I think the author suffers from the availability heuristic. They notice famous people who have lots of money and power because famous people are, well, noticeable. They don't notice people with...
I think the author suffers from the availability heuristic. They notice famous people who have lots of money and power because famous people are, well, noticeable. They don't notice people with money and power who have obtained it the old-fashioned way and don't explicitly seek attention; for example, those born to wealthy families, or the CEOs of "boring" companies like finance, insurance, etc. I'm confident that the latter far outnumber the former.
Their examples also don't really help their case:
Tesla was not "just a meme"; it was the first company to really popularize the electric vehicle, which is a genuine good thing because it helps the environment. It's also suffering financially despite constantly being in the news, possibly more than ever and/or because of it's (negative) publicity.
Meme stocks like GME have seen occasional success, but are dwarfed by real companies. Even Bitcoin's market cap (~$2.3 trillion last I checked) is dwarfed by the S&P 500 (~$49.8 trillion). One exception: you can get far richer investing in a meme cryptocoin than a reliable stock or government bond, if you're lucky (or in on the grift). But only if; most people statistically would be better off with the "boring" reliable stocks.
VCs like Y Combinator support the author's argument the most, because their entire function is investing in companies based on their appearance. And indeed, YC has invested in some companies which put all effort into appearance and none into content, like PearAI, the company which simply cloned an OSS project and rebranded it. However VC isn't the only way for startups to succeed, and directing all energy towards marketing isn't the only way to appeal to VCs. There are a lot of AI companies in YC's 2025 batch, but how many will still be around in 5-10 years? I can't say, but suspect those who remain will be those with real engineering talent, not the shiny ChatGPT wrappers.
Donald Trump didn't only win because of social media. While nobody can quantify how much it contributed, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had many vocal online supporters themselves, and their campaign failed for other reasons (among them: Biden dropping out late, and incumbent governments (including right-wing ones) lost almost everywhere).
Paul Graham, the founder of YC, lays out in an essay YC's black swan farming approach. They fund lots of startups with the expectation that most won't make it, but the very few that do will...
VCs like Y Combinator support the author's argument the most, because their entire function is investing in companies based on their appearance... There are a lot of AI companies in YC's 2025 batch, but how many will still be around in 5-10 years?
Paul Graham, the founder of YC, lays out in an essay YC's black swan farming approach. They fund lots of startups with the expectation that most won't make it, but the very few that do will generate huge payoffs, enough to cover all the failures.
Agree with them or not, YC has had 20 years of success. A fund could fake it for a year or few until they burn out, but it takes real sauce to keep going for so long.
VC funds are weird, in that once they get big enough they can depend on their own reputation to create a positive feedback loop, in which they attract the smartest founders and also increase the...
VC funds are weird, in that once they get big enough they can depend on their own reputation to create a positive feedback loop, in which they attract the smartest founders and also increase the odds of others investing in their co's
(this is cribbed from an old blogpost which I read recently and got convinced)
This seems like its sort of confusing the societal result of a new communication technology with something that humans always did, give resources to famous people. I work in tech, and I cannot get...
This seems like its sort of confusing the societal result of a new communication technology with something that humans always did, give resources to famous people.
I work in tech, and I cannot get a promotion by doing my job. Instead, I have to get promotions by specifically not doing my job, and instead making pretty pictures about my job and showing those pictures to management. I could just make the pictures and not do any actual work, and some people do that and they get promoted.
This is true everywhere. All of it is a shallow performance. If they ran with actors instead of politicians they’d win every time.
After spending a few years in big tech, it's absolutely astounding to me that any big tech companies function at all - and it's for this exact reason. Being good at your job is almost a detriment....
I work in tech, and I cannot get a promotion by doing my job. Instead, I have to get promotions by specifically not doing my job, and instead making pretty pictures about my job and showing those pictures to management.
After spending a few years in big tech, it's absolutely astounding to me that any big tech companies function at all - and it's for this exact reason. Being good at your job is almost a detriment. I think the only thing keeping many of them afloat is that they truly are too big to fail and have strong monopolies over whatever specific niche they fill.
Just about every multimillion idea is predicated on making enough money that you could ram your face into the ground everywhere else and still make money. There's very few companies that run...
Just about every multimillion idea is predicated on making enough money that you could ram your face into the ground everywhere else and still make money.
There's very few companies that run anything close to efficiently or lean that are anywhere near the fortune 500.
I think the author suffers from the availability heuristic. They notice famous people who have lots of money and power because famous people are, well, noticeable. They don't notice people with money and power who have obtained it the old-fashioned way and don't explicitly seek attention; for example, those born to wealthy families, or the CEOs of "boring" companies like finance, insurance, etc. I'm confident that the latter far outnumber the former.
Their examples also don't really help their case:
Tesla was not "just a meme"; it was the first company to really popularize the electric vehicle, which is a genuine good thing because it helps the environment. It's also suffering financially despite constantly being in the news, possibly more than ever and/or because of it's (negative) publicity.
Meme stocks like GME have seen occasional success, but are dwarfed by real companies. Even Bitcoin's market cap (~$2.3 trillion last I checked) is dwarfed by the S&P 500 (~$49.8 trillion). One exception: you can get far richer investing in a meme cryptocoin than a reliable stock or government bond, if you're lucky (or in on the grift). But only if; most people statistically would be better off with the "boring" reliable stocks.
VCs like Y Combinator support the author's argument the most, because their entire function is investing in companies based on their appearance. And indeed, YC has invested in some companies which put all effort into appearance and none into content, like PearAI, the company which simply cloned an OSS project and rebranded it. However VC isn't the only way for startups to succeed, and directing all energy towards marketing isn't the only way to appeal to VCs. There are a lot of AI companies in YC's 2025 batch, but how many will still be around in 5-10 years? I can't say, but suspect those who remain will be those with real engineering talent, not the shiny ChatGPT wrappers.
Donald Trump didn't only win because of social media. While nobody can quantify how much it contributed, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had many vocal online supporters themselves, and their campaign failed for other reasons (among them: Biden dropping out late, and incumbent governments (including right-wing ones) lost almost everywhere).
Lastly, Elon Musk is the "richest" man in the world (as in, he is the single person with the highest net worth according to Forbes), but he isn't the most powerful. There are families with more combined net worth, people in government positions, and sometimes both (for example, the royal family of Saudi Arabia). Also, Elon Musk's xAI and Sam Altman's OpenAI aren't the only leading AI companies, there's also Anthropic (whose CEO isn't nearly as well-known), Google, DeepSeek, and others.
Paul Graham, the founder of YC, lays out in an essay YC's black swan farming approach. They fund lots of startups with the expectation that most won't make it, but the very few that do will generate huge payoffs, enough to cover all the failures.
Furthermore, YC is more interested in investing in founders, rather than ideas. They do look at traditional signals like education and work history (Stanford, Google, etc.) but they mainly look for people who show grit, determination, flexibility, and naughtiness / willingness to bend rules.
Agree with them or not, YC has had 20 years of success. A fund could fake it for a year or few until they burn out, but it takes real sauce to keep going for so long.
VC funds are weird, in that once they get big enough they can depend on their own reputation to create a positive feedback loop, in which they attract the smartest founders and also increase the odds of others investing in their co's
(this is cribbed from an old blogpost which I read recently and got convinced)
This seems like its sort of confusing the societal result of a new communication technology with something that humans always did, give resources to famous people.
I work in tech, and I cannot get a promotion by doing my job. Instead, I have to get promotions by specifically not doing my job, and instead making pretty pictures about my job and showing those pictures to management. I could just make the pictures and not do any actual work, and some people do that and they get promoted.
This is true everywhere. All of it is a shallow performance. If they ran with actors instead of politicians they’d win every time.
After spending a few years in big tech, it's absolutely astounding to me that any big tech companies function at all - and it's for this exact reason. Being good at your job is almost a detriment. I think the only thing keeping many of them afloat is that they truly are too big to fail and have strong monopolies over whatever specific niche they fill.
They stay afloat by taking advantage of people like me who actually care about the quality of work we produce.
Just about every multimillion idea is predicated on making enough money that you could ram your face into the ground everywhere else and still make money.
There's very few companies that run anything close to efficiently or lean that are anywhere near the fortune 500.