
Venture capital firms are investing in astrology apps - GuiA
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/style/astrology-apps-venture-capital.html
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onion2k
VCs will invest in _anything_ that looks like it'll return a good multiple.
How stupid the business might appear to a rational person has absolutely no
baring on things. This is why most people would make terrible VCs - if you
look at something and think "that's a dumb idea" you'd pass on some _massive_
opportunities.

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owens99
The problem is not that this looks like a stupid business. The problem is it
deliberately misleads and fools people.

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jfk13
A bit like the advertising industry, then? Which pays the (large) salaries of
how many HN commenters, I wonder...

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onion2k
Advertising is something a lot of people don't like, and the way it
manipulates people can be underhanded if it's not regulated well, but it's not
deliberately misleading or fooling anyone.

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jfk13
Not always, true; but there are plenty of cases where it does.

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TomMarius
But you definitely cannot say that in general, contrary to other cases.

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consz
Why is it we "definitely cannot" say that in general? That's not obvious to me
at first glance.

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TomMarius
I know of many examples of ethical advertising and/or advertising that does
actual good. For example nonprofits use advertising to raise awareness and
funds. Without large scale advertising industry, it'd be impossible to reach
that many relevant (interested) people. I used advertising to form a local
social help group, that'd be impossible without Facebook.

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ketzo
It's funny to me that many of the comments here are bagging on astrology _and_
this article... when I'm pretty confident the author agrees with you on the
first count.

> “Sure!” I typed into the app. It was just vague enough that if I did a
> little mental backbend, I could find examples to support her conclusions.

And at the end...

> It felt like a convenient conclusion, given her company’s interest in
> getting me to write a story. Then again, who was I to argue with the stars?
> With my blood? It felt absurd, but also just satisfying and amusing enough
> that I did not reject the suggestion. Instead, I said, “Sure!”

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sonnyblarney
I think we often underestimate how big some of this stuff is.

Astrology is a daily thing for a lot of people for a variety of reasons.
'Alternative medicine' \- most of it is objectively quackery (with some
possible value leveraging placebo) is also monster, monster business.

We also tend to overlook how massive a lot of regular businesses are.
Trucking. Moving. Groceries. Aviation. Energy. Automation. Insurance. Retail
banking. All massive.

This is one of the reasons that Uber is so big, and there's so much activity
in 'self driving cars'. It makes 'high tech' look small.

FYI note the progress from 'Silicon Valley' being actual Silicon (!), to
hardware/software, to basic internet, to cloud services, and then to 'tech
enabled business' like Uber, AirBnB etc..

'The Valley' isn't interested in tech, they're interested in how tech can
transform/multiply 'the rest of the economy'.

~~~
skilled
I wouldn't say it's big per se. Spirituality as a whole is much bigger than
astrology, though astrology is a tiny branch of it.

It looks like SV is thinking that it can monetize meditation, yoga, and
esoteric practices, but it will be in vain. Your shitty, lifeless, little
smartphone cannot provide a direct and emotional connection that replicates a
real human interaction.

The most disturbing part of this article is that the investor openly says,
"Yeah. These girls are struggling, but fuck them! I want to make money, even
if that means further exploiting these girls!".

Sadly, this is your average SV perception. Good luck finding peace or
enlightenment in your device!

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jgvgkvljhvojg
I suppose if most VCs don't want to fund an astrology startup because they
know the product is bullshit, those who are willing to hold their nose and
invest anyway will probably get a pretty good deal.

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thirdsurf
This book may change your mind about the apparent connection we may really
have with our cosmos: "Cosmos & Psyche", by Richard Tarnas. It did this for a
Professor of Computer Science I'm friends with. Tarnas published "The Passion
of the Western Mind" about a decade prior, a book on history that's now
required reading at over 100 universities worldwide. Can you imagine the shock
and horror of established academia, who'd lauded this man with so much praise,
only to see him publish a treatise on this heretical subject? It is a
beautiful read. The current state of astrology is a sad one indeed, but it may
have evolved to a greater degree of understanding had it not been tortured and
killed out of our societies in previous centuries.

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cutler
As usual the mention of astrology on HN summons forth the legions of trolls
who have never studied the subject. Before dissing astrology so readily
consider how many commonly used words have astrological roots. Re-read the
last sentence for an example. Consider also the number of eminent thinkers
throughout history, including the history of astronomy, who held astrology in
high regard - Tycho Brahe, Claudius Ptolemy ("Tetrabiblos"), John Dee, William
Lilly, Culpepper & Kepler to name but a few. Like Kepler, Galileo was also a
"mathematicus" \- a title which combined the three disciplines of maths,
astronomy and astrology. The astrology of horoscopes and app-fillers, which
you so readily ridicule, is nothing more than the invention of the newspaper
journalist R.H.Naylor in 1930.

If you would care to step outside your mechanistic, "scientific" cage for a
moment and look at the full moon once in a while ask yourself this - is it so
far-fetched that man might impute siginificance to the fact that the lunation
cycle divides the year into 12? 12 is no ordinary number. 11 would not have
been significant, nor would 13. Then consider that there are 7 planets visible
to the naked eye and meditate on the mathematical connection: 7 = 3 + 4 ; 12 =
3 x 4. Without any zodiac signs involved at this stage you already have a
rational argument for the universe, or at least our bit of it, being non-
random. The ancients had a lot less technology than we have but maybe they
were wiser.

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skilled
I have never read this book [1] but apparently, it's perfect for people who
question the validity of astrology. The book name also strongly implies it.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/You-Dont-Really-Believe-
Astrology/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/You-Dont-Really-Believe-
Astrology/dp/1491880600)

 _Disclaimer: I know a woman who is friends with the author and is very fond
of her._

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cutler
Skyscript.co.uk and Oxford scholar Nick Campion's "A History of Western
Astrology" are 2 excellent sources for putting the record straight.

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networked
Co-Star is powered by Haskell:
[https://www.costarastrology.com/jobs/](https://www.costarastrology.com/jobs/).
I guess that is the origin of their strangely familiar-sounding name.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
This gives me a feeling of unease. I run my businesses on Haskell, and I find
Astrology and similar quackery immoral (probably as most people on this forum
do).

Also, how is one meant to read this?

> jobs ∀ costarastrology.com

jobs forall costarastrology.com? jobs universal quantification
costaratrology.com?

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0db532a0
Jobs coexist?

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Yuval_Halevi
VC invest money where they see an opportunity.

Take Calm for example.

Meditation/Bedtime stories app

Sound bad right?

Well, those guys found a way to make meditation approachable for anyone.

People who never thought before listening to a bedtime story, understand now
that it can help to release daily stress

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Grustaf
Why is this surprising or problematic? Some people believe in astrology,
others just do it for fun. Either way, when did some philosophical concept of
“truth” ever guide capitalism You could argue that even capitalists should
avoid harming people, and that believing in astrology could be harmful, but
they already fund things that are so much worse than that, like tobacco,
marijuana and social networks.

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skilled
You can flag me all you like but this article is dumb.

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SllX
You know, I decided _not_ to take your word for it, and I have come to the
conclusion that you are right but not for the reason I initially thought.

The article actually does a pretty good job of explaining the field of
Astrological snake oil software and the motivations behind it. VC’s are
putting money in it because they seem to be able to plausibly get a fat ROI.

BUT: The New York Times _also_ manages to twist contemporary American politics
into the article, somehow, and link the increased popularity of this snake oil
to the current sitting President’s election. That is to say, the New York
Times can’t even write about an investment trend or fad or whatever into a
very popular brand of snake oil (which you can now get a $20 monthly
consultation subscription for!) without blaming it on the President.

So this article is dumb, but as a data point on the scale with which to
measure the present day quality of this particular newspaper, it is actually
fascinating and insightful.

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nappy
You're vastly overstating how much the author is "twisting" the 2016 election
into this article. It's pretty straightforward from the app creator's mouth...

>>President Trump’s election inspired Ms. Guler to leave her work in fashion
media and create Co-Star. “I was like, ‘We gotta figure out something more
meaningful than what we are doing,” she said. The role social media played in
the election — and how “it is changing how we operate as humans in the world”
was a part of her concern, Ms. Guler said.

~~~
SllX
You missed some:

>> But that explanation ignores what _many in the astro-verse consider the
major turning point for Big Zodiac: The election of Donald Trump_. It changed
everything, according to Aliza Kelly, the astrologer-in-residence at
Sanctuary. (She writes its horoscopes and conducts some of its readings.)
Watching The New York Times’s forecast needle tip from Hillary Clinton to Mr.
Trump raised people’s doubts about certain scientifically proven systems, Ms.
Kelly said. “People became so much more receptive to the idea of there being
different ways of seeing the world,” she said. They turned to astrology “in
order to create some sense of structure and hope and stability in their
lives.”

So for “many”, we have one snake oil salesman claiming that Trump’s election
changed everything, and one snake oil salesman who decided to follow her dream
and sell snake oil, obviously inspired by America’s choice of Presidents.

I did not vastly overstate anything and stand by what I said: of all the
research, interviews and commentary they had available to them, Erin Griffith
of the New York Times and/or her editors made a decision to include this as
part of their article. They did, from what I see here, twist the 2016 election
into the narrative of the story they were trying to tell when their story
probably could have stood up better without the two paragraphs you and I
quoted.

You could say it is only two paragraphs, and you would be right. However, if
you write it into your article and publish it on the website or in the print
of the largest newspaper in America, you are choosing to tell that story.
Subjectively, maybe it was worth telling? I don’t think it was, but you or
anyone here is free to disagree.

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jsemrau
Straight from Season 6 of "Silicon Valley" . Coming soon to HBO near you.

