Mastodawn

b_parkes Oct 18, 2023

🤔I have friends that absolutely hate Venture Capital. Hate the very concept. They believe that VC ruins everything, and that the setup is evil, and prioritizes hyper growth above everything. Some of these friends will drive over to my house just to sit me down and yell at me in unhinged rants about how evil VC is, scaring my kids.

If I think of the most unhinged, hyperbolic, doom and gloom rants about VC that I've ever heard? None of them paint VCs in worse light than Marc's manifesto.

I don't think that VC is necessarily bad. I think most of the problem is who gets to be a VC, and what they prioritize.

The National Science Foundation is effectively a VC firm. A crypto DAO is a co-op. NSF is decent. Crypto DAOs are fashy trash. For me, the issue is not "Co-op or VC."

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109982115166606787

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Again, I question the assumption that "VC" is bad, because by assets under management, the vast majority of VC money is controlled by Alt-Right, openly anti-democratic, anti-social, hyper capitalist, fascist adjacent men. These dudes make horrific, near genocidal decisions in everything they do. The bad part of "nazi bank" is nazi, not bank. We need banks. So I won't know if VC is bad until Eg, Black women get more than *checks notes* half of 1% of all VC assets to manage.

Hachyderm.io

Unrelated: I love how some people are like "Your friends that drive over to your house to yell at you in front of your kids, need to chill!"

And other people are like, "Nah, the kids need to hear this!"

Tim Kellogg Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke the hard part of parenting is knowing when the right time is to teach kids how complex the world really is. hint: it’s usually earlier than you think

Katerina Marchán Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke me, someone who is constantly shouting from the rooftops about how VC is the most evil ever:

your friends seriously need to chill

LisPi Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke I'm conflicted. On one hand they do... on the other hand maybe without the yelling?

Océane Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke Oh yes, there are definitely evil coops, just like there's evil free association (NPOs etc.), but then, as you say, it depends who (according to demographic data like your parents' and your job title, income, cultural capital, gender, race, location, disability, etc.)'s freely associating.

I think however that there's an overall consensus on the leftist aspect of free association; for example the law Le Chapelier has been used against unions in France (workers would get around this by organizing banquets to talk about their work conditions). And likewise, VC is generally bad – economic investments are generally meant to get other people to work for you, with a few exceptions, like Logseq or Lavabit. I bet republic.com makes this world a worse place overall, but investors themselves try to make this world a better place (for example by investing in greenwashing startups) and mission-driven companies can totally raise funds there.

A privacy-first, open-source knowledge base

A privacy-first, open-source platform for knowledge management and collaboration.

logseq

Océane Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke Here I'd compare republic.com to the homogeneous kind of social media rewarding you for maintaining a picture-perfect digital persona, Mastodon included, but whatever.

Jeff Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke It may be a cliché at this point, but I think it's useful to distinguish between Venture Capital, which is really nothing more than investing in start-up businesses with the expectation of a profitable return, a useful and arguably necessary service, and Vulture Capital, which is the side that does ruin businesses all in the name of maximizing profits for the already wealthy.

Carmen Bianca BAKKER Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke I don't think monarchs are necessarily bad. I think most of the problem is who gets to be king, and what they prioritise.

No, monarchs are bad. Monarchy is the worst form of government.

I've given examples of how the notion of "Invest in a speculative, high risk, low chance of success endeavour" can not be terrible. Specifically, I gave the example of National Science Foundation grants.

If you did "fix" monarchy by allowing different people to be chosen to be the monarch, well, then you've just invented democracy, which I think is pretty cool. 👍🏿

Carmen Bianca BAKKER Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke But you can choose who gets to be king just as much as who gets to be VC.

I'm not going to argue the point—it's a bit rude and twitter-y—but I think you can have a better argument in favour of VCs than the tired argument that monarchists use; "it works great when the king/VC is a Good Person".

No, you can't just choose who gets to be VC. Do you think that there are so few Black VCs because Black folk just choose not to be VCs?

We don't have to agree on this! FWIW, My friends that come over to my house to yell at me, agree with you.

🤔Sorry, I just re-read what you wrote, and you're saying the same thing as me: you can't choose VCs under the current system, any more than you can choose monarchs under monarchy.

jvluso Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke @carmenbianca nsf vs billionaire vcs is also analogous to democracy vs monarchy. The nsf is a federal agency which is accountable to democratically elected officials. Billionaire VCs are accountable only to themselves.

@mekkaokereke @carmenbianca well if you can choose monarchs it's not monarchy, and if you can choose VC it's not capitalism.

Carmen Bianca BAKKER Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke I'm sorry, maybe I'm a little thick here, but aren't you making my point for me here? VCs being an exclusive, exclusionary class is bad, and you're demonstrating why.

edit: I missed a message by you oops. We agree, kind of.

Hana Lee | 이하나 Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke To be fair, there are a lot of problems with how the NSF distributes grant money too, with the bulk of funds going to senior investigators (who are older and whiter) and the way it influences which areas of research get considered important. But at least "investments" are made with the intention of furthering the public good.

klausfiend has moved Oct 18, 2023

@hana @mekkaokereke It's also become progressively more difficult to get grant money; my partner used to work for a world class pediatric HIV researcher who was considered to have a "good" hit rate for funding, and that was still only roughly 1 in 10 grant applications; funding for pure research is seen less favorably than research that already has an application or use case.

jack the nonabrasive Oct 18, 2023

This seems a very loose definition of VC. NSF takes no equity stake in the wealth produced. It demands no board seat. It requires the opposite transparency policy of the VC’s NDA.

The only thing the NSF has in common with VC is that it trades money for access. The rules around access, and the type of access, makes all the difference. One is oriented towards the common good, the other towards private enrichment.

Of course it's a loose comparison! Tongue in cheek.

In terms of equity, NSF is the US government. The US government gets direct tax revenue from the wealth generated, and indirect tax revenue from keeping the US ahead of other countries in terms of research. It boosts our industries. It also attracts many of the best and brightest scientists from around the world to the US.

That's a significant "return" for funding a few research projects.

jack the nonabrasive Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke I’m not sure that describing a government service, created for the common good after 150 years of public laissez-faire towards anything but war-related research, as a capitslist tool is productive. The framing is to the viewpoint of the capitalist side, and ignores the very real, fundamental differences in philosophy. And it’s pretty clear mych NSF funding would never happen thru VC.

You have a real comparison available: the CIA’s venture funding arm: In-Q-Tel.

jack the nonabrasive Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke There are some very generous provisions in the tax code for the wealth generated. After all, the wealthy pretty much write the tax code, and every act of capitalism starts with an act of theft. In this case, research results that get appropriated for private use and wrapped in a web of hard-to-untangle proximate IP claims.

A case could be made that the USA gets tax revenue from the labor of the workers in the industries, if net new worker income is created.

Marc Scheffel Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke please stop posting such reasoned and informed posts. You are ruining the internet.

Chad Geidel Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke It seems that who is providing the capital is the distinguishing factor.

But I'm repeating the obvious. :)

calcifer 🧯Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke disagree that NSF is a VC firm, even a little. A VC firm is looking for a monetary return through org value. There are other kinds of investment, and the NSF model is looking for advancement of knowledge and technology irrespective of profit. Non-VC investors include people who want to bet on long-term sustainable businesses (a dying breed these days)

🤔 Irrespective of profit?

The second bullet in NSF's mission statement is literally "Advance the national health, prosperity and welfare."

Key word being "prosperity."

And there's no rule saying that VCs have to make money that way.

I love how my cheeky little NSF vs VC comparison is causing folks to really think about what VC could be, if it weren't run by the Atlas Shrugged book club.

calcifer 🧯Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke prosperity and profit aren’t the same thing, despite what the ancaps tell you. The NSF doesn’t (and in fact cannot) profit from its investments.

The fundamental issue I have is that you seem to be conflating“VC”—a specific style of investment with specific goals—while talking about a much broader range of investment types.

VC is by definition private (the NSF is not), growth-focused (rather than sustainability or innovation focused), and high-risk for chance of high investor profit (rather than high-risk for chance of high public good). If you think there’s a place for that, fine let’s talk about that. But don’t pretend that every kind of risky investment is the same as VC, that’s dishonest; and the idea that public investment focused on innovation and public good is the same as private investment focused on value growth and maximizing investor profit are equivalent is absurd

Tim Kellogg Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke 💀

Ariadne Conill 🐰

@mekkaokereke the worrying thing is, this is literally how a16z pitch themselves to companies looking to do a round. and they are closing rounds, which means there are founders out there who uhh, hear this crazy stuff, and are like "checks out 👍"

Thomas Depierre Oct 18, 2023

@ariadne @mekkaokereke i mean by my last estimate, approx 10 to 20% of the whole software engineering side of SV was at least passive followers that internalised the whole LW adhacents creed in their beliefs.

The Damore shitshow was an incredible way to do some data gathering on that. Crypto too. "AI" too. Same people.

The latest DORA state of DevOps correlate these numbers, if we take the "AI will change everything" true believers as a proxy... Which i do.

Ariadne Conill 🐰

@Di4na @mekkaokereke

i would say for SV specifically, it is more around 40%.

i will say that outside of the "we want a unicorn" VC category, there are still VCs that will make smaller bets

Thomas Depierre Oct 18, 2023

@ariadne @mekkaokereke i mean i have had a hard time finding them when i was trying. So i stopped trying.

40% feels a bit high, but not unrealistic.

J Λ M Ξ S Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke i bet none of them are funnier than my old band, Adventure Capitalists

https://soundcloud.com/adventurecapitalists/sets/unicore

Unicore

The 2nd EP from Adventure Capitalists

SoundCloud

Fear and Tooting in Las Vegas Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke It’s funny (sure, we’ll go with “funny” as the description) that as many, many others have noted when you have something that grows aggressively in your body we call it cancer and poison you to kill it off, but when it’s a company we wring our hands that we’re not doing enough to fuel the fire and it would just be wrong to try and limit it in any way.

djohngo Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke You're going to make me read it, aren't you. I really don't want to read it.

Serge from Babka Oct 18, 2023

People drive to your house to rant at you about venture capitalists???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUL7q8eyig8

William Shatner offers sage advice - "Get a life."

Many people take some TV programs and movies too seriously. Perhaps they don't truly realize that these programs and movies are not real - they are fictitiou...

YouTube

Rachel Greenham Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke i gotta say though, assuming that's not rhetorical flourish, some of your friends could stand to chill a *little* bit. :-) it's not as if you seem like someone who needs to be convinced *that* badly!

Finley Ⓥ Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke This sounds like something a person who believes in "tech ethics", "sustainability", and "social responsibility" would say

THIS ACCOUNT HAS MOVED Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke lol

ScottS Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke It seems that what you value and what your friends value are two different things. Consider finding new friends.

Mark T. Tomczak Oct 18, 2023

@mekkaokereke It is easily one of the most tone-deaf things I've read in the past three years. Rarely does one see something so apparently earnestly given as an optimistic vision, so easy to interpret as a dystopia blueprint.

If you don't support my desire to pursue hyper growth without even considering how I might be negatively impacting society, then you are a pessimist! 🤡

@mekkaokereke So, instead of an evil megacorporation of the dystopian future, we might get an evil megacooperative of the dystopian future?

You joke, but that's pretty much exactly what crypto was. The same long-termist dudes, co-opting the language of financial inclusion, co-operatives and decentralization, to run the same old scam: unregulated securities and lending to poor Black Americans.