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Silicon Valley Billionaire Battles Surfers Over Beach Access

169 points by wavesounds 12y ago

nashequilibrium 12y ago
This is just so disgusting, i remember thinking about this when this guy was at techcrunch disrupt last year, acting like he's trying to make the world a better place. The tech community will stay silent because nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them.
discardorama 12y ago
Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 ( 197 points )
dosh 12y ago
I remember seeing the documentary on what billionaires buy for houses and on there, the real estate agent who worked with Larry Ellison, said he literally went house after house knocking on their doors and offered a money the owners can't refuse, got multiple houses in a single row on the same beach and it became his beach.
- johnny5 12y ago
  What documentary is this?
  - e15ctr0n 12y ago
    @dosh is probably talking about 'The Fabulous Life Presents: Really Rich Real Estate'. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870036/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870036/ It features Kurt Rappaport, the real estate agent who represented Larry Ellison on his Malibu Beach property hunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Rappaport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Rappaport http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2398391/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2398391/
- e15ctr0n 12y ago
  You're probably talking about Carbon Beach, Malibu, California. http://www.malibutimes.com/news/article_cde2956a-3ea5-11e2-a517-0019bb2963f4.html http://www.malibutimes.com/news/article_cde2956a-3ea5-11e2-a... You can take a photographic tour of Ellison's vast real estate portfolio here: http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-real-estate-2014-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-real-estate-201...
nomadlogic 12y ago
Not sure why anyone would surprised about this. It's in the same mentality that allows things like Sean Parker's wedding fiasco in Big Sur happen.
- sp332 12y ago
  I thought his explanation was pretty good. Why was it unsatisfactory? http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/27/weddings-used-to-be-sacred-and-other-lessons-about-internet-journalism/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/27/weddings-used-to-be-sacred-...
  - nomadlogic 12y ago
    Well that explanation IMHO is just another argument as to how people in these positions have zero regard for shared spaces and others in general. I reckon the valleywag has a pretty funny response to that self serving article he wrote. I'm not going to start a bikeshed over the technicalities covered in the coastal commission report though - my original point was how little regard many of these individuals have for others. And how no one should really be surprised that the technology community seems to represent the worst case examples of this.
    - scott_karana 12y ago
      Considering how clearly Sean Parker's high regard for redwood forests is described in his article... Do you feel he's a really convinicing liar too, or genuine?
      - nomadlogic 12y ago
        no just a self centered rich kid.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  The "fiasco" where he held an event in a public space, then returned it to the condition in which he found it?
dbroockman 12y ago
In Hawaii all beaches are public property and maintaining public access routes (and parking!) to all beaches is required by law. If rich Californians keep up this crap, they might just inspire a voter initiative that would make things even worse for them.
- cortesoft 12y ago
  It is also the law in California; However, this property is an exception because it was given to the previous owners by the Mexican government before California became part of the United States.
  - scott_karana 12y ago
    It wasn't just given to them by the Mexican government: it was also included in the US-Mexican treaties, and ratified after an appeal to the US Supreme Court. Makes it a lot harder to deal with.
  - ellyagg 12y ago
    According to the apparently well-informed first comment[1] on that article, it's not really an exception. The first paragraph: As a former Coastal Commission staff member in the 1980s, I've seen this scenario played out over and over. The so-called issue of Spanish land grants pre-existing and somehow superceding laws like the Coastal Act isn't an issue at all -- land grants occurred in the early 1800s all over California, so Martins Beach isn't any special or privileged circumstance. [1] http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/silicon-valley-billionaire-battles-surfers-over-beach-access/#comment-1199530619 http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/silicon-valley-billionai...
    - Torgo 12y ago
      It's not clear to me if he understands that the current court case is invoking federal supremacy of US treaties over California law/constitution, which seems to be a brand-new argument. He compares it to a private homeowners association barring access to waterfront, which to me seems completely irrelevant.
dmckeon 12y ago
Previous discussion at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 Property rights recap at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917815 tl;dr: The property was granted to the original owner by the government of Mexico before California was part of the US. The property rights were preserved by the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. California's right of access to the shoreline does not override the pre-existing property right. Welcome to the Southwest, and if you think this is strange, try exploring seniority of water rights. Don't like the situation? Write your congress-critters and legislators, or take it to court. Other members of the tech community might respond, but are unlikely to have enough leverage to secure access to that beach. No, I don't like it either.
- boomzilla 12y ago
  Should the existing property rights only last as long as current owners? As soon as the property ownership pass to another person/entity, the current law should apply?
  - harryh 12y ago
    Property is, in most cases, property. It can be bought, sold, inherited, transferred, etc.
    - michaelt 12y ago
      I assume boomzilla doesn't mean confiscating the entire property, simply that with its transfer the california constitution should apply - including article X, which guarantees public access to beaches. In the UK, which has a long and sometimes poorly recorded legal history, there are procedures for this sort of thing. If land has some unusual legal status conferred on it by a 500 year old law, the government can simply pass a law saying "not any more it doesn't" and the unusual legal status is removed. I dread to think how complicated land ownership would end up after multiple hundreds or thousands of years if there were no way to change or update the laws made by our long-dead ancestors.
JoshTriplett 12y ago
There's a very interesting analogy here to cloud services: if you don't own something, don't assume you'll be able to use it indefinitely under the same terms. The owner can change their mind at any time, or sell to someone else with a different policy.
- gpcz 12y ago
  I assume you mean free cloud services. If you're a paying customer with a contract, it's harder to pull that stunt.
ar7hur 12y ago
Regardless of the law, I just don't understand why Khosla is going into this PR disaster. Which entrepreneur who has a choice (and 99% of successful entrepreneurs have a choice) between Khosla and another VC would choose Khosla after that?
- selmnoo 12y ago
  A lot, when it comes to money. Because, it's all about the Money and Khosla has a lot of it. Also, as it happens, KV is an investor of YC startups: http://blog.ycombinator.com/khosla-ventures-is-joining-the-ycvc-program http://blog.ycombinator.com/khosla-ventures-is-joining-the-y...
  - ar7hur 12y ago
    YC W14 startups have all received this investment from a fund "YCVC" that includes KV (I know this first hand, we are one of them!). That doesn't mean any of us chose KV. That being said, I want to moderate my comment. Until now, the situation is still under control, but it could become worse and then start to be a PR problem for KV. It's still time for them to do something.
- harryh 12y ago
  Stripe, to pick a HN favorite, recently raised a big round in which Khosla was a major investor.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - outside1234 12y ago
      Seriously? This is a personal issue, like Eich at Mozilla, not a professional one. Why are we suddenly conflating all these things?
      - meepmorp 12y ago
aaron695 12y ago
TL;DR People have become so lazy they now think they have a right to drive to everything including a tucked away beach that is awesome in it's self because people have to get a boat to visit it.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  You're getting downvoted because you didn't RTFA. The beach became popular in the first place because it was accessible. If the access road had never existed, no one would know or care now.
forgottenpass 12y ago
So... I don't actually live if the Bay Area, but stories like this always make me curious. Is there any wonder out there why not-tech workers seem to hate the tech sector? People literally protest google's buses, that's a lot of animosity towards an industry that have disconnected and distanced themselves so much that other people have no better recourse than to protest a bus.
- tptacek 12y ago
  This has nothing to do with the actions of anyone who works at Google. The line you've drawn between bus protests and beach access is nonsensical.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    I think what 'forgottenpass was probably getting to was the idea that a regular joe doesn't know much the difference between the all-glorious tech company 'Google' and the tech guy 'Khosla'. Right now Khosla is making all of SV tech place and beyond look bad. Khosla is in some way coloring the perceptions of all tech people, all tech companies, etc. in the hearts and minds of regular joes. It's kind of the way people work - not that there's anything wrong about being ill-informed, a lot of folks don't have time and resources to get good information. We just have to work with what we've got -- and I think this is one of the reasons we should strongly denounce Khosla's douchebaginess and make normal people understand that we're not all like him.
    - forgottenpass 12y ago
      Yep, I'm glad you could see where I was going with that, I had a hard time finding the words to use. And while Khosla's out of touch with the community dick move is HUGE, it does cast suspicion over the rest of the people in tech. And plenty of them are perfectly willing to confirm it with much much smaller, out of touch dick moves.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      The categories in play here are wrong. It's not tech that leads people like Khosla to appropriate what should be public property; it's extreme wealth. The distinction should be between billionaires and everyone else; Khosla's peer group is oil barons, hedge fund managers, and Saudi princes, not startup founders.
state 12y ago
It's particularly annoying that there's no statement from Khosla. It's hard to believe that he's not in any way sensitive to these issues, or didn't think anyone would notice. I spend a lot of time along that stretch of coast in the ocean. Anyone even remotely familiar with the place should know that this kind of thing wont go over very well. It almost seems foolish.
- sixQuarks 12y ago
  I agree. He should have just left the road open. I go to HMB all the time and had never heard of this beach. Now I want to go check it out with my dogs. If he wins and gets to keep the public out, I guarantee the locals will figure out someway to really annoy him. Maybe do a special daily boat trip, bringing homeless people from SF on a field trip to the beach.
jack-r-abbit 12y ago
I probably have the unpopular opinion here but I don't like it when people try to tell me what I can do with my own property. I understand that people have been using that road for years and it was never a problem with the previous owner. But there is a new owner. He does have a problem with people using the road on his land. That sucks for those people but it is not their land and it never was. The beach is still public... just hard to get to. Once you get there, he can't do anything about it (up to the high water mark). I'm not sure what angle they are taking with the permits on the land improvements. Those seem like unrelated issues and even if they beat him on the permits, how does that give them back the road access. Wouldn't he still be able to keep them off. Trespassing is trespassing even if the land owner violated some permit rules. If the California Coastal Commission (in charge of issuing permits) categorically denies his permits just to spite him, they'll be just as much the asshole he is.
- calbear81 12y ago
  I think you have a reasonable point about the beach still being public. In this case, the point of the permit battle is to make this land worth less to him since he won't be able to redevelop it. The California Coast Commission has a point of view which is to try and ensure public access to public beaches and will use their power to try and force him to negotiate. In regards to what the tech community can do about this, how about organizing a large beach party and get some boats to ferry people in?
  - redm 12y ago
    "how about organizing a large beach party and get some boats to ferry people in?" What would be the point? Vinod is not living there so he would be indifferent to it, at least until 2021.
- lutorm 12y ago
  My impression is that while existing property generally is grandfathered when regulations change, renovations then require you to bring the relevant part up to code. Thus, if you want to change stuff, like putting up a fence, then it does not seem far-fetched that you would then be required to comply with current public access rules. If you have an old deal, that's fine. But you can't justifiably claim you both have a right to be grandfathered in while at the same time updating the property to current standards.
abalone 12y ago
What a douche canoe. Which is now ironically the only way to access the beach.
marquis 12y ago
What if it were for less nefarious reasons? Perhaps he's planning on shutting the entire area down from human access completely and letting some flora and fauna having a refuge area.
- wankerrific 12y ago
  Even if it were for that, Vinod has been a bad actor here, so if this were the case the ends wouldn't have justified the means. First he fought to not reveal who had bought the land, and now he has been trying to overpower the people (represented by the govt) via his wealth and litigation. For the record, its not that great of a surf spot, but this is more about letting someone establish precedent and thus leading to more beach access rights (Malibu...) getting chipped away at slowly but surely. It would be great if we had Hawaii's right-of-way laws... And to the original poster - not sure why you were down voted for asking a question.
  - hsod 12y ago
    > and now he has been trying to overpower the people (represented by the govt) via his wealth and litigation. Alternatively, he's "defending himself against a power-hungry government determined to curtail his property rights"
whyenot 12y ago
I've been going to Martin's Beach since before I could walk (or swim). It's a location that has been pseudo public access for generations. That part of San Mateo County has been extremely effective when it comes to preventing unwanted development and opening up areas for public access. Khosla is in for a real battle, no matter who wins the current court case.
- orthecreedence 12y ago
  It has happened before where someone rich and powerful decides to battle locals only to find that their legal power can only go so far. I liken it to an elephant trying to fight a swarm of army ants. If you just live near the ants and leave them alone, all's well. You step on their nest and you're in for a hell of a fight (one that lawyers and money can't necessarily bail you out of).
SV_Psycho 12y ago
Martin's Beach is great. Quiet, secluded... A terrific place to bury dismembered bodies.
sscalia 12y ago
Don't be like this man. There are people on here, reading this comment right now, who will become fantastically rich. Minimize externalities to your behavior. Be considerate, be thoughtful, be kind. Be the opposite of Vinod Khosla.
- sscalia 12y ago
  Ah, yes -- the down vote has come.
tzs 12y ago
Note this appears to just concern access by land. I believe that the public still has access rights to the beach between the low and high tide marks if they can get there without crossing his land. This could be a nice little summer money-making opportunity for some college students, as long as Khosla is able to keep land access closed. Get a boat, and for, say, $20 per head ferry people to the beach and back. I bet a lot of people would pay that, assuming that you don't ferry so many people as to make the beach as crowded as other beaches. You could probably make $1000/day at this, at least.
vilhelm_s 12y ago
> Think of it as a David-and-Goliath battle waged entirely in paperwork, between a billionaire and the chronically-unfunded agency in charge of issuing these permits, the California Coastal Commission. Ah yes, that plucky underdog, the State of California.
- jdpage 12y ago
  There's a difference between the State of California and the California Coastal Commission. The Commission is a public agency (i.e. a group of people representing the best interests of the public) which happens to be funded by the legislature. Specifically, a legislature which is underfunding them.
alexeisadeski3 12y ago
I'm sure everyone here would love to have a public road going through their back yard.
- orthecreedence 12y ago
  It's one thing to buy a property and have someone say "guess what, we're building a road in your backyard lol!!" and an entirely different scenario to buy a property that already has a road going through and force the locals off a piece of land they've used for decades, bypassing the local laws to do so. It's not a case of personal liberty, it's a case of someone with a lot of money overstepping their bounds because they think nobody will do anything about it.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- stormbrew 12y ago
  I'm sure everyone here would also love to have property with direct beach access. Maybe there's no such thing as a (very expensive) free lunch.
aliston 12y ago
For those interested, the opening arguments are taking place tomorrow in Redwood City for the Surfrider case: Late yesterday, Surfrider's case was assigned to a judge and room. Here's the scoop: Hall of Justice & Records What: Opening arguments in Surfrider Foundation v. Martins Beach I, LLC and Martins Beach II, LLC When: 2pm on Wednesday, May 7 Where: San Mateo County Superior Court, 400 County Center, Redwood City Department 22, Courtroom 8A Photo credit Rob Caughlan Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Mallach presiding It is likely that at some point there will be a court sanctioned site visit to Martin's Beach. At present, the date and time of such visit is unknown. If you attend, please show your support by wearing blue! Thanks!! http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/ http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/
beedogs 12y ago
This just in: most billionaires are assholes.
refurb 12y ago
I don't get this part of the article: "Nancy Cave and her staff want to keep Martins Beach open to the public. Khosla will need permits from the Commission if he wants to do almost anything on the property." Are they inferring that they will screw with his permits in order to force him into giving access?
- pcl 12y ago
  Yes -- Coastal Commission approval is required to get construction permits on coastal lands, and my understanding is that the commission uses this approval to obtain access concessions.
  - refurb 12y ago
    So basically they'll refuse to provide valid permits because of another, completely unrelated issue in order to "get back" at him?
    - lutorm 12y ago
      In what sense is it unrelated if it relates to the property in question? Besides, if you are not in compliance with rules and regulations, it's generally a bad idea to go to the authorities and ask for something.
      - vilhelm_s 12y ago
        I guess in this sense (quoting Wikipedia): > The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the 1987 case of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission that if the state of California through its regulatory agency, the California Coastal Commission, thinks an easement on private land is a good idea and a valuable public purpose, they should use eminent domain and pay for it, as opposed to demanding concessions from a land owner in exchange for a building permit. The court considered that "an out and out plan of extortion" of property. In the case, the owners of beachfront property were required to grant an easement for public access to facilitate pedestrian access to public beaches as a condition of permit approval to enlarge their home. The court, in a narrow decision, ruled that an "essential nexus" must exist between the asserted "legitimate state interest” and the permit condition imposed by government.
quasque 12y ago
Sometimes I yearn for a benevolent AI to rise up and impose a communist state upon the world, employing robots to free humanity from its labours. This yearning mostly comes when I'm reminded that there are a small number of people who've not only managed to accumulate such an obscene amount of wealth that the title "billionaire" can be bestowed upon them, but that they use that wealth for predominantly selfish outcomes. And it's only going to get worse. When the enduring puzzle of longevity is finally cracked and death can be reliably cheated, it's not going to be those living in abject poverty, or the dogged grafters, or even the skilled professionals who benefit. No, it'll be that small group of rich and powerful who'll use it to further promote this monumental inequality of wealth. It's not the triviality of some beach access that is really the issue, it's just a distraction. It's this vile aristocracy of gold and greed that is the enduring problem, the manifestation of which is the source of countless suffering amongst humanity.
- brc 12y ago
  Communism? Really? Sorry, no thanks. I'm fine without being murdered by my own government for having unclean thoughts. Long live the individual.
  - quasque 12y ago
    But if it was run by a benevolent robot intelligence rather than humans, it would probably work out really well. Indeed I think it would be about as close to utopian as we're ever going to get.
    - learc83 12y ago
      Yeah, but who get's to decide what's "benevolent" in the first place? One man's benevolent ruler is another's tyrannical despot.
      - quasque 12y ago
        That's a very interesting point. Perhaps, to ensure that a range of ethical frameworks have been taken into consideration (each with their varying ideas of what benevolence really means) a more equitable situation would be a plurality of utopias each with its own ruling AI? And free movement of individual humans to whichever aligns best to their own personal code of ethics.
rmason 12y ago
Did you know that Steve Blank is on the California Coastal Commission? Steve's positions on similar cases are well known. http://steveblank.com/2013/06/28/in-defense-of-unreasonableness-saving-the-california-coast/ http://steveblank.com/2013/06/28/in-defense-of-unreasonablen... This shapes up to be an epic battle among the two men, the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur. My money is on Steve.
- jasonmonberg 12y ago
  Unfortunately, it looks like Steve resigned from the commission as mentioned in that post and from the roster:http://www.coastal.ca.gov/roster.html http://www.coastal.ca.gov/roster.html Perhaps Steve will join the fray?
antifragile 12y ago
One makes money to make a living, but you only truly enrich your life if you share some of what you have .... there is no other way, everything else is delusion. I know, I tried hard the other way. Hmm. Sounds like someone whose tripped-over their own super ego. We must help him! Everyone get out! I'm going to call in for a tsunami to re-level the playing-field :-)

169 points by wavesounds 12y ago

This is just so disgusting, i remember thinking about this when this guy was at techcrunch disrupt last year, acting like he's trying to make the world a better place. The tech community will stay silent because nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them.

discardorama 12y ago

Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 ( 197 points )

dosh 12y ago

I remember seeing the documentary on what billionaires buy for houses and on there, the real estate agent who worked with Larry Ellison, said he literally went house after house knocking on their doors and offered a money the owners can't refuse, got multiple houses in a single row on the same beach and it became his beach.

johnny5 12y ago
What documentary is this?
- e15ctr0n 12y ago
  @dosh is probably talking about 'The Fabulous Life Presents: Really Rich Real Estate'. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870036/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870036/ It features Kurt Rappaport, the real estate agent who represented Larry Ellison on his Malibu Beach property hunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Rappaport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Rappaport http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2398391/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2398391/
e15ctr0n 12y ago
You're probably talking about Carbon Beach, Malibu, California. http://www.malibutimes.com/news/article_cde2956a-3ea5-11e2-a517-0019bb2963f4.html http://www.malibutimes.com/news/article_cde2956a-3ea5-11e2-a... You can take a photographic tour of Ellison's vast real estate portfolio here: http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-real-estate-2014-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-real-estate-201...

nomadlogic 12y ago

Not sure why anyone would surprised about this. It's in the same mentality that allows things like Sean Parker's wedding fiasco in Big Sur happen.

sp332 12y ago
I thought his explanation was pretty good. Why was it unsatisfactory? http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/27/weddings-used-to-be-sacred-and-other-lessons-about-internet-journalism/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/27/weddings-used-to-be-sacred-...
- nomadlogic 12y ago
  Well that explanation IMHO is just another argument as to how people in these positions have zero regard for shared spaces and others in general. I reckon the valleywag has a pretty funny response to that self serving article he wrote. I'm not going to start a bikeshed over the technicalities covered in the coastal commission report though - my original point was how little regard many of these individuals have for others. And how no one should really be surprised that the technology community seems to represent the worst case examples of this.
  - scott_karana 12y ago
    Considering how clearly Sean Parker's high regard for redwood forests is described in his article... Do you feel he's a really convinicing liar too, or genuine?
    - nomadlogic 12y ago
      no just a self centered rich kid.
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
The "fiasco" where he held an event in a public space, then returned it to the condition in which he found it?

dbroockman 12y ago

In Hawaii all beaches are public property and maintaining public access routes (and parking!) to all beaches is required by law. If rich Californians keep up this crap, they might just inspire a voter initiative that would make things even worse for them.

cortesoft 12y ago
It is also the law in California; However, this property is an exception because it was given to the previous owners by the Mexican government before California became part of the United States.
- scott_karana 12y ago
  It wasn't just given to them by the Mexican government: it was also included in the US-Mexican treaties, and ratified after an appeal to the US Supreme Court. Makes it a lot harder to deal with.
- ellyagg 12y ago
  According to the apparently well-informed first comment[1] on that article, it's not really an exception. The first paragraph: As a former Coastal Commission staff member in the 1980s, I've seen this scenario played out over and over. The so-called issue of Spanish land grants pre-existing and somehow superceding laws like the Coastal Act isn't an issue at all -- land grants occurred in the early 1800s all over California, so Martins Beach isn't any special or privileged circumstance. [1] http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/silicon-valley-billionaire-battles-surfers-over-beach-access/#comment-1199530619 http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/silicon-valley-billionai...
  - Torgo 12y ago
    It's not clear to me if he understands that the current court case is invoking federal supremacy of US treaties over California law/constitution, which seems to be a brand-new argument. He compares it to a private homeowners association barring access to waterfront, which to me seems completely irrelevant.

dmckeon 12y ago

Previous discussion at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135206 Property rights recap at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917815 tl;dr: The property was granted to the original owner by the government of Mexico before California was part of the US. The property rights were preserved by the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. California's right of access to the shoreline does not override the pre-existing property right. Welcome to the Southwest, and if you think this is strange, try exploring seniority of water rights. Don't like the situation? Write your congress-critters and legislators, or take it to court. Other members of the tech community might respond, but are unlikely to have enough leverage to secure access to that beach. No, I don't like it either.

boomzilla 12y ago
Should the existing property rights only last as long as current owners? As soon as the property ownership pass to another person/entity, the current law should apply?
- harryh 12y ago
  Property is, in most cases, property. It can be bought, sold, inherited, transferred, etc.
  - michaelt 12y ago
    I assume boomzilla doesn't mean confiscating the entire property, simply that with its transfer the california constitution should apply - including article X, which guarantees public access to beaches. In the UK, which has a long and sometimes poorly recorded legal history, there are procedures for this sort of thing. If land has some unusual legal status conferred on it by a 500 year old law, the government can simply pass a law saying "not any more it doesn't" and the unusual legal status is removed. I dread to think how complicated land ownership would end up after multiple hundreds or thousands of years if there were no way to change or update the laws made by our long-dead ancestors.

JoshTriplett 12y ago

There's a very interesting analogy here to cloud services: if you don't own something, don't assume you'll be able to use it indefinitely under the same terms. The owner can change their mind at any time, or sell to someone else with a different policy.

gpcz 12y ago
I assume you mean free cloud services. If you're a paying customer with a contract, it's harder to pull that stunt.

ar7hur 12y ago

Regardless of the law, I just don't understand why Khosla is going into this PR disaster. Which entrepreneur who has a choice (and 99% of successful entrepreneurs have a choice) between Khosla and another VC would choose Khosla after that?

selmnoo 12y ago
A lot, when it comes to money. Because, it's all about the Money and Khosla has a lot of it. Also, as it happens, KV is an investor of YC startups: http://blog.ycombinator.com/khosla-ventures-is-joining-the-ycvc-program http://blog.ycombinator.com/khosla-ventures-is-joining-the-y...
- ar7hur 12y ago
  YC W14 startups have all received this investment from a fund "YCVC" that includes KV (I know this first hand, we are one of them!). That doesn't mean any of us chose KV. That being said, I want to moderate my comment. Until now, the situation is still under control, but it could become worse and then start to be a PR problem for KV. It's still time for them to do something.
harryh 12y ago
Stripe, to pick a HN favorite, recently raised a big round in which Khosla was a major investor.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - outside1234 12y ago
    Seriously? This is a personal issue, like Eich at Mozilla, not a professional one. Why are we suddenly conflating all these things?
    - meepmorp 12y ago

aaron695 12y ago

TL;DR People have become so lazy they now think they have a right to drive to everything including a tucked away beach that is awesome in it's self because people have to get a boat to visit it.

PhasmaFelis 12y ago
You're getting downvoted because you didn't RTFA. The beach became popular in the first place because it was accessible. If the access road had never existed, no one would know or care now.

forgottenpass 12y ago

So... I don't actually live if the Bay Area, but stories like this always make me curious. Is there any wonder out there why not-tech workers seem to hate the tech sector? People literally protest google's buses, that's a lot of animosity towards an industry that have disconnected and distanced themselves so much that other people have no better recourse than to protest a bus.

tptacek 12y ago
This has nothing to do with the actions of anyone who works at Google. The line you've drawn between bus protests and beach access is nonsensical.
- selmnoo 12y ago
  I think what 'forgottenpass was probably getting to was the idea that a regular joe doesn't know much the difference between the all-glorious tech company 'Google' and the tech guy 'Khosla'. Right now Khosla is making all of SV tech place and beyond look bad. Khosla is in some way coloring the perceptions of all tech people, all tech companies, etc. in the hearts and minds of regular joes. It's kind of the way people work - not that there's anything wrong about being ill-informed, a lot of folks don't have time and resources to get good information. We just have to work with what we've got -- and I think this is one of the reasons we should strongly denounce Khosla's douchebaginess and make normal people understand that we're not all like him.
  - forgottenpass 12y ago
    Yep, I'm glad you could see where I was going with that, I had a hard time finding the words to use. And while Khosla's out of touch with the community dick move is HUGE, it does cast suspicion over the rest of the people in tech. And plenty of them are perfectly willing to confirm it with much much smaller, out of touch dick moves.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The categories in play here are wrong. It's not tech that leads people like Khosla to appropriate what should be public property; it's extreme wealth. The distinction should be between billionaires and everyone else; Khosla's peer group is oil barons, hedge fund managers, and Saudi princes, not startup founders.

state 12y ago

It's particularly annoying that there's no statement from Khosla. It's hard to believe that he's not in any way sensitive to these issues, or didn't think anyone would notice. I spend a lot of time along that stretch of coast in the ocean. Anyone even remotely familiar with the place should know that this kind of thing wont go over very well. It almost seems foolish.

sixQuarks 12y ago
I agree. He should have just left the road open. I go to HMB all the time and had never heard of this beach. Now I want to go check it out with my dogs. If he wins and gets to keep the public out, I guarantee the locals will figure out someway to really annoy him. Maybe do a special daily boat trip, bringing homeless people from SF on a field trip to the beach.

jack-r-abbit 12y ago

I probably have the unpopular opinion here but I don't like it when people try to tell me what I can do with my own property. I understand that people have been using that road for years and it was never a problem with the previous owner. But there is a new owner. He does have a problem with people using the road on his land. That sucks for those people but it is not their land and it never was. The beach is still public... just hard to get to. Once you get there, he can't do anything about it (up to the high water mark). I'm not sure what angle they are taking with the permits on the land improvements. Those seem like unrelated issues and even if they beat him on the permits, how does that give them back the road access. Wouldn't he still be able to keep them off. Trespassing is trespassing even if the land owner violated some permit rules. If the California Coastal Commission (in charge of issuing permits) categorically denies his permits just to spite him, they'll be just as much the asshole he is.

calbear81 12y ago
I think you have a reasonable point about the beach still being public. In this case, the point of the permit battle is to make this land worth less to him since he won't be able to redevelop it. The California Coast Commission has a point of view which is to try and ensure public access to public beaches and will use their power to try and force him to negotiate. In regards to what the tech community can do about this, how about organizing a large beach party and get some boats to ferry people in?
- redm 12y ago
  "how about organizing a large beach party and get some boats to ferry people in?" What would be the point? Vinod is not living there so he would be indifferent to it, at least until 2021.
lutorm 12y ago
My impression is that while existing property generally is grandfathered when regulations change, renovations then require you to bring the relevant part up to code. Thus, if you want to change stuff, like putting up a fence, then it does not seem far-fetched that you would then be required to comply with current public access rules. If you have an old deal, that's fine. But you can't justifiably claim you both have a right to be grandfathered in while at the same time updating the property to current standards.

abalone 12y ago

What a douche canoe. Which is now ironically the only way to access the beach.

marquis 12y ago

What if it were for less nefarious reasons? Perhaps he's planning on shutting the entire area down from human access completely and letting some flora and fauna having a refuge area.

wankerrific 12y ago
Even if it were for that, Vinod has been a bad actor here, so if this were the case the ends wouldn't have justified the means. First he fought to not reveal who had bought the land, and now he has been trying to overpower the people (represented by the govt) via his wealth and litigation. For the record, its not that great of a surf spot, but this is more about letting someone establish precedent and thus leading to more beach access rights (Malibu...) getting chipped away at slowly but surely. It would be great if we had Hawaii's right-of-way laws... And to the original poster - not sure why you were down voted for asking a question.
- hsod 12y ago
  > and now he has been trying to overpower the people (represented by the govt) via his wealth and litigation. Alternatively, he's "defending himself against a power-hungry government determined to curtail his property rights"

whyenot 12y ago

I've been going to Martin's Beach since before I could walk (or swim). It's a location that has been pseudo public access for generations. That part of San Mateo County has been extremely effective when it comes to preventing unwanted development and opening up areas for public access. Khosla is in for a real battle, no matter who wins the current court case.

orthecreedence 12y ago
It has happened before where someone rich and powerful decides to battle locals only to find that their legal power can only go so far. I liken it to an elephant trying to fight a swarm of army ants. If you just live near the ants and leave them alone, all's well. You step on their nest and you're in for a hell of a fight (one that lawyers and money can't necessarily bail you out of).

SV_Psycho 12y ago

Martin's Beach is great. Quiet, secluded... A terrific place to bury dismembered bodies.

sscalia 12y ago

Don't be like this man. There are people on here, reading this comment right now, who will become fantastically rich. Minimize externalities to your behavior. Be considerate, be thoughtful, be kind. Be the opposite of Vinod Khosla.

sscalia 12y ago
Ah, yes -- the down vote has come.

tzs 12y ago

Note this appears to just concern access by land. I believe that the public still has access rights to the beach between the low and high tide marks if they can get there without crossing his land. This could be a nice little summer money-making opportunity for some college students, as long as Khosla is able to keep land access closed. Get a boat, and for, say, $20 per head ferry people to the beach and back. I bet a lot of people would pay that, assuming that you don't ferry so many people as to make the beach as crowded as other beaches. You could probably make $1000/day at this, at least.

vilhelm_s 12y ago

> Think of it as a David-and-Goliath battle waged entirely in paperwork, between a billionaire and the chronically-unfunded agency in charge of issuing these permits, the California Coastal Commission. Ah yes, that plucky underdog, the State of California.

jdpage 12y ago
There's a difference between the State of California and the California Coastal Commission. The Commission is a public agency (i.e. a group of people representing the best interests of the public) which happens to be funded by the legislature. Specifically, a legislature which is underfunding them.

alexeisadeski3 12y ago

I'm sure everyone here would love to have a public road going through their back yard.

orthecreedence 12y ago
It's one thing to buy a property and have someone say "guess what, we're building a road in your backyard lol!!" and an entirely different scenario to buy a property that already has a road going through and force the locals off a piece of land they've used for decades, bypassing the local laws to do so. It's not a case of personal liberty, it's a case of someone with a lot of money overstepping their bounds because they think nobody will do anything about it.
- deleted 12y ago
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stormbrew 12y ago
I'm sure everyone here would also love to have property with direct beach access. Maybe there's no such thing as a (very expensive) free lunch.

aliston 12y ago

For those interested, the opening arguments are taking place tomorrow in Redwood City for the Surfrider case: Late yesterday, Surfrider's case was assigned to a judge and room. Here's the scoop: Hall of Justice & Records What: Opening arguments in Surfrider Foundation v. Martins Beach I, LLC and Martins Beach II, LLC When: 2pm on Wednesday, May 7 Where: San Mateo County Superior Court, 400 County Center, Redwood City Department 22, Courtroom 8A Photo credit Rob Caughlan Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Mallach presiding It is likely that at some point there will be a court sanctioned site visit to Martin's Beach. At present, the date and time of such visit is unknown. If you attend, please show your support by wearing blue! Thanks!! http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/ http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/

beedogs 12y ago

This just in: most billionaires are assholes.

refurb 12y ago

I don't get this part of the article: "Nancy Cave and her staff want to keep Martins Beach open to the public. Khosla will need permits from the Commission if he wants to do almost anything on the property." Are they inferring that they will screw with his permits in order to force him into giving access?

pcl 12y ago
Yes -- Coastal Commission approval is required to get construction permits on coastal lands, and my understanding is that the commission uses this approval to obtain access concessions.
- refurb 12y ago
  So basically they'll refuse to provide valid permits because of another, completely unrelated issue in order to "get back" at him?
  - lutorm 12y ago
    In what sense is it unrelated if it relates to the property in question? Besides, if you are not in compliance with rules and regulations, it's generally a bad idea to go to the authorities and ask for something.
    - vilhelm_s 12y ago
      I guess in this sense (quoting Wikipedia): > The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the 1987 case of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission that if the state of California through its regulatory agency, the California Coastal Commission, thinks an easement on private land is a good idea and a valuable public purpose, they should use eminent domain and pay for it, as opposed to demanding concessions from a land owner in exchange for a building permit. The court considered that "an out and out plan of extortion" of property. In the case, the owners of beachfront property were required to grant an easement for public access to facilitate pedestrian access to public beaches as a condition of permit approval to enlarge their home. The court, in a narrow decision, ruled that an "essential nexus" must exist between the asserted "legitimate state interest” and the permit condition imposed by government.

quasque 12y ago

Sometimes I yearn for a benevolent AI to rise up and impose a communist state upon the world, employing robots to free humanity from its labours. This yearning mostly comes when I'm reminded that there are a small number of people who've not only managed to accumulate such an obscene amount of wealth that the title "billionaire" can be bestowed upon them, but that they use that wealth for predominantly selfish outcomes. And it's only going to get worse. When the enduring puzzle of longevity is finally cracked and death can be reliably cheated, it's not going to be those living in abject poverty, or the dogged grafters, or even the skilled professionals who benefit. No, it'll be that small group of rich and powerful who'll use it to further promote this monumental inequality of wealth. It's not the triviality of some beach access that is really the issue, it's just a distraction. It's this vile aristocracy of gold and greed that is the enduring problem, the manifestation of which is the source of countless suffering amongst humanity.

brc 12y ago
Communism? Really? Sorry, no thanks. I'm fine without being murdered by my own government for having unclean thoughts. Long live the individual.
- quasque 12y ago
  But if it was run by a benevolent robot intelligence rather than humans, it would probably work out really well. Indeed I think it would be about as close to utopian as we're ever going to get.
  - learc83 12y ago
    Yeah, but who get's to decide what's "benevolent" in the first place? One man's benevolent ruler is another's tyrannical despot.
    - quasque 12y ago
      That's a very interesting point. Perhaps, to ensure that a range of ethical frameworks have been taken into consideration (each with their varying ideas of what benevolence really means) a more equitable situation would be a plurality of utopias each with its own ruling AI? And free movement of individual humans to whichever aligns best to their own personal code of ethics.

rmason 12y ago

Did you know that Steve Blank is on the California Coastal Commission? Steve's positions on similar cases are well known. http://steveblank.com/2013/06/28/in-defense-of-unreasonableness-saving-the-california-coast/ http://steveblank.com/2013/06/28/in-defense-of-unreasonablen... This shapes up to be an epic battle among the two men, the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur. My money is on Steve.

jasonmonberg 12y ago
Unfortunately, it looks like Steve resigned from the commission as mentioned in that post and from the roster:http://www.coastal.ca.gov/roster.html http://www.coastal.ca.gov/roster.html Perhaps Steve will join the fray?

antifragile 12y ago

One makes money to make a living, but you only truly enrich your life if you share some of what you have .... there is no other way, everything else is delusion. I know, I tried hard the other way. Hmm. Sounds like someone whose tripped-over their own super ego. We must help him! Everyone get out! I'm going to call in for a tsunami to re-level the playing-field :-)