Comment by FD3SA | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FD3SA | Hacker News Reader

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The key distinction here is that travelling to those places as a successful entrepreneur is worlds apart from being born there, without any genetic or environmental advantages to help one escape such a fate.

Michael is speaking from a broad base of experience, one that is not just a hero's epic of one success after another with a token failure before the ultimate victory. From the heroic perspective (PG, Zuck, Gates, etc.), every setback is but a small dip before eventual triumph. These people sincerely believe that anyone can do what they have, and as a result their worldviews are extremely limited and naive. In a way, they cannot know the other side of the story, because they have never experienced any other outcome.

The cold truth is that the situation Michael describes is reality for the vast majority of the working world. The darling VC-fund kids are a tiny minority, selling hopes and dreams to the masses in exchange for their servitude as employees who will never join their ranks.

It is very hard to see the system as a whole when one is so deeply immersed in one side of it. VC startups will not save the common man. If anything, they will put him out of work and ask him to "retrain", putting him in massive debt for an entry level position making far less than his previous job.

All this being said, I am extremely optimistic for the future, but I understand that the US requires significant structural reform if everyone is to benefit from technology. Not everyone can be a successful startup founder or programmer, and as soon as we accept that, we can move onto an earnest conversation about what needs to be done to make a better future for all, elite and commoner alike.

I'm very confused by this. Who is "selling hopes and dreams to the masses in exchange for their servitude as employees who will never join their ranks."

The dream we sell to our employees is one version of an idyllic California life. Awesome weather, awesome people, awesome food, and the best work that they've ever done. That what we strive towards. We don't say whether they'll join our ranks; it is simply not an issue. Nobody asks. And if they do have an interest in founding their own thing, we'll help them. They are usually capable.

Again, I just do not see the reality that you're talking about.

> the best work that they've ever done

Whatever you say, Marie Antoinette. You're the exception to the rule and can perhaps create a new kind of corporate culture (though I sincerely doubt it.. if you do, you'll owe it to society to write a management textbook. Or - you will act like most people do - and hoard the information for personal benefit, until one of your underlings reverse engineers it and publicizes because you're just not paying her what she's worth. Case in point: Michael O Church). Most great work is stymied by politics, because the great creative thinkers and engineers haven't been groomed and trained in politics/management. So due to their social flaws, their projects fail, and they're stymied.

Michael O Church is crowdsourcing political support, and he believes the crowd will throw out the hegemony. Well, Michael O Church just might be on to something.

A downvote without a reply is a form of impotence. It says: I don't like what you said, but I don't have the verbal dexterity to articulate my position in a cogent & cohesive way.

For whatever it's worth, that's not me down voting you.

I will say two constructive things, and leave it as that:

- Startups cannot possibly afford to pay people what they are worth in cash salaries, because the value that they create is realized in the future. In order for startups to be fair, employees actually have to recognize some of the potential value of stock.

If employees were in a position to realize it, they could earn far more in equity. But people reasonably need some cash to live, so that is the tradeoff.

- The best experiences are worth more than equity or money combined. This is, to my mind, not sophistry. It's the only way to live. Money ultimately just gives more options for experience. You have to actually live life, and enjoy it.

Living life and enjoying it; a.k.a. "presence"; is not available to everyone. Most people, including workers in Silicon Valley such as engineers, literally get used and farmed. You happen to be of rockstar talent level and your ride will be more pleasant than most. Don't feel guilty - but don't get upset either when we mock you.

Startups cannot possibly afford to pay people what they are worth in cash salaries, because the value that they create is realized in the future. In order for startups to be fair, employees actually have to recognize some of the potential value of stock.

Of course, that is true and so I agree with what you're saying. The problem with startup equity/options is that it's often so pathetic. 0.03% of a 50-person company for Engineer #20? That's ridiculous, especially when useless nontechnical VPs are still getting 1%.

Software engineers, in most companies, get next to nothing in equity. What they get is a token, a lottery ticket. Only founders and those horrible executive implants pushed by investors get a real slice.

Here's a fairer way of doing that (profit sharing): http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macle...

The best experiences are worth more than equity or money combined. This is, to my mind, not sophistry. It's the only way to live.

Few people have the luxury of not paying attention to compensation. There are STEM PhDs out there who end up working retail because they have no safety net and when they fall into the working class, they can't get back out (often, they can't even afford interview expenses to get out of whereever they are).

This is a great post.

Michael is speaking from a broad base of experience, one that is not just a hero's epic of one success after another with a token failure before the ultimate victory. From the heroic perspective (PG, Zuck, Gates, etc.), every setback is but a small dip before eventual triumph. These people sincerely believe that anyone can do what they have, and as a result their worldviews are extremely limited and naive. In a way, they cannot know the other side of the story, because they have never experienced any other outcome.

My story's not over yet. I plan on being successful. I'm too old (30 this month) to be a VC darling, but I know I'll do something cool, and probably in the next 10 years. But the world needs to see that the misery is real and that, no, not everyone gets out of it. Most people don't start talking about their lives until the bad stuff is all years ago and they end up putting forth an "all's well that ends well" rosy view. I want the whole story to get out. If I have a break-out success in five years, then after 5 more on that, I will already have lost some touch with how the world really is.

VC startups will not save the common man. If anything, they will put him out of work and ask him to "retrain", putting him in massive debt for an entry level position making far less than his previous job.

Right. I don't think that's the intention. I think many VCs are good people trying to help the world. However, most of the established players in Corporate America would rather cut costs than improve yield. The first increases centralization of power (fear) while the second is destabilizing to those in power, even if economically beneficial to all (including them).

VC-funded startups can't change the world because they are an even more short-sighted (by necessity) strain of the Corporate America they're theoretically supposed to be attacking.

All this being said, I am extremely optimistic for the future, but I understand that the US requires significant structural reform if everyone is to benefit from technology.

Very well said.

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