Comment by rebootthesystem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rebootthesystem | Hacker News Reader

rebootthesystem

The China part bugs me.

Why?

First, there's plenty of money in he US and Europe. I feel they could have worked a bit harder to secure non-Chinese funding.

Second, like it or not the world is engaged in an economic war with China. The industrial bases in the US and Europe have been destroyed to the point that entrepreneurs have trouble finding such things as machines to sew socks. Issues abound across a myriad of industrial segments.

While some in the western world might be all hippie/feel-good about China this is at the cost of ignoring what has been going on. Before you call me a paranoid asshole consider I've been manufacturing products in the US for over thirty years. During that time I have seen, first hand, what the reality of manufacturing has become. Over the years I've seen vendor after vendor systematically taken out by China's expansion into every nook and cranny of industry, even in areas you'd think make no sense.

Now the Chinese are going to insert "probes" into thousands of startups by means of providing insignificant (to them) funding. This will give them unparalleled visibility into trends, products and whole new industries ripe for pillaging.

AngelList is a fantastic resource. I am sure they could have made an effort to source this fund in the US and Europe. In the grand scheme of things $400 million is not that much money with the clout AngelList has, particularly if spread across a range of investors. I, for one, would not want to have a Chinese investor.

Down-vote away.

Even taking your skepticism about Chinese investment at face value, having LP involvement is tremendously different from operational involvement or investment committee involvement.

Having been involved in LP reporting at a seed fund, I can say that it happens regularly but infrequently (quarterly, or at most monthly) and at a 30,000 foot level. I've really never seen LPs interact with portfolio companies at a seed stage, beyond chatting at a cocktail party after the annual meeting.

Besides, given the nature of the platform, if they're looking into trends and products, isn't that information publicly available (this is just adding money behind the top syndicate deals on AngelList)?

You are probably absolutely correct. Yet, based on watching what's gone on with China from my front seat in manufacturing I can't help but remember a multitude of instances where someone said something akin to "what's the big deal with having them ..." and few years later they are out of business or hooked to China in a big way.

China looks at things at a different time scale than we do. Among other things, companies can sell at insane prices because they make their profit at the end of the year when the Chinese government hands out 15% "bonuses" on their exports. I've been in businesses where a 15% net at the end of the year would have been a dream.

When you are dealing with someone who has been systematically eroding your industrial base over decades you have to, at one point, take pause. I know I might come off as paranoid, I get that. There's a reason for that. I have experienced the "China effect" personally. It can be absolutely devastating. And nobody is doing a thing about it (not sure it is possible to any more).

> Down-vote away.

Please follow the last guideline at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You are absolutely correct, of course. My apologies.

Let me offer my opinion on where this sort of thing comes from.

Why would someone say something like that?

Well, because voting on HN (and other platforms) is still broken. People will down-vote you simply because they don't like what you are saying or if you are saying something that paints a different light on their hero, ideology, etc. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the strength or quality of the argument at all. And, because of this, it also does not open the doors for discussions.

For those of us who might not align with the most prevalent culture on HN (pick a topic, there's a favored ideology) this can be rather frustrating at times. You have rules for all sorts of things but no enforceable rules for when and how to down-vote and people don't have to justify their down-vote in any way at all. I have the ability to down-vote yet I don't remember when and if I have ever exercised it. Because, for the most part, I don't feel it is a fair system.

Personally, I think down-voting ought to be eliminated because it is conducive to emotional or ideological abuse, particularly by the younger members of the audience. Up-voting is a far more positive type of engagement and one where if you don't like the argument you simply do nothing about it or pick the one you think might be better. With software limiting such things as rate-of-voting and mass up-voting one could make it far more civil. For example, a reader might get only two or five up-votes per thread or some such thing.

Sometimes you look at topics where, perhaps, you'd like to contribute some experience and the first thought is "crap, if I write anything on this I am going to be showered with down-votes" and that's where, sometimes, making that comment comes from.

I would urge you to view such comments not as rules violations but rather a symptom of something that might need to be addressed.

Facebook is dealing with this right now with their like/don't-like voting system. Their reasons and platform are different, of course.

Learning does not happen when everyone agrees with you. A healthy dose of counterpoint is how you learn. I know it's difficult to manage these kinds of fora, I've done it in the past, back in USENET days, and it was a nightmare. Your job isn't easy. Just take what I said as constructive criticism and nothing more. HN is excellent, so you are doing something right.

Thanks.

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