That’s possible, but it also seems likely that the HN crowd is used to existing in a space where a tiny fraction of good ideas succeed. Figuring that out requires an appropriately tuned sense of technology and the market, for which it is objectively reasonable to be skeptical of new things, especially when in a high point of the hype cycle. It’s also important to stay optimistic though…
> Think about the L7+ who built EC2, DDB, EBS, S3, SQS, and etc.
Does the average L7 person architect those services significantly, or just kinda maintain them? It's almost crazy to think about any old AWS employee (granted L7 is up there) conceiving those things, they've had such a massive impact on the ability to build things on the internet.
I'm not sure about those particular services, but in general the ground breaking and foundational things at the FANG and adjacent companies were convinced by people at much lower level than L7. It was a lot of L5-6 folks who then went on to be 7+ many years later.
While it seems clear that general vibe is trending to the negative, it's interesting to me that everyone has their own slant on it. My personal issue with Graham is that his writings are all trite common sense-isms dressed up as complicated analogies or profound insight. Like the way people claim Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field", as if the term "charisma" wasn't coined for good reason a billion years ago...
I mean, at least Andreessen communicates directly, even if he's out of touch and tone deaf.
Anyway, we all have our gripes, and I think this article is poorly written, and the original article it links to is even worse. Doing no service to the fact that the people currently orbiting our little hovel of geekdom leave a lot to be desired. Or maybe you think this rant is poorly written and misses the mark...
> Like the way people claim Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field", as if the term "charisma" wasn't coined for good reason
Back in the day that was called 'being charming', not 'charismatic', and it was an offense: you're being intentionally dishonest and manipulative. Now it just means it's cute. Language changes...
Being charming to old school Germans means you’re a scam artist/unauthentic.
Most ‘greatest generation’ folks (if they’re still alive) had a similar feeling/overtone.
Because it’s true - someone being charming is making themselves likable to be liked (selling themselves), instead of letting their warts show. Because at a minimum they want your company. And it often works.
Someone being grumpy and unpleasant probably doesn’t give a shit, eh? And isn’t trying to sell you anything. In fact, chances are they’d be happier if you didn’t buy anything, and left them alone.
> Like the way people claim Steve Jobs had a "reality distortion field", as if the term "charisma" wasn't coined for good reason a billion years ago...
Charisma is active - as in, the charismatic leader talks you into believing their bullshit. Reality distortion field is passive - as in, you hang out too much around the leader, or people hanging out around the leader, and you end up believing their bullshit.
> I’ll continue using my SE 1st Gen with 4 inch screen for as long as I can.
I held on for so long, but even with a healthy battery, modern apps just crush it. I'd open Uber and go from 100% to 60% by the time my ride arrived. Caved and bought the new SE and mostly hate it in all its giant rounded slipperiness.
> It feels like perpetual money laundering of shareholder value into contractors (and employees, honestly, too).
I've come to view the economics of tech this way too (although much more so true of contractors than employees). Workers are supposedly the downtrodden sucker class beneath BigWigs. But, if positioned the right way, workers can make out like absolute bandits, often at the expense of executives and majority shareholders. I've worked many useless, bloated projects that lined consultants' pockets before ending in layoff-inducing/executive-firing failure, projects that - ironically - were initiated at the behest of said executives themselves.
In a general sense, I don't really understand where the value is being generated in tech anymore. One of the higher-level things that has slowly gotten me disillusioned with the industry. Just a constant parade of companies either 1. never turning a profit or 2. milking one cash cow built in the 90s, both types of companies just churning stupid projects over and over so that engineers can write new things on their resumes and executives can go from Director to VP.
Yeah, noticed the same trend. Reflective of the overall, as you said.
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