Read on Twitter
My startup CEO has sent us something to read, https://stratechery.com/2020/how-tech-can-build/ which is a response/follow-up to https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/
So here is me reading both of them. Gangway.
So here is me reading both of them. Gangway.
"This monumental failure of institutional effectiveness will reverberate for the rest of the decade" Could be talking about anything really but it's COVID-19 so he's less wrong than otherwise
"the problem runs deeper than your favorite political opponent or your home nation" cheers, good so far, if still very very handwavey
"Part of the problem is clearly...a failure of imagination. But the other part of the problem is ...our widespread inability to *build*." Um k
"Part of the problem is clearly...a failure of imagination. But the other part of the problem is ...our widespread inability to *build*." Um k
So far I'm hearing "I want to talk about X, let's start by talking about the topic of the day so we can redirect to where I want to go" which is common but not exciting
Ok, a list of medical items which are scarce in the USA right now, and a reference to https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-seeks-rain-ponchos-as-surgical-gowns-dwindle-11586821702
Ok, a list of medical items which are scarce in the USA right now, and a reference to https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-seeks-rain-ponchos-as-surgical-gowns-dwindle-11586821702
"We also don’t have therapies or a vaccine — despite, again, years of advance warning about bat-borne coronaviruses" I don't think that's quite how vaccines work but I'm not an expert (and neither is he, altho I hope he had one as a copyeditor I hope I hope?)
"it took scientists 5 years to get regulatory testing approval for the new Ebola vaccine after that scourge’s 2014 outbreak" I'm not going to check this citation but it does sound kind of like the USA drug approval process. He doesn't mention USA specificity ofc
"A government that collects money from all its citizens and businesses each year has never built a system to distribute money to us when it’s needed most." Very true although it ignores EBT/SNAP/WIC disbursements, which have been done (and work). USA banking has no secure-send
I know the saying, but this is a meaningless comparison of different kinds of hard. Building durable systems is actually very hard. "Medical equipment and financial conduits involve no rocket science whatsoever. At least therapies and vaccines are hard!"
"We can’t build nearly enough housing...crazily skyrocketing housing prices in places like San Francisco, making it nearly impossible for regular people to move in and take the jobs of the future" true. Partially because of you and your funded companies, but eh everyone does it
He shoutouts to Singapore city planning
"The last major innovation in K-12 education was Montessori, which traces back to the 1960s" interesting, I wonder what criteria he's using
He uses "why haven’t we" as if he doesn't know that the answer is "because no one would profit"
"The last major innovation in K-12 education was Montessori, which traces back to the 1960s" interesting, I wonder what criteria he's using
He uses "why haven’t we" as if he doesn't know that the answer is "because no one would profit"
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, American manufacturing output is higher than ever, but why has so much manufacturing been offshored to places with cheaper manual labor" man please cite your sources, any sources. This thing needs footnotes or it's just bloviating.
The fanboying
"Why aren’t we building Elon Musk’s “alien dreadnoughts” — giant, gleaming, state of the art factories producing every conceivable kind of product, at the highest possible quality and lowest possible cost — all throughout our country?"
"Why aren’t we building Elon Musk’s “alien dreadnoughts” — giant, gleaming, state of the art factories producing every conceivable kind of product, at the highest possible quality and lowest possible cost — all throughout our country?"
"Where are the supersonic aircraft?" Check out https://boomsupersonic.com/ they rock
And also because building safe new aircraft is hard yo
And also because building safe new aircraft is hard yo
"Is the problem capitalism? I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know" Ok that is a genuinely hot take. If you're going to provide any references, do this one first because it is entirely unsupported at the moment
"Is the problem technical competence? Clearly not, or we wouldn’t have the homes and skyscrapers, schools and hospitals, cars and trains, computers and smartphones, that we already have."
You are deeply confusing different kinds of competence and difference kinds of "technical"
You are deeply confusing different kinds of competence and difference kinds of "technical"
What kind of right are you referring to here? It's not the kind I've seen in the news. "starts out in a more natural, albeit compromised, place. The right is generally pro production...corrupted by forces that hold back market-based competition and the building of things"
"It’s time for full-throated, unapologetic, uncompromised political support from the right for aggressive investment in new products, in new industries, in new factories, in new science, in big leaps forward." I like it, but I worry it's code for "pave over the wetland habitats"
Milton Freedman quote, challenge to "the left" to prove that "the public sector" (definition: the part of an economy that is controlled by the government) can produce good results. Lots of exclamation marks. Does he realize that government is not under the control of "the left"
"Even private universities like Harvard are lavished with public funding; why can’t 100,000 or 1 million students a year attend Harvard?" I mean, it would certainly improve job prospects for grad students, which would be nice.
"energy experts say that all carbon-based electrical power generation on the planet could be replaced by a few thousand new zero-emission nuclear reactors, so let’s build those" Someone has forgotten about the current regulatory environment and/or wants civil disobedience?
He asks "What’s the American dream?" and answers "The opportunity to have a home of your own, and a family you can provide for." which uh I disagree with kind of a lot, but it's good that he's defining one of his term. s
[side note: I kind of wish there was a market for paying me to spend the ~12 hours of my life it would take to add full citations for all these references, but software pays better and journalists have better skillz]
"We need to demand more of our political leaders, of our CEOs, our entrepreneurs, our investors." And "we" is...
Who can demand of a CEO? News media, and board members.
Of entrepreneurs? Their funders.
Of investors? Their board members and stockholders.
Who can demand of a CEO? News media, and board members.
Of entrepreneurs? Their funders.
Of investors? Their board members and stockholders.
"If the work you’re doing isn’t either leading to something being built or taking care of people directly, we’ve failed you, and we need to get you into a position, an occupation, a career where you can contribute to building." paternalistic much- who are you, central planning?
"I expect this essay to be the target of criticism. Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! What do you think we should build? There’s an excellent chance I’ll agree with you." Are we really citing Tom Swift here
And also- what kind of criticism are you expecting? "building is bad" unlikely. "subverting regulations is hard" probably, but no defense is offered. Challenging the critic to do the work to write something equivalent makes it harder to be "a valid critic" -> less effort to rebut
"Our nation and our civilization were built on" yes yes, an attempt at https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/25/sea/ lovely
"Our forefathers and foremothers" how fucking hard is it to say "forebearers" like someone who cares about not being an ass about gender https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forebearer
yadda yadda it ends with more inspirational nice words
Ok, overall rating: 4/10, it gets points for good copyediting and not overtly terrible sentiment, loses points for complete lack of useful content other than "we want to fund stuff, like us" https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/
Ok, overall rating: 4/10, it gets points for good copyediting and not overtly terrible sentiment, loses points for complete lack of useful content other than "we want to fund stuff, like us" https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/
I could be more humble and subservient I guess, half the companies I might want to work at this decade want to keep this dude happy.
OKAY onwards to bloviation number two https://stratechery.com/2020/how-tech-can-build/
"It was, at first glance, hard to understand how anyone could be upset at the idea that" yes very brownnosing good job
"It was, at first glance, hard to understand how anyone could be upset at the idea that" yes very brownnosing good job
"Andreessen’s article was meaningful...for arguing for the action of building as an end goal in and of itself." That sounds like a bad idea actually, the end goal is human life and happiness, not extra masks.
Now for "Andreessen and Me", explaining why they are both cool USA midwest-to-SF dudes 
"For me, the Internet was a way out, first to learn, and then to live abroad, and now, a way to make a living." appealing to the past unhappy geek children. Discussing USA from "abroad" lol
"For me, the Internet was a way out, first to learn, and then to live abroad, and now, a way to make a living." appealing to the past unhappy geek children. Discussing USA from "abroad" lol
Now a long quote from an older famous essay, followed by "Andreessen was right, which was good for him for lots of reasons. First, it’s good to be right generally, and even better to write the defining piece of an era." b r o w n n o s
anyway
yep software is a hot target for VC$
anyway
yep software is a hot target for VC$
"software...has significant capital costs, and mostly zero marginal costs" That "capital" cost is paying people like me to build it. That "mostly zero marginal cost" is not paying people to maintain it, and not paying much for customer support to support the users.
More links (yay links!) to the author's previous articles, to get more clicks, and A's stuff, to get more VC brownie points
Now quoting an interview w/ A, saying how great Airbnb is (sorry about that COVID-19 revenue-downturn
)
Now quoting an interview w/ A, saying how great Airbnb is (sorry about that COVID-19 revenue-downturn
)
"Software eating the world, with zero marginal costs, all from Silicon Valley." Ok that is just amazingly USA-centric for someone who lives elsewhere and presumably should know that other places exist and have cool tech utopias also
More complimenting A, "has done more than anyone"
A quote- "Amazon drove Borders out of business...majority of Borders employees are not qualified to work at Amazon..." wow, uh, ouch. Are you talking software developers, or bookstore staff, or...?
A quote- "Amazon drove Borders out of business...majority of Borders employees are not qualified to work at Amazon..." wow, uh, ouch. Are you talking software developers, or bookstore staff, or...?
"my childhood bookstore was something you had to drive an hour to get to. But it was a Waldenbooks, and it was, like, 800 square feet, and it sold almost nothing that you would actually want to read" LIBRARIES HAVE YOU HEARD OF THEM
tweet break for pagerdoody
everything's fine, this is what autoscaling is for
Oh wait we don't have that
welp, onwards
Oh wait we don't have that
welp, onwards
"tech’s seeming exclusivity on innovation" WOW that seems very I-am-in-an-info-bubble
I mean, maybe "tech" here includes physical objects in addition to the software he was talking about up until this sentence?
I mean, maybe "tech" here includes physical objects in addition to the software he was talking about up until this sentence?
An admission that software can have a hard time affecting the world "tech too has chosen the easier path. Instead of fighting inertia or regulatory capture...retreat to Silicon Valley...inifinite-upside outcomes predicated on zero marginal costs"
"tech should embrace and accelerate distributed work...dramatically decreases the cost of living for employees" yep cheers, if nothing else we all now know how much we love working from home >.<
"It creates the conditions for more stable companies that can take on less risky yet still necessary opportunities that may throw off a nice dividend instead of an IPO." Yep, DHH et al wrote a whole book about that, nice of you to catch up https://smile.amazon.com/Doesnt-Have-Be-Crazy-Work/dp/0062874780
"The possibilties[sic], at least once you let go of the requirement for 90% gross margins, are endless." YEP, VCs who don't need IPOs would be a true innovation, pity about that
"[A] has thought more about how to change venture capital than anyone else" WOW mate are you trying to get hired in PR or do you really believe this?
"We need to figure out how to fix Wisconsin, not flee from it" Man I think you are not going to get the keys to Madison city out of that one, ouch
"We need to figure out how to build real businesses that build real things" You're right, but BOY are you late. About a dozen thousand crappy VC startups ago, maybe SV could have had some credibility for having sense.
Anyway, to summarize: I read the things, I agree with some small bits of them, mostly it is just the kind of useless clickbait that is for the purpose of increasing the visibility of the authors and the strength of their reputations.
I should do some of that myself someday but I would rather languish in obscurity and get my fun from building things and working with people. Hire me for your software, not your blogposts.
