Longtime entrepreneur and critic Anil Dash speaks with Gazetteer on where the tech industry has been and where it may be going.

“I talk to young founders these days and for them, there’s no other world than the Trump world. I ask them what inspired them to go into tech and they say they read Marc Andreessen’s manifesto, they read Peter Thiel’s books, and I think, “Oh, your brain’s cooked.” They come in pre-pickled. But everyone else who could have told an alternate narrative has been hounded out of the industry.”

  • Rekall Incorporated@piefed.socialEnglish
    70·
    1 day ago

    There is a silver lining to all this, an opportunity for the rest of the world to embrace new models (open competitive markets, truly customer-focused services) that go beyond the American cult of the pompous, regressive oligarch. Not saying it will happen tomorrow or in an utopian fairy tale manner, but history tends to be cyclical.

    To get to the next peak, you have to hit bottom first.

    A side note, check out Marc Andreessen’s “manifesto”:

    https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/

    This is a “teenager just discovered speed” level of sophomoric writing.

    This is a good thing, it means with the right kind of pressure he will fold as he doesn’t believe in what he is writing.

    • Peppycito@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      23·
      20 hours ago

      I lost interest here

      We believe in Milton Friedman’s observation that human wants and needs are infinite.

      We believe markets also increase societal well being by generating work in which people can productively engage. We believe a Universal Basic Income would turn people into zoo animals to be farmed by the state. Man was not meant to be farmed; man was meant to be useful, to be productive, to be proud.

      We believe technological change, far from reducing the need for human work, increases it, by broadening the scope of what humans can productively do.

      We believe that since human wants and needs are infinite, economic demand is infinite, and job growth can continue forever

      If human wants and needs are infinite, why do they turn off when our basic needs are met?

      This reads like a “I am so smart” post.

      • Rekall Incorporated@piefed.socialEnglish
        20·
        20 hours ago

        This is a “teenager just discovered speed” level of sophomoric writing.

        It really is. It’s almost reads like a parody of a regressive oligarch.

    • Coolcoder360@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      21 hours ago

      We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.

      Um. Hmm. Pretty sure that didn’t work and those in politics are raising armies and not doing peaceful pursuits…

      Also a lot of the stuff about willing buyer and seller assumes that the buyer has options, I don’t think from the perspective of real people that everyone has that many options, so they end up with loans or other things which are not good, just to be able to afford vehicles to get to work or a place to live.

      So a lot if this seems written by a rich person who has always been able to buy everything they needed and more, not someone who is having to go take loans or go into debt just to be able to get to work.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        16 hours ago

        It also assumes the seller has options. It’s true when the field is equal but Amazon and Walmart both famously squeeze their suppliers to pain and everybody screws their laborers