There seems to be a specific rare phenotype for these tech high-risk takers (thinking of John McAfee also).
Yes, there is more to the story, but I don't see how AirBnB could've ever become what it is today (even if it's doing poorly now because of covid and other factors) without some unethical "growth hacking."
In my experience, very few successful tech founders are what I would consider admirable people (obviously anecdotal and subjective). In addition to people like Zuckerberg, Silicon Valley attracts straight up con (wo)men like Adam Neumann and Elizabeth Holmes.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/26/airbnb-co-founder-nathan-ble...
https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-co-founders-freshman-...
I think the comparison you are making, and asserting that this is a “phenotype” common in tech leaders, is baseless and silly.
Blanket 'good' and 'bad' designations are often a little reductive for what are complicated human beings who do both 'good' and 'bad' things across their lifetimes.
Publicly supporting the US-backed coup in Bolivia comes to mind. [1]
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200725040621/https://twitter.c...
Bill Gates isn’t a psychopath like McAfee - and more to the point, unlike McAfee, he is rational. Bill Gates is also one of the worst economic criminals in American history.
What? Why?
Bill Gates, well, the way his imperium came to be was not allright. The war against competitors ans linux was too dirty and merits calling him bad person. And I dont even like linux much.
It is not just what you do when you have power and can play lord. It is also what you do to competitors and how you treat those who don't bow to you.
Many of the tactics of the era should sound very familiar, and many of the resulting social issues should also ring a bell.
I’m personally dreading what the next several decades will bring.
Edit: In case it isn’t clear, Gates is a lot like Andrew Carnegie or some of the other ruthless businessmen, some who later turned their wealth around and became great philanthropists.
Some of the robber barons were miserable to the end (Larry Ellisons of the day?)
Individuals like Jay Gould crossed the lines to get his way (attempted kidnapping? bribery?).
While others Russell Sage never gave his money for philanthropy (in his case, it was his second wife after he died).
Likewise, John Osgood’s life was all about trying to make more money before he croaked.
George Pullman, who controlled his own town and controlled the postal mail, prevented mail for his town from getting the through (it built up to rioting and striking).
In fact virtually all were against unionization, though they took different approaches to head it off. And it took the Federal government to trust bust and create a genuine middle class.
The details are what makes one scrupulous or not.
More disturbingly, many of their ideas and approaches will be familiar today.
A reason so many startups fail is because unethical methods fly over their head, they don’t even consider them. Meanwhile, competitors are juicing up their startups by using shady gray hat or black hat growth hacks. It’s like body building competitions where the serious competitors are all using steroids. If you’re just coming in all natural you will likely do poorly.
The reason black hat growth hacks work so well is because the marketing channels are not yet closed or saturated. A marketing channel is most effective when competitors are not yet using it, and since many startups are unwilling to do something unethical, there is a big window of opportunity available before it gets shut down or patched by some authority.
Frankly if you really want to build a successful tech startup you should get comfortable with the idea of doing the wrong thing first and then seeking redemption later when you’ve accumulated some wealth than to try and do the right thing from the beginning and die a pauper because someone else ate your lunch doing shady things or misrepresenting themselves. If you’re not willing to cast ethics aside to be successful then you obviously care more about being ethical than being successful, so don’t be surprised if you end up a failure.
The only time I would support going 100% legit is if you could guarantee every competitor would do the same, and I’m not aware of any scenario where that would be true.
By limiting yourself to just below your competitors depths you resign yourself to race to the darkest depths of depravity in a vain quest to aquire resources one lacks the ethics to use equitably dooming your victims, peers, and community to further victimizations.
That's not a rhetorical question. xwdv seems to have rejected moral purity as a driving principal or at the very least (being more charitable), has stated that people who wish to be successful should reject moral purity as a driving principal.
I don't quite understand the argument, since it seems to rest on something the OP has already cast aside.
I'd like this person to elucidate why moral purity (not doing things like murder, assault, fraud, theft, etc) is antithetical to success and explain why people who practice this aren't universally a danger to the common (wo)man and organized society?
Their argument is essentially that not only is it okay to rob, embezzle, murder and lie to reach their goal, but that since you competition is you should either become a criminal or prepare for failure.
I'd rather not live in a world where people who survive this way are celebrated.
Success for a lot of startups isn’t really anything noble, it basically just means making a lot of money.
Whenever possible I choose not to give such companies my money. Obviously it's hard when virtually every major company in existence is unethical.
By redefining success to mean lots of money corporate standards are regressing and that's extremely concerning. This trend has cause caused immeasurableharm to society and most people are pretending like everything is fine.
No use in getting rattled by how the sausage gets made.
I'm not sure I'd consider Richard Branson well respected. There are a lot of people who dislike him here in the UK, precisely because of the shady stuff.
I fear my boss and Branson. Neither have, nor deserve, my respect.
Fear is a natural, powerful, and primitive human emotion. It involves a universal biochemical response as well as a high individual emotional response. Fear alerts us to the presence of danger or the threat of harm, whether that danger is physical or psychological.
Respect: feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/SupernatWitchcraftArriola18....
Honoré de Balzac
If everyone used Folding at home instead of McAfee, we would have cured cancer 10 times.
It works, until you do it to the wrong guy. Some people can order a murder by pros just by wiping out a drug debt or a favor.
⁽¹⁾ Presence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in brain as a potential cause of risky behavior: a report of 102 autopsy cases. Samojłowicz, Twarowska-Małczyńska, Borowska-Solonynko et al. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 38, 305–317 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-018-3427-z
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/epi.html#:~:text....
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-so...
Feel free to give this some amplification outside of HN if you've never seen it before. I think it's... quite important to be aware of.
[1]: this is a long time ago so my memory is a bit hazy, I cannot say for sure if it specified drivers or everybody who was killed in traffic accidents.
[2]: Of course correlation doesn't imply causation, and this wasn't a research report but rather an ordinary book.
So like a billion other people with cats, or hundreds of millions with toxoplasma?
The new reddit makes my eyes bleed :(
Or terribly right. He had an interesting life, which is more than can be said for many!
Important distinction.
McAfee's "phenotype" is called bath salts.