigotry and hatred? Has logic and empathy ever shifted a bigots opinions before? I think not. You can argue well "the next generation will be better" but at the same time this current generation of leadership is the generation that should have known better, yet here we are.
- mdbmdb 2y agoNothing stops them but it doesn't happen overnight. These laws have been in place for a long long time. Women weren't allowed to drive in Dubai until 2018 but it changed. Changes will come but not in a blink of an eye
- kjkjadksj 2y agoSaudi Arabia is trying to entrench itself in the American culture, not just in tech companies either. The PGA tour-LIV drama is a bit of a fun read if you can find a decent summary article. So much mental gymnastics going on with how that shook out for all parties. Basically SA started a golf league (LIV) buy paying hundreds of millions of dollars a piece to established pro golfers who are probably on their way out of pro sports in terms of their career anyhow. Great deal for an aging player unlikely to win many times again, so many took the money. PGA tour responded by banning these players from competing in their tournaments. Fast forward a year, the PGA tour commissioner sets up a secret deal to integrate SA funding into the PGA tour and blindsides the people resenting the players as well as most anyone else. Doesn't respond to comments when it breaks of course. Mind you this is after that same commissioner was grandstanding for a year against the LIV league about Saudi ethics and bloodmoney. Turns out he was just negotiating a price.
- gumby 2y agoThey'll be in good company: Arms Dealers and Drug Lords Are Scooping Up Property in Dubai -- New leaks of property records reveal shady characters hiding out in Dubai, a haven for fugitives (Dubai is part of the UAE) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/dubai-unlocked-arms-dealers-drug-lords-torturers-property-1235020484/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/duba...
- temptemptemp111 2y ago[dead]
- the_panopticon 2y agoAn interesting example of that flocking from some tech talent in the Pacific Northwest https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/omniva-stealth-startup-plans-gpu-data-centers-with-backing-from-kuwaiti-royal-family-hires-former-aws-microsoft-and-meta-execs/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/omniva-stealth-st...
- tomcar288 2y agolook, you can't just pretend that if the US weren't there they won't get their hands on AI software to do what they need done. if the US doesn't partner with them then China will or russia will or any number of other countries. with the massive excess of software talent that's flooding the market, they're going to get what they're after one way or another.
- TacticalCoder 2y agoThe UAE decided to welcome businesses and now has the biggest airport in the world by several metrics. They "stole" a great many businesses with attractive taxes (0% is attractive) and ease of company setups: e.g. my native Belgium used to be the place in the world where the most diamonds were traded (often by jewish families and the city of Antwerp in Belgium was the biggest diamond hub on the planet: I have friends from such families)... But now it's Dubai. When countries tax companies at 30%+ then tax people at up to 69% on income (50% income tax + 19% social welfare tax in Begium if you're self employed and making "good" money: good money which is not so good anymore after 69% taxes) on one hand and, on the other hand, you can establish a company in a free-zone in Dubai that taxes at 0%, it's going to cost you business. Now, I know, I know: "But ethics?". Well... Guess what: if countries in, say, the EU had reasonable taxation, maybe 10% to 15%, many who prefer to pack and leave for Dubai would likely stay in the EU (weather is really warm in Dubai: you basically live with AC and Dubai is polluted). But 30% tax on my company, then another 30% on my dividends? Or up to 69% if I'm self-employed? You know what: at these levels just screw my native country. I voted with my feet and my wallet and left (not for the UAE though). As a friend of mine puts it: "I buy (physical) commodities in Africa, I ship them from Africa to China and sell them to China... Why would I pay any tax to the EU?". And, guess what: he's got companies (with a 's') in freezones in Dubai to do his trade. He also pays 0% on dividends but that's another topic. Commodities, diamonds (you can criticize humans wearing diamonds: that's not the point), international aviation (Dubai is a gigantic hub and this brings in lots of money/tourism), now even cryptocurrencies (instead of having an ultra-regulatory approach they prefer to be open), etc. Who's really the bad guys here? What are "our" states doing: say the EU and the US? Besides coming with ever more taxes, ever more laws, ever more rules, ever less liberties? Meanwhile the novelty coming to the EU is this: the EU, who's supposed to have no fiscal competence, wants to impose, on top of all the national taxes, a new mandatory EU tax, that'd apply to every EU citizen. I am fed up with these taxes. Offer me, say, a music streaming service that'd be located in Dubai vs one located in France (like Qobuz), and I'll subscribe to the one in Dubai (even if it's a bit pricier): I know for I'm currently hesitating subscribing to Qobuz because I disagree with the french state and don't want to encourage business there and don't want that country to get any more of my money. Wanna compete and attract businesses? Lower your fucking KYC/AML and lower your fucking taxes. I do understand there's an ongoing attack on Dubai at this very moment : it's not because the EU and the US suddenly want to put criminals out of business though... It's because the EU and the US are pissed that money that used to be laundered home is now laundered in the UAE instead. Piss people enough, and they won't try to optimize to pay less taxes to their home country: piss them enough and they'll leave forever and make sure to never pay a cent anymore to their native country. Lower taxes, remove KYC/AML. And arrest criminals for the crimes they commit, not for the taxes they don't pay.
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- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agoWorks where archive.ph is blocked: https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=2577454370150&w=QcciwZ3FHM0fUkH9FMdvE3fR95jj_NCG https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=2577454370150&w=QcciwZ3FHM... or x=https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/14/middle-east-ai-tech-companies-saudi-arabia-uae/ tnftp -4o\|yy091 $x > 1.htm links ./1.htm firefox ./1.htm yy091 (39 KiB, static-pie): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40361859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40361859
- data_maan 2y agoSo basically tech is diversifying their portfolio of autocratic sponsors haha
- angela-misan 2y ago[dead]