7 ms·

I think Vinod's kinda being a douche here. All of the positive street cred he is getting for his promotion of green energy is being lost to this fight. I mean,

I think Vinod's kinda being a douche here. All of the positive street cred he is getting for his promotion of green energy is being lost to this fight. I mean, is it worth having the private beach? Why not keep it open to the public, upgrade the access, and actually reap some positive PR from this? This is the kind of stuff protesters hate about rich techies. Apparently, this beach was historically used for a long time to teach surfing by local surf schools. A guy swoops in, who probably will rarely use this beach/vacation home, buys up the land, and closes off access. Attempts to "hack" the legal system through a loophole to achieve an exception to the state wide public beach system. If he had been appreciative of the history of the beach and local surfers, he could have actually got some benefit out of it, maybe built some local facilities people would pay to use, add some exhibits on Khosla investments, etc. It would have generated positive press and positive externalities instead of negative press and negative externalities. I like Vinod, but this just comes off as being a rich jerk.

jmspring 13y ago
In this case, using old Spanish/Mexican land grants/law to get around historical community access makes Vinod a giant douche. The approach to being above the community and it's history is a prime example fueling frustration amongst many against the riches Silicon Valley has helped fuel. I had hoped he would be above being an ass, understanding community, history, and honoring the way things were. Nope, hiding behind a holding company? Par for the course it seems. Edit: At least Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs were up front with changes they wanted to make with historic properties - constructive or not.
Crito 13y ago
> "I mean, is it worth having the private beach?" Honestly, if I was given the option of appearing to be a massive dick to the general public in exchange for a private beach, I'd probably take it.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  Would you really have a relaxing stay on your beach with protesters chanting from nearby and blockading roads near your house?
- product50 13y ago
  Hence, the douche.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Honest question, how many times per year would he consider going to this beach? He looks like the type of person that leaves home at 6am and returns 10pm including weekends If he wants to go to the beach he can get a private jet to the Bahamas and stay in the classiest resort available. So it looks like it's being a douche for the sake of it.
  - joonix 13y ago
    It's because he knows he can turn around and sell it to a rich international buyer for double if he can market it as having an effectively private California beach. That's all there is to it.
    - raverbashing 13y ago
      Yes, but there seems to be a certain amount of judicial uncertainty there. But maybe he can sell for a "private beach" price and leave the issues to the buyer ;)
- yardie 13y ago
  I think you like the idea of a private beach more than the beach itself. Having grown up in a state full of beaches (FL) I choose the public beaches. Beaches are expensive, if you have a multimillion dollar tourism industry it makes sense to spend millions dredging sand, cleaning, and sanitizing. Guys like Khosla will want their private beach and want the state to fix it for them as well. Florida is full of entitled rich guys like this. It's their beach until a storm washes the sand away. Then it's our beach because the state has to dredge sand to backfill the hightide mark.
- gesman 13y ago
  You mean being promoted from tiny dick with nothing to massive dick with private beach? :) That would be a no brainer. In Vinod's case he bought an investment property and probably tried to minimize general public's pooping and loittering activities that always comes with a shared territory. At least I understand his angle of view after spending $20+M for something.
- gaze 13y ago
  That makes you actually a massive dick.
e40 13y ago
I like Vinod, but this just comes off as being a rich jerk. Someone who is that rich doesn't do it by being a nice guy, and that drive which makes him so rich bleeds over into non-business parts of his life because it's impossible to be nice for some things and ruthless in others. When I was young and naive, I thought serial entrepreneurs were just like other people, just really smart and driven. After meeting a bunch, I realized they are very different than me and most other people I'd met. They are driven beyond imagination, and that warps their sense of almost everything. Things we shrug off (losing some negotiation) becomes a really big deal to them.
- rdl 13y ago
  That isn't my experience. I know several serial entrepreneurs who are much nicer than most people (probably the majority of >2 successful company people I know are "nice"). Most of the genuine assholes I know are unsuccessful, outside of a few horrible industries. Being an asshole isn't required to be successful. It's a nice think to think the world is "fair" like that, that anyone who is successful has to be an asshole (or that smart people are ugly, or that successful people are unhappy, or whatever), but it isn't true from experience. There are certain industries which are win/lose, corrupt, and generally horrible, but I don't think tech, especially startup venture-funded tech, is one of them. Would you want to join a startup for below-market-rate pay with high risk of failure and spend 100h/wk for a few months around people who are horrible?
  - wozniacki 13y ago
    Being an asshole isn't required to be successful. It's a nice think to think the world is "fair" like that, that anyone who is successful has to be an asshole (or that smart people are ugly, or that successful people are unhappy, or whatever), but it isn't true from experience. [I am only taking issue with this portion of your response and not the entire narrative] Would you care to elaborate on this? Would you list some striking success stories - besides the Hastings' and the Hoffmans' of the startup world - that have prominently animated our collective imagination and have generally informed us of what special kind of a person it takes to truly strike it big, in the big leagues of startup triumph? I ask genuinely and without a heightened degree of cynicism.
quesera 13y ago
Sounds like a case of someone loving the things that make California great, and wanting to extract all of that greatness out and keep it for oneself. Vinod Khosla is not a master of any universe.
- yapcguy 13y ago
  Boycotting his investments won't be hard, most of them are rubbish anyway! http://www.khoslaventures.com/information-technology.html http://www.khoslaventures.com/information-technology.html
JPKab 13y ago
I know, I know I sound like a dick here, but I think this is one of those cases where his being born and raised in India is a contributing factor. Indian culture is vastly different than ours, including a very high "power distance" measurement compared to typical Western nations. In India, if you're rich (or even middle class), you have servants and you do what you want. In his view, this is his, and he doesn't have to share it with the lesser people. Sure, many people born in America would do this too, but they would possibly feel a bit more guilty about it.
- pm90 13y ago
  Actuallly, he's kind of a dick anyways. He once gave an interview with the BBC about IIT's where he said that the IIT's were so difficult that he "cruised through the CMU master's program". Later, it was revealed that at the time he attended, the IIT's had a 5 year bachelor's program; something that he conveniently forgot to mention.
  - jonny_eh 13y ago
    What's IIT and CMU? SVP?
    - saryant 13y ago
      Indian Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon.
    - wavefunction 13y ago
      Probably Carnegie-Mellon, a University in Pennsylvania that has an excellent (top 10 in US) engineering program.
  - GFischer 13y ago
    What's the standard bachelor's program in the US? We have a 5 year bachelor's here (Uruguay) for all engineering degrees (including Computer Science which is bundled with engineering here), and many have told me it's equivalent to a Master's in the US.

jmspring 13y ago

In this case, using old Spanish/Mexican land grants/law to get around historical community access makes Vinod a giant douche. The approach to being above the community and it's history is a prime example fueling frustration amongst many against the riches Silicon Valley has helped fuel. I had hoped he would be above being an ass, understanding community, history, and honoring the way things were. Nope, hiding behind a holding company? Par for the course it seems. Edit: At least Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs were up front with changes they wanted to make with historic properties - constructive or not.

Crito 13y ago

> "I mean, is it worth having the private beach?" Honestly, if I was given the option of appearing to be a massive dick to the general public in exchange for a private beach, I'd probably take it.

cromwellian 13y ago
Would you really have a relaxing stay on your beach with protesters chanting from nearby and blockading roads near your house?
product50 13y ago
Hence, the douche.
raverbashing 13y ago
Honest question, how many times per year would he consider going to this beach? He looks like the type of person that leaves home at 6am and returns 10pm including weekends If he wants to go to the beach he can get a private jet to the Bahamas and stay in the classiest resort available. So it looks like it's being a douche for the sake of it.
- joonix 13y ago
  It's because he knows he can turn around and sell it to a rich international buyer for double if he can market it as having an effectively private California beach. That's all there is to it.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    Yes, but there seems to be a certain amount of judicial uncertainty there. But maybe he can sell for a "private beach" price and leave the issues to the buyer ;)
yardie 13y ago
I think you like the idea of a private beach more than the beach itself. Having grown up in a state full of beaches (FL) I choose the public beaches. Beaches are expensive, if you have a multimillion dollar tourism industry it makes sense to spend millions dredging sand, cleaning, and sanitizing. Guys like Khosla will want their private beach and want the state to fix it for them as well. Florida is full of entitled rich guys like this. It's their beach until a storm washes the sand away. Then it's our beach because the state has to dredge sand to backfill the hightide mark.
gesman 13y ago
You mean being promoted from tiny dick with nothing to massive dick with private beach? :) That would be a no brainer. In Vinod's case he bought an investment property and probably tried to minimize general public's pooping and loittering activities that always comes with a shared territory. At least I understand his angle of view after spending $20+M for something.
gaze 13y ago
That makes you actually a massive dick.

e40 13y ago

I like Vinod, but this just comes off as being a rich jerk. Someone who is that rich doesn't do it by being a nice guy, and that drive which makes him so rich bleeds over into non-business parts of his life because it's impossible to be nice for some things and ruthless in others. When I was young and naive, I thought serial entrepreneurs were just like other people, just really smart and driven. After meeting a bunch, I realized they are very different than me and most other people I'd met. They are driven beyond imagination, and that warps their sense of almost everything. Things we shrug off (losing some negotiation) becomes a really big deal to them.

rdl 13y ago
That isn't my experience. I know several serial entrepreneurs who are much nicer than most people (probably the majority of >2 successful company people I know are "nice"). Most of the genuine assholes I know are unsuccessful, outside of a few horrible industries. Being an asshole isn't required to be successful. It's a nice think to think the world is "fair" like that, that anyone who is successful has to be an asshole (or that smart people are ugly, or that successful people are unhappy, or whatever), but it isn't true from experience. There are certain industries which are win/lose, corrupt, and generally horrible, but I don't think tech, especially startup venture-funded tech, is one of them. Would you want to join a startup for below-market-rate pay with high risk of failure and spend 100h/wk for a few months around people who are horrible?
- wozniacki 13y ago
  Being an asshole isn't required to be successful. It's a nice think to think the world is "fair" like that, that anyone who is successful has to be an asshole (or that smart people are ugly, or that successful people are unhappy, or whatever), but it isn't true from experience. [I am only taking issue with this portion of your response and not the entire narrative] Would you care to elaborate on this? Would you list some striking success stories - besides the Hastings' and the Hoffmans' of the startup world - that have prominently animated our collective imagination and have generally informed us of what special kind of a person it takes to truly strike it big, in the big leagues of startup triumph? I ask genuinely and without a heightened degree of cynicism.

quesera 13y ago

Sounds like a case of someone loving the things that make California great, and wanting to extract all of that greatness out and keep it for oneself. Vinod Khosla is not a master of any universe.

yapcguy 13y ago
Boycotting his investments won't be hard, most of them are rubbish anyway! http://www.khoslaventures.com/information-technology.html http://www.khoslaventures.com/information-technology.html

JPKab 13y ago

I know, I know I sound like a dick here, but I think this is one of those cases where his being born and raised in India is a contributing factor. Indian culture is vastly different than ours, including a very high "power distance" measurement compared to typical Western nations. In India, if you're rich (or even middle class), you have servants and you do what you want. In his view, this is his, and he doesn't have to share it with the lesser people. Sure, many people born in America would do this too, but they would possibly feel a bit more guilty about it.

pm90 13y ago
Actuallly, he's kind of a dick anyways. He once gave an interview with the BBC about IIT's where he said that the IIT's were so difficult that he "cruised through the CMU master's program". Later, it was revealed that at the time he attended, the IIT's had a 5 year bachelor's program; something that he conveniently forgot to mention.
- jonny_eh 13y ago
  What's IIT and CMU? SVP?
  - saryant 13y ago
    Indian Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    Probably Carnegie-Mellon, a University in Pennsylvania that has an excellent (top 10 in US) engineering program.
- GFischer 13y ago
  What's the standard bachelor's program in the US? We have a 5 year bachelor's here (Uruguay) for all engineering degrees (including Computer Science which is bundled with engineering here), and many have told me it's equivalent to a Master's in the US.