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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

> “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)

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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.

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.

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.

Maybe the job is actually really easy?

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

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

> 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.

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