> I feel a sense of urgency to generate wealth before AIs become capable enough that those who didn’t make it become stuck in some sort of UBI limbo.
The sense of urgency you describe is exactly how I feel.
417 karma · joined July 23, 2022
The sense of urgency you describe is exactly how I feel.
Once people realize that by putting something, even just a blog post, out for public consumption, especially if done so under a permissive, share-alike license, they're helping to train an AI that will eventually compete with them for their job, they will not only be less inclined to share it (under a permissive license or not), but be less inclined to produce it at all.
Ok, forget about wolves. What about non-human great apes, like chimpanzees or mountain gorillas, much closer to us genetically than canids? Are their societies not hierarchical, polygynous, and alpha-led?
Their hearts have probably changed as well, and likewise, not for the good.
Given all of the purported health benefits of fasting I see touted on HN, and given how long he fasted, if anything I'd expect him to have lived to 100.
Odd how this part often gets ignored when his example is cited.
It was in their best interest to cooperate to not run on their bank, and they failed to do so, which in turn brought down SVB, risks bringing down other regional banks in a domino-like fashion, and has already resulted in government bailouts that have made people outside of the SV bubble hate them even more than they already did.
Furthermore, the supposedly "evil" big banks, as I've repeatedly noted, have shown a comparatively greater ability to cooperate for the greater good of their industry and the wider economy, which is embarrassing given how these VCs posture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
> Two members of a criminal gang, A and B, are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communication with their partner.
The guilty parties here could communicate with each other, and could cooperate, just like the banks did today by aiding First Republic. Instead, it appears that while they did communicate and cooperate, it was only towards the end of running on SVB. And as others have pointed out, even if the framing of it as a Prisoner's Dilemma is correct, it's not a single iteration variant: if the VC community could have come to some sort of an agreement, any party that refused to cooperate, or worse, that pledged to and then betrayed the others, would suffer a substantial loss of trust from other VCs and startups going forward.
Instead they gutted the bank that provided them with banking services for 40 years, often when other banks would not. Some of them even did so two-facedly, publicly claiming to support SVB while pulling their and their companies' money out of it:
> Y Combinator advised its portfolios to collapse SVB, while Garry Tan petitioned the government for a bailout
Union Square:
> Signed the statement [of support of SVB] after contributing to the run.
Fred Wilson seems like a great example of PG's "Mean People Fail" delusion.
> MOC uses alternate accounts for personal safety reasons
Does MOC think PG is going to have him whacked? I primarily use throwaways here since I don't care about karma, but this is absurd, and makes MOC look crazy.
First, it's not a Prisoner's Dilemma if the parties can communicate with each other:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
> Two members of a criminal gang, A and B, are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communication with their partner.
Second, the traditional framing of the Prisoner's Dilemma disregards the aftermath, and the lasting reputational and trust consequences of betrayal, which would be substantial for any VC that failed to cooperate, or outright backstabbed the others.
Meanwhile, all the benevolent VC techbros had to do was collectively agree to just not withdraw all of their deposits from SVB en masse, and they couldn't even muster that. How deep is the rot in SV?
And how poorly does it reflect on the SV venture capital community that they couldn't muster that kind of cooperation?
That was my take as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35103411
I'd love to see the partners of Sequoia, Union Square, YC, and other VC firms grilled by members of Congress over this.
No, the consortium members actually made money by slowly unwinding LTCM's trade book. It's not clear that a fire sale of LTCM's collateral by a rogue counterparty would have done the same, and at best might have just minimized their losses had LTCM completely collapsed.
Over a financial contagion that could sap the liquidity and solvency of the startups these VCs have invested in, and possibly cause harm to the wider economy (which I doubt they care very much about)?
Thanks for reminding why I largely left this place for /g/.
It was more of a regional bank, specifically one servicing SV, with at most sporadic branches elsewhere, usually just one in a given state in its largest major city (e.g., one in NY: in NYC; one in D.C.; one in Colorado: in Denver). In many states they have no branches (e.g., Florida): https://www.svb.com/locations
> Nothing they do isn't done by others
Then why did so many startups and VCs bank with them?
> my friends and their missions
I would personally be hesitant to use this terminology for others, unless they're actually doing something truly impactful and impressive, like curing some horrible disease, going to Mars, or at least actually in the military on some mission.
It was the same situation with LTCM, with their counterparties (large banks) rushing to liquidate before LTCM became insolvent, which the Fed feared would send shockwaves through the financial system. The banks quickly, collectively agreed to do the right, responsible thing and stopped the fire selling, and injected some emergency capital into LTCM, and then gradually unwound LTCM's postions (and made money in the process).
I think you're unfamiliar with the Long-Term Capital Crisis, and the speed with which it was resolved (two days: Sep 22-23). In fact, it's partly because the NY Fed and big banks acted so swiftly and responsibly, that most people have never heard of this and don't realize how close we came to a financial crisis:
>The Fed came to be concerned that if LTCM’s extensive list of counterparties tried to exit their positions at the same time, it would create a rapid and widespread sale of assets, a fire sale, which could potentially impair the economy.
>On September 22, the New York Fed invited a core group of three firms to a meeting to discuss the LTCM situation. The core group, later expanded to a fourth firm, formed three working groups to consider possible solutions, one of which came up with the idea of a consortium approach. A broader group of thirteen firms was invited to the New York Fed that evening to discuss the approach. The firms disagreed over how much each firm should contribute to a rescue package and could not commit to such an effort on such short notice (Siconolfi 1998).
>The talks on a combined rescue reconvened on the morning of September 23, but were soon halted by news that an investor group led by Warren Buffet had made an independent offer to buy out the firm's partners for $250 million and subsequently inject $3.75 billion capital into the fund (Loomis 1998). This appeared a clean solution to both the creditors and the Fed, and McDonough advised Meriwether that it was likely his best bet (Schlesinger and Schroeder 1998). By the 12:30 p.m. deadline, however, the offer was not accepted due to reported legal issues.
>With no other solution in sight, the talks resumed with more haste inside the New York Fed. The consortium ultimately came to an agreement at about 6:00 p.m. on September 23. Together, fourteen firms put up $3.625 billion in capital in exchange for 90 percent of the fund’s ownership (two firms included in the talks declined to participate).
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/ltcm-near-failu...
Coincidentally, this took place ten years before, and nearly to the day (Sep 15th), of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, which had also been especially exposed to LTCM in 1998.