4 ms·

Here's what really makes me angry. These jackasses who are going out and using technology's success to spout insane pro-rich politics, making asses of themselve

Here's what really makes me angry. These jackasses who are going out and using technology's success to spout insane pro-rich politics, making asses of themselves in all sorts of creative ways (cf. Sean Parker's wedding, and that "jungle party" with the caged tiger) are a bunch of old-style corporate executives who, after invading technology, have given technologists a bad reputation in the country at large. Our image is being tainted by their arrogance. Look, it's not the nerdy engineers (the ones who love technology, who would be in it even if it weren't "hot") who are responsible for this crass, New Money horror-show. It's the carpetbaggers who failed into technology because banking, hedge funds, and consulting didn't want them. They don't really belong in the first place. They're an invasive species in tech, and they're the ones creating this arrogance problem. They capture the lion's share of the value, set themselves up as the elite (when tech is "hot") and make a whole set of unrelated people look bad. However, I agree. The Sand Hill Road elite is utterly unfit to manage a bag of rock salt, much less run the world. Those sad wankers built a society in the Bay Area where the software engineers building the place can't even buy a house-- and they want to call government ineffective? Crackah, please.

yoloswag 13y ago
Fuck Sand Hill Road, fuck TechCrunch, fuck YC, fuck every venture fund, accelerator, and all the hype. They are all distractions. All of them. If I start my own company I'm going to do it without all of that frivolous shit. I'm tired of disruption. I'm tired of "changing the world", "changing the way we X", and all the blithering idiots who made Snapchat a $4b company. Think about it. Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter and all of the other successful companies would have succeeded despite all of this shit. They were awesome ideas. They would have succeeded anyway. I refuse to participate. I'm tired of it. I can't be the only one who's disillusioned with all of this nonsense.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  It's like what the Republican Party did when it had a severe image problem (thanks to Bush) and needed to invent the Tea Party: a 180-degree change in image, a "revolution" of style without substance. More here: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/vc-istan-4-silicon-valleys-tea-party/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/vc-istan-4-si...
- Afforess 13y ago
  Given your username, I can't tell if serious or jest.
  - yoloswag 13y ago
    I'm 100 percent serious. Sorry about the username but make no mistake; I meant every word of what I've said.
  - gtremper 13y ago
    Poe's law.
  - sandhillcount 13y ago
    Oh, we're serious alright.
- grey-area 13y ago
  Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter and all of the other successful companies would have succeeded despite all of this shit. None of those successful companies make a profit; they are all in the process of burning through someone else's money. Whether they can convert that to a money-making situation is still an open question, but given their huge valuations, that might be tough. They have certainly been a success for their founders, initial investors, and free users, but as companies (which are formed to make a profit), they are not currently successful. If you are so hostile to big money, then you should not be promoting companies as successes which have relied heavily on raising huge amounts of money to fund loss-making operations for years. Other companies like linode, slicehost or 37signals might be better examples of success you could aspire to.
  - declan 13y ago
    That's not true. Facebook is making a profit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24751441 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24751441 "The increase in revenue led to $425m in net profit in the three months to September."
    - grey-area 13y ago
      Thanks for the correction, I'd missed that FB recently turned a profit. If you consider all the investment in them, including the IPO, of course they are nowhere near profit on that, so now their problem is turning that $425m profit into something that justifies their valuation of $100 billion and pays back all their investors; that might take quite some time, however over a long enough time frame (if they last that long), they could pull it off.

yoloswag 13y ago

Fuck Sand Hill Road, fuck TechCrunch, fuck YC, fuck every venture fund, accelerator, and all the hype. They are all distractions. All of them. If I start my own company I'm going to do it without all of that frivolous shit. I'm tired of disruption. I'm tired of "changing the world", "changing the way we X", and all the blithering idiots who made Snapchat a $4b company. Think about it. Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter and all of the other successful companies would have succeeded despite all of this shit. They were awesome ideas. They would have succeeded anyway. I refuse to participate. I'm tired of it. I can't be the only one who's disillusioned with all of this nonsense.

michaelochurch 13y ago
It's like what the Republican Party did when it had a severe image problem (thanks to Bush) and needed to invent the Tea Party: a 180-degree change in image, a "revolution" of style without substance. More here: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/vc-istan-4-silicon-valleys-tea-party/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/vc-istan-4-si...
Afforess 13y ago
Given your username, I can't tell if serious or jest.
- yoloswag 13y ago
  I'm 100 percent serious. Sorry about the username but make no mistake; I meant every word of what I've said.
- gtremper 13y ago
  Poe's law.
- sandhillcount 13y ago
  Oh, we're serious alright.
grey-area 13y ago
Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter and all of the other successful companies would have succeeded despite all of this shit. None of those successful companies make a profit; they are all in the process of burning through someone else's money. Whether they can convert that to a money-making situation is still an open question, but given their huge valuations, that might be tough. They have certainly been a success for their founders, initial investors, and free users, but as companies (which are formed to make a profit), they are not currently successful. If you are so hostile to big money, then you should not be promoting companies as successes which have relied heavily on raising huge amounts of money to fund loss-making operations for years. Other companies like linode, slicehost or 37signals might be better examples of success you could aspire to.
- declan 13y ago
  That's not true. Facebook is making a profit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24751441 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24751441 "The increase in revenue led to $425m in net profit in the three months to September."
  - grey-area 13y ago
    Thanks for the correction, I'd missed that FB recently turned a profit. If you consider all the investment in them, including the IPO, of course they are nowhere near profit on that, so now their problem is turning that $425m profit into something that justifies their valuation of $100 billion and pays back all their investors; that might take quite some time, however over a long enough time frame (if they last that long), they could pull it off.