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Ben Horowitz is a great entrepreneur and a great investor. But it's pretty hilarious how he quotes the Geto Boys and Snoop Dogg while being assiduously politica
by temphn 14y ago
Ben Horowitz is a great entrepreneur and a great investor. But it's pretty hilarious how he quotes the Geto Boys and Snoop Dogg while being assiduously politically correct in his writing style ("the women from the girls"?).
You can understand this if you realize that he's actually an ultramasculine guy, and rap lyrics (caricatured though they be) are the only acceptable way today to express unbridled, unchecked, dominant masculinity.
But in addition to being ultramasculine, he also loves to win. And you don't win if you say that stuff outright. No white collar white male can get away with even 1/1000 the stuff that DMX says on a daily basis. So thus his formal writing has "hers" and "shes" all over the place, while his true self is channeled through a rap star messenger than no gender egalitarian can successfully attack for fear of being dubbed racist.
It is 3D chess after all.
- endergen 14y agoAwesome insight!
- eaurouge 14y agoWow, I think you're over-analyzing this. First, there's a lot of misogyny in rap music, I agree, but it's too easy, and wrong, to dismiss all of it as misogynistic, ultra-masculine braggadocio. There are just too many sub-genres for a simplistic definition. And, if you spend time listening to rap lyrics, you'll come across some truly profound verses; some of Lupe Fiasco's stuff is just mind-blowing. I think Ben Horowitz simply appreciates rap as an art form and enjoys summarizing his posts with applicable verses. Does there have to be more to it than that?