A VC: Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States | Hacker News Reader

A VC: Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States

avc.com

Flagged. Far too much politics on the front page already, and while this may be by "A VC", the VC-ness of his perspective really doesn't really come through in the article.

I wish I could upmode you more. And I'm super happy Obama won.

Why is this getting modded down? He's got a legitimate gripe. This is just some random person's thoughts on the election results. Does the fact that he is a VC somehow make this on-topic for HN?

I could understand this being posted here if it was an opinion on how the election will affect startups and small businesses. Or maybe if, as a VC, the author could offer some kind of insight that might be relevant to HN readers. The article offers none of that.

There are plenty of election discussions on Slashdot, Reddit and Digg. I think it's perfectly understandable to want to keep these discussions off HN.

Fred Wilson isn't just "a VC", he is "The VC" in NYC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wilson_(financier)

No, he's a VC. He's done a great job of promoting himself and his company through helpful blogging and twittering but he's not the one and only authority that we need to hear from and especially not about US presidential politics.

but he's not the one and only authority that we need to hear from

He's certainly not the only authority (who said he was?). However, he certainly is one authority whose opinion I am interested in if the community so decides.

> He's certainly not the only authority (who said he was?).

You. You said he was "The VC".

Ah, I meant to say that he's the most important VC in NY, and so has more authority than just "a VC"... but these are just semantic details of a meta-argument, no?

Trouble is, there's hundreds or thousands of interesting people out there whose opinions on other matters would be interesting on this site. VCs, entrepreneurs, programmers, scientists, mathematicians, writers, et cetera. No doubt, every one of them has an opinion on politics. But I don't want to have to wade through them all.

What's Robert Scoble's opinion? What's Sergey Brin's opinion? What's Don Knuth's opinion? What's that xkcd guy's opinion? What's Paul Graham's opinion? What's that bald marketing guy whose name escapes me for the moment's opinion? What about Joel Spolsky? Or the auctomatic guys? Or the guy who wrote Python? Or the guy who wrote Rails? Or ... well, you get the idea.

I don't care about any of their opinions, and neither should you.

Fred Wilson isn't just "A VC", he is the most important person in tech in NYC, according to Silicon Alley Insider:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/sa100/2008/fred-wilson

Isn't being the most important VC in New York City a bit like being the most important fashion designer in Tulsa?

hugh, it seems like all you do is go around posting "flagged." to topics you don't feel belong to HN. Looking at your thread history is interesting.

Meh, only recently. Hopefully things will return to normal soon.

the calmness factor is definitely a huge deal, you can't have a guy who shoots from the hip in charge of the red button

Teddy Roosevelt: Shot from the hip, and was the antithesis of a calm man. He had one of the greatest American presidencies.

Obama's no TR. But I think that he has the potential to be great in his own way. And I'm slightly happy that it won't be in the "override Congress and do what I want" way.

Not knocking TR. The man had class like no other. But he wasn't exactly the most checked and balanced president we had.

Have any of our calm presidents been any good?

Please, less politics on HN. Obama won. We all think it is great. Now please can we take these endless political posts and arguments off HN?

No politrix on HN please. Except every 4 years.

> We all think it is great.

Don't assume to know what I think.

Good Article.... I completely agree with Fred's positions and beliefs in this article. I especially agree on points 1,4, and 5. In government especially, and as President of the United States, its critical that you surround yourself with intelligent people. The President is not the sole authority and there is no way one person could handle all that. It's important that you surround yourself with "the best in the business." In all fairness, it works much the same in business. As a founder/owner and CEO, its important to surround yourself at that level with qualified people to manage the technology, to manage capital, etc.

Just because a VC is saying it doesn't make it apolitical.

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