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Tech oligarchs have turned against the system that made them
- msie 1y agoSo sad, all the money in the world and somehow he believes he's a victim.
- ixtli 1y agoi find that reactionaries of all kinds put a lot of work into the mental gymanastics required to argue that somehow they are the real victims of injustice and it usually boils down to "people wont let me do whatever i want and also love me"
- taylodl 1y agoWhat’s truly sad isn’t that he feels victimized - it’s that he’s using his wealth and influence to settle personal scores. That’s not leadership; it’s grievance-fueled ego. It’s moral immaturity dressed in power.
- marcuskane2 1y agoAs a thought experiment to check your own biases, how do you feel about people like Colin Kaepernick speaking out about police abuses and racism in the justice system? There are people who made roughly the same argument you're making here- since this individual became rich and famous within the current system, they shouldn't criticize the flaws in the system that have victimized others who they empathize with.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoby trying to make this comparison, you mask the other huge, important difference between these examples: speaking out against police abuse and racism in the justice system is a just and moral act, and the things andreeson says are very bad and very stupid. the nerd-sniping semantic argument is so boring.
- mindslight 1y agoThey are not the same argument. Andreesen made his wealth because of the intended effects of the system, and rather than merely looking to reform it he's looking to wholesale tear it down as it is now holding him back from getting even more wealth. Kaepernick did not make his wealth from the failings of the justice system, and that system isn't really standing in his way today. Furthermore, reform and wholesale destruction are very different things and anybody still supporting Trump on some notion that any of this is actually about fixing DEI/immigration/budget/regulation needs to get their head screwed on straight, and quick.
- chasil 1y agoLink to the WaPo article: https://archive.ph/lhknB https://archive.ph/lhknB Link to NYT article: https://archive.ph/rVUAf https://archive.ph/rVUAf
- ixtli 1y ago> The communist millennials who entered the workforce in the 2010s sought to destroy every institution they touched its so fulfilling to know someone as rich and powerful as Andreessen has acknowledged my hard work :)
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agohe believes in us more than we do!
- ixtli 1y agoi always find myself wishing we were as powerful as the fascist believes us to be
- duxup 1y agoThe powerful tend to like the idea of less democratic governments / rigging the game (business) so they win. It's easy, they're not interested in competing in a market (ideas or business) if they can simply cuddle up to a despot and easily get theirs. So we see many line up to take their turn to bend the knee. There's a weird idea among those on the right in the US where they see business people as somehow having some good insights as far business overall (the market) for the country. But really many of those who gain power are very much not interested in competing / open markets / competition, quite the opposite. They got theirs and for many the inclination is to close the door (market) behind them.
- OldfieldFund 1y agoI felt that it was really easy to get consumed by money/power when I started making serious income. To feel that I'm better than other people. And I mean that in the context of running my own company, which meant I could make very unethical decisions if I wanted to. (financial services -- the easiest niche to bend the rules just a little bit) The temptation was strong, at least in my case. It took me some time to turn around, understand when enough is enough, and what is actually important in life. Therapy helped. I think that the old saying, albeit banal, rings true: "all power corrupts. and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoWhen I was rich and on top of the world I remember running around in my boat full of people partying blasting this song and taking the chorus seriously. Man, it felt good. It felt so so good. Can't believe it was so long ago and a different life. 'We are the people that rule the world' - Empire of the Sun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rm0gwqCR_0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rm0gwqCR_0
- potato3732842 1y agoYou're not thinking general enough. Once merit no longer becomes an effective moat individuals, organizations and entities turn to violence. In the modern world this means cozying up to government who has the monopoly on violence and getting competition regulated away if not in full then at least fractionally with barriers to entry. I would be unsurprised if over the next 40yr the software industry does the same thing by adopting professional organizations that get themselves written into law the way various other professions have.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44566518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44566518
- josefresco 1y agoUnfortunately this thread, and the one you linked to are both flagged/dead. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
- k310 1y agoI vividly recall a Christmas message from him, which I can't find in the archives, "Merry Fucking Christmas" having to do with his work on Mosaic browser and the lack of adulation shown him for having done so. "Privilege," whether through one's birth, skin color, past achievements and so on, when it turns to exceptionalism, is the ruination of society here and in the world. Truly good people use their gifts and achievements to lift others up. Empty shells seek to cut others down. "Libertarianism" seems nowadays to mean complete freedom for me, and not for you. graphic (postimages.org) https://i.postimg.cc/YqFrtzXg/Four-Libertarian-Freedoms-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/YqFrtzXg/Four-Libertarian-Freedoms-1.jp...
- justcallmejm 1y agoNone of us is free until we are all free. It's a pathetic lack of reasoning to arrive at his conclusions.
- pstuart 1y agoAll the libertarians I've met have been white men with money...
- neuralkoi 1y agoI wonder if a lot of these individuals who try incredibly hard to get more attention and "adulation" at the expense of others or feel under-appreciated just weren't loved very much as children or given much attention. I wonder how much of their behavior comes from a place of insecurity--not feeling that they are enough. Of course this type of behavior is not excusable, especially because humans are able to reason (if they try) and assert some level of control over their actions.
- Loughla 1y agoOutside of actual physical abuse, I give people zero grace to blame their childhood for their shitty behavior as an adult. You should be able to work through that shit. Especially if it was just that Dad didn't hug you enough. It's 2025; the tools are available. If you're a shitty adult, that's on you. If you're unable to process your own actions to see how attention seeking and desperate for validation you are, that's on you. Source: I got the ever-loving hell kicked out of me as a kid, and sought help as an adult so that this nonsense could stop with me. If I can do it, with my lack of willpower and attention span, literally anyone can. Especially if they have access to the time and money required for that process.
- ddddang 1y ago[dead]
- jihadjihad 1y agoIt was marked [flagged] and [dead], I read it and vouched for it, possibly others did the same.
- ddddang 1y ago[dead]
- ixtli 1y agoi posted it again after it dissapeared the first time, then my post was flagged on and off. i think the mods are arguing lol
- josefresco 1y agoFrom what I understand it's not the editors, but rather the HN community (and possibly bots) who engage in this (egregious) flagging behavior. I happens almost daily for anything critical of the current US administration, including posts about Elon. Even posts from reputable news sources like Wired get flagged if they are even remotely critical of the tech oligarchs.
- 123yawaworht456 1y agothere is, almost at any given time, a designated thread with a two minutes hate about the musky man.
- tomhow 1y agoAn article titled "[name] is a traitor" is not a good article for HN, no matter who it's about, as it's flamebait. Flagging bots and users who flag inappropriately don't have much effect here. We review flagged posts, and for any account that is flagging inappropriately, their flags get switched off. Almost every day the accusation is made that anything critical of the U.S. administration or tech celebrities is censored here. And the response is always the same. This stuff gets flagged, correctly, by users who want HN to stay true to its intended purpose, which is to discuss topics that engage intellectual curiosity. The day-to-day posts criticizing the U.S. administration or tech celebrities normally don't fit this category, because they generally say the same thing as the version was posted the day before, and the comments in the discussions also say largely the same things. Still, we frequently turn off flags on politics-related posts, or indeed posts about tech celebrities, when they contain "significant new information" and can sustain a discussion thread that contains new ideas in the comments. The users who keep complaining that these stories are censored are users who seem to want HN to be something other than what it has always been intended to be.
- jasonthorsness 1y agoI'm surprised he lumped in MIT; I thought they were more score/grade-based in their admissions which I did not expect Marc to oppose.
- pseudo0 1y agoMIT experimented with going test-optional for a couple years, that might be what he was referring to? They have since reinstated their SAT/ACT requirement.
- amazingman 1y agoI still can't figure out if he was always a charlatan or something happened that turned him into one.
- nielsbot 1y agoI theorize people who “make it” start circulating in super rich social circles where people believe whatever racist idiocy he’s spouting. They certainly no longer spend time with anyone living an average lifestyle.
- em500 1y agoHow could they? People living an average lifestyle need to work full time, transport the kids around, cook, do their household chores, file their taxes, queue everywhere. That's why people who no longer need to work for living mostly spend time with others who no longer need to work for living.
- potato3732842 1y agoLikewise, the blue collar classes rightfully ridicule the crap out of the HN class for sticking their dick in all sorts of issues that don't even deem worth the time of day.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- grafmax 1y agoBillionaires have so much power that they 1) start asking themselves questions like “how can I change society?” and 2) are surrounded by sycophants waiting for crumbs. Besides that they are free to effectively decide the fates of others without their own skin in the game - think Alex Karp vs the immigrants being rounded up in concentration camps. What we have is a potent cocktail that engenders anti-human policies with no brakes whatsoever.
- 1y ago
- nielsbot 1y ago> the combination of DEI and immigration two forms of discrimination that systematically cut most of the children of the Trump voter base out of any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America. What a racist idiot he is. The main problem is the cost of college not “DEI”. He’s not even using the term correctly.
- zozbot234 1y agoIt's not even the cost of college per se, but the cost of credentialing at elite colleges. Everything else that people associate with college ed (not least the educational resources themselves, especially with progress in LLM's) is dirt cheap and often free.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- BobaFloutist 1y agoAlso state schools are (well, were) heavily subsidized for lower income families. God forbid you get paid to attend a top 50 public university instead of mortgaging your future for a top 10 private school.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoDEI now means "black"/"black person"/"black people" in many contexts, including this one. The comedian Bill Burr made some jokes about the Mangione situation and people on Twitter said it was because of his DEI wife.
- bodiekane 1y agoMaybe other people's usage of the term is just different than yours without either being "correct". For at least half of America, "DEI" means "giving preferential treatment to some individuals based on their race, sexuality or gender". That might be a good thing (at a societal level it balances historical racism, or it counteracts unconscious bias or other contemporary inequalities) or that might be a bad thing (it's unfair to the individuals, it harms trust in the system and undermines meritocracy, visible attributes are a weak proxy to actual privilege) but that doesn't mean using the term the same way as hundreds of millions of other speakers is incorrect.
- jeisc 1y agohe has been talking too much to AI and has become contaminated by AI and sycophants real and artificial
- another_twist 1y agoI feel he's a poster child of what happens when you consume too much social media. Blaming immigration for cutting off access to corporate america for Americans ? I really want to know what the numbers are and what they would be if immigration is completely stopped. Hopefully someone will come up with a simulation for this sort of thing so we can put the debate to rest. Its weird that this data-driven guy have no actual data to back up his claim.
- xhkkffbf 1y agoDo your own research. Look at the CEOs throughout tech. It's hard to find CEOs with parents who were born in the United States. Many of the CEOs themselves were born overseas and they came to America either as children of grad students or as grad students themselves. This is just an extension of the H1B or immigration debate. Bringing smart people to America may be nice for society, but it's tough for the natives who must compete against them. Moreover, many of the nativeborn don't have the same opportunities overseas. Many other countries are locked up very tightly.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoNon-American born parents sacrifice for their kids. Put every penny into their children's future, pick up a second job if they have to. Let their adult kids live at home, not kick them out. And when those kids succeed, they often give back building on the help they were given. Success compounds when you're part of a team. My dad threw me out at 18. Spent my whole childhood bragging about how he couldn't wait for that day. Why? Because he was a hippie boomer and that's what he did at 18 (though his version of 'independence' came with parents who helped him buy multiple houses). He cut his own parents out of our lives, called it freedom, making it so I couldn't turn to them for help like he had. Not for money. Not even for emotional support. Maybe kicking your kids out at 18 and making them do it all alone is a bad cultural habit. Or maybe the immigrant families who stick together/support each other are the problem.
- bigbadfeline 1y agoI's so sorry for you, but you're an atypical case. The number of kids living with their parents have been increasing for the last decade or two, and it's the kids who complain that they can't get their beloved independence. I don't think xhkkffbf understands the problem well enough but gaslighting him with tearful stories isn't the proper approach here. On the topic - businesses don't like to compete but they like to have people compete for their jobs. Immigration is just one of the ways to skew the labor market in that direction. Monopolization is another - and growing rapidly. Remote work is yet another skew factor, without a systemic overhaul, less visas will result in more remote work offshore. xhkkffbf > Moreover, many of the nativeborn don't have the same opportunities overseas. Many other countries are locked up very tightly. A heartbreaking talking point but actually irrelevant, foreign regulations play a minuscule role here - the difference in standards of living and local prices make it impossible for Americans to earn enough abroad, remotely or not. Again, it's a systemic issue, entirely local to the US.
- YseGuy74000 1y agoDid you talk to him? He Seems to think the Cause is systemic Demkemia
- lazzlazzlazz 1y agoI have personally found Marc's takes refreshing and vital. HN, like many sites, has become more cynical and even self-loathing. There are so many in here who hate tech and even progress and growth. Marc's descriptions in the link are validated even just by the comments here. It's incredible.
- geegee3 1y agoThanks for posting what I had in mind.
- ENGNR 1y agoI’m so grateful that hacker news isn’t swayed too much politically - people in general are willing to consider any novel argument on its merits in search of deeper understanding. As opposed to say Reddit where if you don’t agree with the hivemind it’s instant downvotes. This article has aged well: https://paulgraham.com/say.html https://paulgraham.com/say.html
- igor47 1y agoJust curious -- which takes? That immigrants are destroying life for people from Wisconsin? That universities are anti progress and should pay a price? That the Trump administration is the only way to save progress and growth in America? Am I just misunderstanding what Marc is saying, and these are not his views at all?
- alxjrvs 1y agoI also wonder if it includes the part where mark paraphrases the 14 words. We're at the "White nationalists have some good points" stage of discourse.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- justinclift 1y ago> That universities are anti progress Would it be that some are, and some aren't?
- loki49152 1y ago[flagged]
- jimmydoe 1y agoI doubt people like Marc andreessen has much stable long term core beliefs, they are just opportunist who also occasionally feel the need to justify their opportunistic behavior.
- drcongo 1y agoI doubt people like Marc Andreessen.
- CoastalCoder 1y agoClever pun!
- ghc 1y agoI recently listened to a Ben Horowitz interview (https://muckrack.com/podcast/a16z-podcast-podcast/episodes/9512026-ben-horowitz-what-founders-must-know-about/ https://muckrack.com/podcast/a16z-podcast-podcast/episodes/9...) and it's hard not to see these people as cowards. They parrot QAnon conspiracy theories and known Russian propaganda originated on RT, call consumer protections fascism (!!!), and allude to actual ideas from fascism as being "interesting." Just listen to that interview to see how morally corrupt they've become.
- chermi 1y agoDid you actually read into the consumer protection stuff he's talking about? IIRC, he's talking about the consumer finance protection bureau "debanking" people for crypto stuff without them actually breaking any laws and without CFPB citing any laws/making the law clear. His contention was that it was extralegal, and it sounded pretty shitty to me.
- ghc 1y agoHere's a good article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/technology/crypto-debanking-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/technology/crypto-debanki... Treating crypto as a risky and destabilizing security (like subprime mortgages) is a valid reaction to what happened during the SVB and FTX implosions. Accusing Elizabeth Warren and the Biden administration of being actual fascists over it is absolutely wild. Similarly, saying "everyone knows" Biden was not the actual president, USAID was a terrorist funding organization, and that we can't keep track of money without blockchain....these all originate in QAnon circles or Russian state media. To quote CS Lewis' novel, "That Hideous Strength", on why this is so dangerous: > “Why you fool, it's the educated reader who CAN be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don't need reconditioning. They're all right already. They'll believe anything.”
- meowface 1y agoI am a turbolib who hates Andreessen but I think the progressive media outlets have been somewhat misinterpreting his leaked messages there. I didn't read it as racist Trumpist white nationalist rhetoric but as specific commentary about race-based preferences in admissions combined with immigration.
- judahmeek 1y ago> I didn't read it as racist Trumpist white nationalist rhetoric but as specific commentary about race-based preferences in admissions combined with immigration. When racist Trumpist white nationalist rhetoric gets distilled into desired policy, what else is there besides changes to race-based preferences in admissions & changes to immigration? It seems like Andreessen supports Trump's entire racial platform, just not the rhetoric that Trump's MAGA base uses.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoI think you're distilling too much if you lose the distinction between the people who don't want race-conscious admissions and the people who want to repeal the Civil Rights Act, even if the second group isn't getting their way.
- judahmeek 1y agoExcept Trump never supported repealing the Civil Rights Act, so you're trying to use a straw-man that's too extreme even for him. Also, you're ignoring that Andreessen opposes immigration in addition to race-conscious admissions[0]. 0: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/marc-andreesen-and-the-billionaire https://www.thebulwark.com/p/marc-andreesen-and-the-billiona...
- GuinansEyebrows 1y agoperhaps a distinction, but without a difference.
- mindslight 1y ago
- 5350-uiop-1130 1y agoi think he's just angry because all the money in the world cant fix an egg-shaped head
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- almostdeadguy 1y agoA funny account of spending time with him by Rick Perlstein, who wrote an amazing series of books on the history of conservatism: https://prospect.org/power/2024-04-24-my-dinner-with-andreessen/ https://prospect.org/power/2024-04-24-my-dinner-with-andrees...
- Aloisius 1y agoWhen an article on a site called Liberal Currents starts making Marxism-adjacent arguments about disproportionate profit compared to contributions, I have to scratch my head about what the hell is happening. While I don't agree with much of what Andreesen has said in recent years, I will say that given his central complaint is that Democrat elites have gone nuts, writing an article like this really doesn't help. From the hyperbolic tech oligarchs slur, as if any of them have anything close to the power of an actual historical oligarch (a member of the Thirty Tyrants was the law, judge, jury and executioner) or even that of Russian "oligarchs" when the term was first applied to them, to the charge of treason, a crime that carries a penalty of death, and the promise of revenge - this whole article reads as unhinged. Unlike Andreesen though, I can't pretend that Republicans haven't gone well past nuts.
- RamblingCTO 1y agoHim, Thiel, Musk, Yarvin and all the yes men (e/acc for example) can piss right off. It's just about power based on the idea that they deserve success and power because they are better than anyone else. That there was no random chance. That they have insights no one else has, that they are infallible. "Paperbelt on fire" is a good example of this thinking ("their education sucks, ours is better"). Absolutely not capable of self-critique these people (totally not musk shadow banning people who criticize him). Destroying democracy and our world because they have the self regulation of a ten year old. Everyone of those people really should go to therapy to learn that making money and having power is not the path towards a good life in any way. And it's sad to see people never get out of this groove their entire lives, no matter the money. I'm wondering if the "old silicon valley" was also just about power and never about making the world a better place. Was it all just a bunch of narcissists with domination fantasies or did anyone actually care at all? PS: doesn't help that the opposition is a bunch of cat girl avatars with funny pronouns.