Daniel Penny Gets Hired by Andreessen Horowitz | Hacker News Reader

Daniel Penny Gets Hired by Andreessen Horowitz

thefp.com

68 pointssolarpunk39 comments

> “He will learn the business of investing and he will work to support our portfolio companies,” wrote Ulevitch in a note sent to all employees this afternoon.

By their own admission he isn’t qualified for the job. He’s been hired because of who he is rather than the skills he brings.

…wait, I thought A16Z didn’t like that stuff! Is Penny a DEI hire?

(in case you were wondering, yes, this thread got flagged to death)

Maybe the job is actually really easy?

Perhaps we could hand the job of "owning money" over to AI?

Athlete and celebrity in VC or PE are hired because of the money they can attract from others, which is a type qualification, probably the same reason here.

For the athlete side at least I feel like being elite athlete signals that you're very competitive and drive towards excellence. You'll see competitive industries value things like strong chess players. Basically anything that signals obsessive drive.

And some athletes can invest their own money. I think players for GSW invested a lot in tech.

Lol and diversity of people has always been proven to produce better ideas and companies. The attempts to justify tying yourselves into knots!

In fact, just take a look at the "merit-based" hires the administration that they get on 3-hour podcasts to defend makes. Hegeth, Gaetz, Bondi, Noem --truly leaders of their respective fields surely. This is what you get when you have a small group of people only breathing the air of each others' delusions in a windowless room with no natural light.

> He’s been hired because of who he is rather than the skills he brings.

Were you calling Hunter Biden to account for his skills when it was revealed he made millions of dollars from Burisma in a role he ostensibly had no qualification?

Fine, I'll bite. Hunter Biden is a Doctor of Law from Yale. Daniel Penny has graduated from a high school.

I know you're trying to defend the indefensible but the Doctor of Law from Yale held a gun to a prostitute's head while smoking meth, and RECORDED IT.

He also sold his laptop full of incriminating evidence to a pawnshop.

Again, what does a depraved criminal drug addict have to offer to a Ukranian petroleum company? Well, he happens to be the vice president's son. Clear cut political corruption!

I think any intelligent person would rather hire Daniel Penny.

Beyond embarrassing that those bootlucking fucking crybabies at a16z flagged this so hard, as if their brand isn't already in the absolute toilet.

Penny was rightly acquitted.

https://nypost.com/2024/11/08/opinion/subway-rider-thanked-d... Subway rider thanked Daniel Penny for saving riders from Jordan Neely — possibly the most important gesture of his life

Lol NY Post, one step above The Inqirer

I think the "normal person of 20 years ago" opinion on this is that he was rightfully acquitted, but it's weird for him to be getting hired by Andreesen Horowitz.

Judge, jury and executioner? Acquittal.... okay but acting like Judge Dredd merits a job offer? That is sick.

Jordan Neely killed himself, like what happens in a lot of these cases. People think they can act any way they want in public and then are shocked when someone bigger, stronger, meaner, and tougher comes along and makes them obey the rules of decent society and the laws of the land.

And despite what people think, that isn't the function of police. Police were created to protect the merchant class and their businesses.

In times long past, when everyone went heeled, you acted politely or you got yourself shot to death for being a jackass. This is why so-called "civilized" people have such bad manners... because they don't run the risk of someone cracking their skull wide open when they mouth off, much less actually threaten innocent people just trying to ride home on the subway.

What investment criteria does he have? DEI HIRE! It was the right the whole time. Once again telling on themselves.

Half of the people I know in finance don't actually have finance degrees. Hell, half the people I know in tech don't have computer science / engineering / software engineering degrees.

It makes total sense why he was hired. He's clearly not afraid to make a hard choice and he's more than willing to live with the potential consequences. This indicates an appetite for risk that most people are simply unwilling to tolerate.

Penny's goal wasn't to kill Neely, it was to subdue him, but like most people who aren't used to being made to obey law and order, he fought and ended up killing himself because of it.

Yeah, the boy has a tragic story. No doubt about that. But like a lot of homeless mentally ill people, the help is there if you want it. And that's the problem. Before Republicans gutted mental health funding in this country, you were getting help whether you wanted it or not. Now you can "choose" to be a drag on society - with few consequences. We need to go back to saying, "You can choose to take your medicine(s) and be a functioning member of society or you can go hang out with Nurse Ratched all day. Your choice."

I’m glad his life is returning back to normalcy

I feel ashamed to work at a startup, reading this. Thankfully I've seen how dysfunctional A16Z is up-close and don't have much hope for their future competence.

They are doing whatever they can for attention because all of their investments and “blockchain” nonsense have been poor showing the company just got lucky and is run by idiots.

Yeah, I lost respect for A16Z after they launched their some-300M crypto fund a few years ago. This hire just cements that loss of respect, not that the guy is any bad but the fact that they wanted to hire this guy speaks volumes in terms of how biased their hiring process is for non-partner positions in the firm.

What about this makes you feel ashamed to work at a startup?

My efforts and labor are always wasted working for someone else. I tend to work for startups because it feels like I'm donating time to a cause or effort that could help people in need.

When venture capital spends their (precious) money courting unqualified nobodies, they remind us all that they are less mature than the people they sponsor and reward exactly the wrong actors. These are mistakes that don't get made by legacy employers in FAANG and Fortune 500, because they have a basic understanding of self preservation.

It reaffirms to me that the right way to spend my career is on meaningless but benign work that doesn't go to benefit madmen with a hole burnt through their pocket. A16Z is absolutely reprehensible in this respect, with YC as a close second in many ways. I'm lucky that much of the work I've seen under their patronage will never come to light and ruin my CV.

Ah, an idealist! God bless you, my friend. We need more people like you.

I understand what you mean in regards to your efforts and labor are always wasted working for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've done weeks, sometimes months, of research to determine the best possible way to move forward on a project, given it's constraints, only for the so-called "decision makers" to take a totally different path, that leads to additional work and eventual ruin.

I hear Kyle Rittenhouse is also coming on board as a junior associate.

So this is virtue-signalling.

Wow these guys aren't even pretending to be about any legitimate line of business at this point. They have gone all-in on just being as like Trump as they can and robbing everyone blind.

He wasn't in law enforcement, or a statutory role. He's a former marine.

I think this is a non-story. I don't like A16Z but this specific hire has nothing to do with it, and I see no causal trend here or reason to say anything about Andreessen from this hire.

I had an uncle who was a lower court Judge in the UK, who would hire ex-cons to work on his pigfarm. Cynics would say he wanted a cheap source of labour but the truth is (I am convinced) he saw the need for post-Jail employment, and that condemning prisoners to a life without work income was stupid and hurtful. I think also working with animals has been shown to be net beneficial to incarcerated people.

This guy did a stupid thing. I get that. It had lethal consequence. I get that too. I don't think this hire is evidence of any nefarious quality. If anything, it will cost them money.

(I would never for for Trump, and I think A16Z has bad effect on ICT investment)

If the man had experience in investing, then maybe you'd have an argument. As it stands you couldn't tell him from Adam when it comes to investment experience so the only plausible explanation for hiring him is that its political and thus says something about Andreeseen

People get hired for nepotism, for politics, for street smarts, for their smile, for the crease in their trousers, because the guy hiring them had a good morning, or because they're actually good at what they do.

You've called this one out as bad. Well, it probably is bad. if I invested through this company I'd be upset. But the thing is, its "hunt for keys under lampost, not because I lost them there, but because it's lit up" bad: You know this hire does not make much sense. The other hires, you are letting through because (I believe) you implicitly assume they can learn to do the job, all other bad reasons for hire not withstanding. Why can't he learn them too?

He can take instructions and work, and is physically robust. He survived in a harsh environment (or two). There are admirable qualities which imply he is educable and strong emotionally and phyisically. I wouldn't have hired him or the nepo baby. I wouldn't have put my money into this mobs hands. I didn't. If my superannuation fund did, I hope it returns at least at market norms.

A bad hire that creates a lot of PR is a bad PR move, as opposed to all of the other bad hires, but maybe a VC fund doesn't need PR.

Should be illegal. Maybe it is. Trump banned DEI.

> You've called this one out as bad. Well, it probably is bad. if I invested through this company I'd be upset. But the thing is, its "hunt for keys under lampost, not because I lost them there, but because it's lit up" bad: You know this hire does not make much sense. The other hires, you are letting through because (I believe) you implicitly assume they can learn to do the job, all other bad reasons for hire not withstanding. Why can't he learn them too?

I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss out of me or not. Do you really think that because no one’s perfect that means hiring someone with no experience in a complex job is equivalent to hiring someone with experience?

It won't cost them money. This is marketing "we are your people" to the American Dynamism segment.

So…DEI.

A MAGA DEI hire

This is revolting.

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