Comment by sillysaurusx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sillysaurusx | Hacker News Reader

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Spez's response is making me question the integrity of not merely Reddit, but YC as a whole. https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...

The whole point of YC was to imbue every founder with "do not be evil" in their DNA. Otherwise, it's a cartel.

This is pretty clear-cut case of Huffman not only trying to lie publicly (for no apparent reason, no less!) but then further trying to damage his reputation.

I'm unreasonably upset about this, and should probably step away from computers for a bit. I don't know if I'm getting old and just feeling like "it's the end of an era," or what. But I grew up in a 2008 that was unlike anything on display here.

I thought someone would be on the phone with Huffman trying to convince him that lying publicly about a developer is a bad idea. But if they are, they're not getting the message through.

EDIT: the replies further illustrate the disconnect. I grew up on pg’s essays. You wouldn’t say those things if you merely thought of YC as an investment vehicle.

The fact that people are saying don’t be evil isn’t a big deal is… well, if you’ve ever read I Am Legend, the book (spoiler alert) ends with the main character realizing that he’s in a world of zombies, and that they have their own culture, unique and distinct from his. The zombies aren’t even zombies; they’re people, with their own views. But the culture is so foreign and alien to him that he realizes he’s a minority of one. Am I the only one who cares about don’t be evil?

Huffman isn’t merely a YC alum. He’s the alum. There were no alums before him. And now he blatantly made up a lie, publicly, about a developer, for no apparent reason and no apparent gain. It wasn’t even theoretically going to get him any gain. There seems to be no reason for the lie at all, and it’s hard to imagine something more evil than damaging someone’s reputation like that for no reason (short of doing something to physically harm someone or take away their money/resources). Reputation is everything in hacker culture.

> The whole point of YC was to imbue every founder with "do not be evil" in their DNA.

I'm sorry to say, but that's not in line with reality. Is there a specific source that has led you to believe this?

"Do not be evil" is a fairly vague tenet anyhow. The "whole point" of YC (if there ever was such a thing) at inception, was to test a thesis that pg et al had regarding startup incubation. It was actually a somewhat controversial idea at the time, so much so that YC had trouble finding investors.

Afaict, as long as you are a success, YC doesn't really care how you get there, as long as it isn't something illegal or otherwise obviously detrimental for investors. This is, of course, in part because one of the simpler proxies for "evil" is legality. Investors do often end up benefiting from legislation lagging behind tech and moral gray areas.

"as long as it isn't something illegal"

Au contraire, YC loves it if you get ahead by breaking the law. See Airbnb.

> I don't know if I'm getting old and just feeling like "it's the end of an era," or what. But I grew up in a 2008 that was unlike anything on display here.

The US has been pumping money into their economy (AKA, some chosen entities in it) since the middle of the 90's, with more and more countries just copying their strategy with time.

There was a decrease on the rate of money pumping on 2000, and a reversion for a month or two in 2008 (followed by an increase by an order of magnitude). It was an era.

> But I grew up in a 2008 that was unlike anything on display here.

Reddit in 2008 had open groups for sharing ("legal") sexually suggestive photos of underage girls. ie. they had like swimsuits and stuff on. Reddit has never been about morality.

At this point, they haven't been very successful financially and at acquiring power. Nobody cares what reddit wants... they're nobodys on the tech / business scene.

Now they're looking at all these financially successful and powerful companies and are regretting not selling out earlier. The reddit that people love probably wasn't ever going to be forever. Maybe as a non-profit like wikipedia? What's the point of continuing if you won't even get your "bastion of free speech"?

Reddit was never going to make it much further as a company with no moderation or explicit ethos (other than free exchange of ideas), with minimal advertisement and monetization. These changes have been executed poorly, but they needed to act quickly. Basically, they're trying to put the genie back into the bottle, not be "the cool" social media company, and keep things afloat.

As upset as we may be have they really failed? Have they done anything to substantially lower their standing as a company. They haven't lost users, the growth numbers don't look bad to me, especially compared to some of the better recent years.

What they haven't done is turned that into money or status. Tons of businesses are successful with the "be a dick and hope they don't care strategy". People generally don't like big sacrifice. A monthly charge isn't practical, nor would it be welcomed either. They need to be in full control of the eyes and start monetizing.

YC exists to gain a return on capital investment. I see no reason why a group of people making money from the labour of others would care about morals.

same era. same sentiment.

the era of getting good value by providing good value seems foregone.

now we focus on extracting maximal value in the short-term/for self and acting that it's naive and dewy eyed to expect anything else. which casts such behaviour as the status quo instead of being shameful. which results in an overton window where "i got mine" is all that matters.

> The whole point of YC was to imbue every founder with "do not be evil" in their DNA.

That’s not really the job of the startup investor. At best you try to screen for that. But like active ethics education… no.

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