Comment by dcposch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dcposch | Hacker News Reader

Great writing. It definitely hits on some truth and calls out hypocrisies and absurdities that deserve to be called out.

Overall, though, I think this is unnecessarily negative.

I think you've got to keep some perspective. There are about eight billion people in the world. 7.9 billion of them would probably give almost anything to enjoy the lifestyle she so eloquently disparages.

> I lean in and go to a panel on big data. There are two venture capitalists onstage, dressed identically. They are exceptionally sweaty. [...] It’s like watching two ATMs in conversation.

> The food is served in sturdy tinfoil troughs, and people race to be first in line for self-serve. [It's] well worth someone else’s money, and every afternoon I shovel it into my body

So you viscerally dislike VCs, but you're cool with VC-funded startup perks.

> My roommate works down on the Peninsula, for a website that everyone loathes but no one can stop using.

So you also dislike Facebook, and you assume the other billion people using Facebook dislike it as well. You disapprove of your roommate's choice of job, you think they're wasting their time working on "a website that everyone loathes". Everything is terrible.

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Her writing reminds me of Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky -- two other writers that I respect, but who share a bad habit of hating on anything connected to money, ambition, or technologically driven human progress.

Just because it's a lifestyle that many people would kill to have doesn't mean it's actually worthwhile. It just means it's well marketed. Like living and working in Hollywood, or being a banker in London.

If you drink the koolaid AND you get really lucky, you get to have a profitable business that changes the world for the better. For most, it's actually a job like anything else, just with the added expectation of utter devotion and unwavering belief.

I think her point is that despite the perks, she's just "shoveling it into her body", all of it, and can't quite get over the uncanniness of it all.

Also, I thought Facebook at first too, and thought it was a bit strong, then realized she was talking about LinkedIn.

>>So you viscerally dislike VCs, but you're cool with VC-funded startup perks. >>Everything is terrible.

Hey man, life is complicated. People are complicated. Winning is losing. Peace is war. Love is hate.

The author does an absolutely riveting job of evoking all of the mixed-feelings that make up our day-to-day lives. Kudos to her for doing it in such a lovely piece: personal and vulnerable and at the same time so clinical and cynical. Beautifully written.

> Her writing reminds me of Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky -- two other writers that I respect, but who share a bad habit of hating on anything connected to money, ambition, or technologically driven human progress.

Yup, similar problem with "Debt" by David Graeber, it's eloquent and well argued up until the point where he gradually slips into blaming just about all thinkable ills on money and harkens back to a more 'fair' past where people from different tribes simply killed and raped each other instead of selling one another off as slaves [sic].

I personally saw it as the author sharing experiences they found humourous/absurd rather making value judgements. At least, that's the impression I got from the writing style.

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