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Isn't this rehashing the disrupt-vs-reform issue? I guess I am concerned that people are surprised every time someone like Ellison does it. Personally, I think
by mmooss 2y ago
Isn't this rehashing the disrupt-vs-reform issue? I guess I am concerned that people are surprised every time someone like Ellison does it.
Personally, I think it's laziness - too lazy to plan it out better, to learn what you are dealing with, to find outcomes that benefit someone other than yourself.
But there is something to be said for disruption, and understanding it won't be perfect immediately but can be improved beyond the current situation.
It's sort of like overthrowing a dictatorship and replacing it with democracy - the first few years are tough, but the future goes far beyond any dictatorship (it's called, in some places, a J curve).
But that doesn't excuse the laziness in any way, or that often these people do it for only their own benefit.
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- Kapura 2y agoIs it laziness, or is it hubris? In a world where some people are told what they do is so good they essentially have infinite wealth, it's hard to convince them that any specific decision they make is an error.
- renewedrebecca 2y agoand no error will really cost them that much, anyway.
- mmooss 2y agoHubris is laziness. They know better but are too lazy to put in the hard work to do better. It's much easier just to help yourself and screw everyone else. It's hard for anyone else to stop them. A lesson I had to learn when I was first in charge: when deciding a course of action, ask myself, 'would I accept that from a subordinate?' If you report to no one, it's hard to hold yourself to the same or, if you are doing it right, higher standards. That is the corruption of power. If you really want to see a person's character, give them power.
- alabastervlog 2y ago> Isn't this rehashing the disrupt-vs-reform issue? I guess I am concerned that people are surprised every time someone like Ellison does it. ... how often does that happen? Usually it's just illegal cabs or e-waste littering as a service.
- mmooss 2y agoMusk (in business and government), Zuckerberg, Trump, much of the cryptocurrency industry, ... it's everywhere.
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y agoThat's a great list of examples that fall well under "Usually it's just illegal cabs or e-waste littering as a service." Is there examples of the alternative?
- mmooss 2y agoI don't understand how you define the categories. I took "Usually ..." as referring to more trivial matters and the issues I raised are not at all trivial.
- bhelkey 2y agoIn no particular order: * 3d Printing * Cloud Computing * The iPhone * Google * Google Translate * Google Maps * CRISPR * Netflix * SpaceX * Electric Vehicles * OpenAI * Drones You may not include Uber in that list, but I would. I vividly remember taxis before Uber.
- alabastervlog 2y agoHow many of those were outsiders walking in and spotting the solutions none of the so-called experts could, or whatever? It's a short list, to the point that I'd call the entire notion effectively a myth, not much better than chance and probably more often having to do with huge amounts of money being thrown at it, not outsider status or brilliant computer nerds or tech business jerks being magically good at other fields.
- bhelkey 2y agoOff the top of my head, I would count Google, Google Translate, Google Maps, Netflix, OpenAI, Uber, PayPal, Amazon, and SpaceX in the category of outsiders creating a massively influential product. You are free to pick apart the companies and their origins to decide if they are enough of an outsider for you.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lokar 2y agoFor me, “disrupt” is forever tainted by all the startups whose only real innovation was aggressively breaking the law until they were too big to police.
- xvokcarts 2y agoJust breaking the law is not disrupting. Disrupting requires broad support from the public, which is aware that laws are being broken and are fine with it - meaning the particular laws in place are ripe for questioning at the very least. Uber isn’t what it is because they broke the law, but because the vast public approve of their actions.
- lokar 2y agoWe used to see innovative disruption that would grow the pie. Generating large and broad benefits, and capturing a fairly small fraction for the company. My sense is this is in decline
- red-iron-pine 2y agoit's been dead for a few years now. At this point it's just standard monopoly behavior -- weasel in, take over, dominate and extra maximum value until real competition happens or the government/regulations come into play.
- freejazz 2y agoUber broke the law and used VC money to subsidize their fares. It's not complicated. They bought the support.
- xvokcarts 2y agoUber broke the law that protects traditional taxi drivers from having competition under the guise of passenger safety (taxi drivers have the same driver's license as any other driver, no additional safety certs). The public was way too happy to use Uber and that's why it's now forbidden where I live (a country in central EU).
- cwillu 2y agoAny time a billionaire demonstrates interest in the disruption of a critical industry, I get nervous. Humans are just too damn susceptible to the “product is subsidized until the disruption is firmly entrenched” play, especially when the feedback loop to uncover deficiencies in the new approach is measured in years and decades.
- rurban 2y agoThe industry is already in agtech 2.0 for plants and animals. There's no need for billionaires. We already do fully automated control, robotics, sensoric and harvesting. Farmers are rich enough to do it by themselves, and it scales easily. Just vertical farming is a bit too expensive still, but with animals it's already vertical.
- passwordoops 2y agoNo one with a half billion lying around is lazy in anything they do. Hubris, arrogance, or disrespectful are better descriptives here
- andy_ppp 2y agoYou know billionaires personality traits are probably normally distributed in most aspects, except they have a (much) higher tolerance for risk. So do homeless people.
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y agoI think a baseline for both disrupt and reform is an understanding of the problem space and existing solutions first, maybe more-so for successful disruption.