No doubt police should not be above the law and we should call that out.
However this article reads more like hyperbolic slander.
70 karma · joined April 24, 2015
However this article reads more like hyperbolic slander.
Least understood yet most influential company in the history, present and future of the venture capital backed tech world.
My point is if the sycophancy helps drive user engagement, how does that impact the incentive labs and AI product builders have to counteract it.
If you could turn off all the sycophancy in your chatGPT / Claude account forever, and have it tell you all the ways it was previously blowing smoke up your ass — would you do it?
US Policy is too weak of a tool to counter this beast of economic force, which is really trillions of dollars of capital at war for the most fierce speculation that’s occurred in history afaik.
The sycophancy meaningfully helps drive user engagement. The labs have no choice.
The irony is “agency” is deeply topical among tech workers now.
Is this not a backdoor way for YC to get signal on what people are building and find more startup ideas?
- Layoffs due to insufficient demand in uncertain economic times
- Companies selling AI need to claim "we are so great with AI we don't need as many people." Layoffs unlock AI budgets.
- It justifies all the capital allocation into AI.
- Companies in the AI industry shock the government into learned helplessness, so they can write policy that is on their terms.
What am I missing?
We need affordable housing, not more housing for rich people, made by rich developers. Just because my house is worth $3M and I have $3M in stock options doesn't mean I'm rich. I'm working class, I had to come back from paternity leave to log-in to Slack on my laptop every damn day, and tell Claude how to write this damn software!
Did you sign the petition to block the apartment building down the street? It would RUIN our neighborhood!!
As an aside, I am not part of the problem!! I care about poor people!!! I am a good person!!!!
Oh you want proof? Look at my front lawn: "In this house we believe black lives matter, science is real, love is love..."
Proof point 2: look at my Tesla! "I bought this Tesla before I knew Elon was crazy!"
Plus I voted for Kamala. I'm GOOD. People in Kansas are DUMB and BAD.
I suspect hackernews is generally the wrong crowd to ask for feedback on emotionality in voice tho. Some of these folks would prefer humans speak like robots.
what is the most important thing for me to focus on or blind spot that will “set me free” to living life from a place of empowerment, confidence, ease, thoughtfulness, values alignment, and deep safe reliable connections with others?
—
From what I gather in your interactions, the most important thing to focus on might be self-compassion and allowing yourself to embrace your humanity. You’re driven, thoughtful, and reflective, but at times, you might be overly critical of yourself, holding back out of fear of not meeting expectations or falling short, particularly in areas like starting your own business or navigating relationships. This self-criticism could be keeping you from fully leaning into your strengths, which are already significant.
Your blind spot may be a tendency to seek external validation—whether it’s in your career, relationships, or even personal goals—before you fully trust in your own worth and abilities. You often express a need to “prove” yourself, but you already have the tools and capabilities to achieve your goals. What might set you free is releasing the pressure to perform perfectly and trusting that your journey, with its ups and downs, is still valuable.
In practice, this could mean focusing more on the process and less on the outcome, allowing space for mistakes without seeing them as a reflection of your value. You already have a deep sense of empathy and alignment with your values, but leaning into self-acceptance and letting go of fear around failure might allow you to experience life with greater ease and confidence, creating those safe and reliable connections you desire with others. Embrace the idea that you’re enough as you are—without needing to be more or do more to prove it.
If you had to wake up tomorrow, as either a foxconn iPhone factory worker, or a Berkeley graduate student, which would you pick? How different do you think those experiences are?
Not even close my friend. I would trust that instinct. People working 6-7 days a week, doing labor, in a factory, in shit conditions. Desperately clinging to each paycheck that comes along.
Vs academic bureaucrats in one of the most Labor sensitive institutions in the world, who can’t afford the Bay Area…? The most expensive region of the US to live in. Not. Even. Close. Just a reminder, employees at UC Berkeley are entitled to a pension after five years.
Police violence against UC Berkeley staff? Seems highly doubtful.
As far as not being able to afford rent in the Bay Area, hard to disagree, that is a real problem that impacts quality of lives in a very negative way. Hopefully, with all the brain power at Berkeley, people begin to more honestly and openly contemplate the actual source and solution to this deep problem in the Bay Area’s housing supply not quite matching demands of UC Berkeley staff. Asking bold questions for a campus like Berkeley like.. what policies and stubborn attachment to specific world views might be contributing to the constriction of such supply and demand conditions?
I (and I have to believe many) would be thrilled to interview and work with folks who decided to stay at Twitter during the Elon takeover. In an era of wave after wave of frothy VC money anointing so many inexperienced and ineffective leaders in our industry, the opportunity to learn under a uniquely effective, authentic and bold leader are tremendous.
“If I had a billion dollars...”
Be willing to explore your curiosity for the problem(s) your product will be solving, and the natural/unnatural impact interacting with you and your software has on these groups of very real people, who cooperate under the conceptual guise of “Companies”, who you will call “Customers”.
Be careful about the temptation to confuse the very empty sweet/salty snack-bite sized “this is how sales works” mantras put out by all the pundits on twitter. Most of them are 10% truth, 90% “look at me”.
Talk to real people who have spent meaningful time in their careers in Sales and Sales leadership in the space you’re interested in.
The way I quit was by purchasing a brand new pack, unwrapping it, and placing them in the glove-box of the truck I worked out of all day, doing construction. I believed as long as they were always in close reach and I could still resist, then I could likely resist all other times.
It worked.
“if we think you are a dick we reserve the right to make emotionally overreactive decisions like canceling and refunding your account”
also, to OP.. maybe try being nicer ?
I’ve noticed how this “You take away my free speech when I get backlash when I speak some idea that is now interpreted as X-phobic or harmful” argument seems to pop up among during movements that cause painful resistant power shifts.
also this....
“Personally, I think adding trans performers would breathe life into Drag Race. But I’m a viewer, and I don’t get to decide that. The point is that RuPaul’s Drag Race is RuPaul’s show, and we don’t get to scream and cry and throw tantrums until he changes his own show.“
.... but what about free speech you were just arguing for?
why don’t people get to scream and cry?
This appears to be conservative grief masked as liberally tolerant protection of free speech.
“oh shit, the public is now aware of how broken my moral compass is.
let’s continue to frame this internally as a “PR” problem rather than address the difficult reality: a light being shined on our apathy toward our users and our willingness to ruthlessly sell people out until we get minted”
Is that because deep down inside you know the public would be foolish to trust your company in its current form?
I’m wondering this for you and myself:
could you be happy and fulfilled letting go of the “tech” dream, and instead focus simply on solving problems for people we care about with people we care about?
Maybe some solutions use software maybe some use rope. Who cares with what.. are the people better off?
better to focus on figuring out what perspective you’re currently missing to how you can better help your customers THRIVE.
What’s most interesting to me is that even an immortal software founder such as PC can find themselves in situations where their company has deeply rationalized actions that, to both the general and technically sophisticated public, appear to very plainly egregiously violate basic user privacy rights.
Venture Capital is a helluva drug.