
Michael Moritz: Silicon Valley Would Be Wise to Follow China's Lead - jkuria
https://theoutline.com/post/2996/michael-moritz-china-essay-for-financial-times-is-real-garbage?zd=1
======
vtange
At some point though money ends up being a means to obtain a standard of
living / a world worth living in. There is no point earning money if you never
spend it to get something you want.

Money also takes precious time and opportunity to earn. Know what you want and
aim for it asap. All the money in the world won't buy you fond memories of an
adventurous youth if you spent all of your teens, 20s and 30s slaving away for
currency that can be inflated to nothingness over time. All the money in the
world won't save you if you end up accepting a totalitarian world where you or
your loved ones can be cast away by armed police or where making one-too-many
Taiwanese friends endangers your social standing.

------
bitL
In Germany there is a push for 6-hour workdays, yet on the other side of the
Atlantic the trends seem to be opposite. Hey human, the only reason for your
existence is to work! Now stop thinking about it, work yourself to death, so
that VCs can scrap more money off you. You know, that Lambo my daugther
destroyed after 2 days costs something!

Seriously, you see workers dying at work in China weekly from exhaustion; due
to their cultural and political repression they have to stick with it; now
what does that say about people in the West calling for the same?

~~~
WalterBright
> workers dying at work in China weekly from exhaustion

I don't think they were better off before China turned to capitalism. Colonial
Americans also pretty much worked themselves to death (according to
archaeological evidence). Things got steadily better as the industrial
revolution took hold.

------
keithwhor
You know, I feel like a huge part of this is just founder motivation. I don't
agree with Mike's assertions. But I can understand reasons why an article like
this might actually be productive, though it feels a little tone deaf.

I'm not sure if this thinkpiece is really meant for Silicon Valley employees.
I think the goal (conscious or otherwise) is to inspire and align incoming or
yet-to-prove-themselves Sequoia-backed founders. I expect the veteran Sequoia
founders (some of them which treat their employees tremendously well and
fairly) will take this advice a little more lightly: they understand how to
motivate and get the most out their employees far better than Mike Moritz does
and it's certainly not by saying, "work harder because of China and reasons
also your happiness means nothing to us muahahah."

But the subtext here is: if you're a founder looking for an investment from
Sequoia, China is in play in a big way, and you'd do well to follow their
lead. Founders _intentionally_ burn the midnight oil and give up their lives
to pursue a dream or vision, and willingly sacrifice a large chunk of their
careers to generate returns for their investors with the understanding that
_this is how you play in the big leagues_. The coach says "jump" and you ask
"how high?"

There's a big kerfuffle raised, this article gets blasted around tech circles,
every founder reads it, and the point gets made. The implication is that if
you don't want to work harder than you've worked in your life, don't think
about Sequoia money. Whether that's the reality of actually working with
Sequoia or not is immaterial, there's a cult of personality and a commitment.
Some part of me believes (maybe naively) that 10/10 times Mike Moritz would
prefer the balanced, brilliant strategist and product founders who keep fit
and still work a solid work-week to the narcissists willing to burn themselves
out being easily manipulated by an article like this. My impression is that's
all this is - a filter.

I could be wrong, but we don't need to manufacture outrage here. VC gonna VC.
Maybe this is a tone deaf opinion piece, or maybe in the current bull market
of (potentially irrational) exuberance, Mike feels the need to make this
assertion to new and upcoming founders to keep them aligned, public image be
damned. Employees say, "hogwash" but if a founder puts in even an extra 2%,
that's going to be have multiplicative effects. The founders willing to burn
their teams out will fail quickly and be selected against.

If you work for a Sequoia-backed company and this is concerning to you (or you
feel like you're being burned out), ask your founder(s) their opinion and
voice concerns. VCs don't make the decisions at the end of the day, the CEO
does, and you likely joined your company for a reason and trust your CEO:
they're human beings, they're responsible for your wellbeing, a good CEO will
keep your best interests in mind as best they can.

(That said, maybe I'm reading too much into it and it's just a poorly timed
opinion piece. Either way. Bring up concerns with your founders if you're
worried. Not sure we need to run the outrage train on the age-old story of
"VCs expect founders to work hard.")

------
dang
All: this sort of "We’ve interpreted what he’s really saying" riler-upper is
off topic for HN. Please don't post those here.

To see why, read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
The purpose of HN to gratify intellectual curiosity. I'm impressed that a
number of users responded to this post in that spirit, but that's unusual. In
general, internet rage is a self-licking ice cream cone, and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194750)
is far more typical.

~~~
keithwhor
Daniel, this is just my opinion, but I'm not sure if it was fair for you to
take this down / flag it. I understand your concerns, but maybe give this one
a pass?

This is obviously a controversial topic. You say you're impressed with how
people have responded - why not let "the market" sort itself out? Mike is a
very influential figure in SV, and it might be good for the community as a
whole to air their grievances and try and work out how they themselves feel
about the issue, and broader implications about the world of VC and how it
interplays with companies, founders and employees. I worry that by moderating
this HN is artificially contributing to the echo chamber here; flagging this
post doesn't remove the Facebook posts and Tweets proclaiming the evils of VC
without room for discussion.

~~~
dang
People are welcome to discuss the Moritz piece if they think it's important,
though even there I'm skeptical; the thread would likely just be the usual
reiterations of the usual. But to post it through a rage filter like this is
just off topic for HN, for two reasons: (1) starting off with indignation is
statistically guaranteed to produce flamewars and other junk, and (2) this
genre is a internet cliché. From long experience we know that if HN is to have
a solid discussion on a divisive topic, the starting point can't be something
as shallow as this. There's also the site guidelines, which ask: _Please
submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another
site, submit the latter._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
keithwhor
Thanks for the response. My concern is this; I've seen a few posts by friends,
colleagues, etc. lambasting Mike's piece. My co-founder and employees read it
and we had an earnest discussion about it. _We_ all burn the midnight oil in
pursuit of our vision, but it opened up important distinctions between risk-
adjusted compensation and expectations now vs. as the company matures, as well
as how we manage customer, VC and employee expectations and keep each other
healthy and happy.

Given the right framing, I think it's possible to turn "outrage" pieces into
thoughtful discussion pieces and examine the intricacies of why individuals
may have certain opinions or behave certain ways. Facebook and Twitter aren't
great mediums; Twitter is practically an outrage-manufacturing hot-take
machine and Facebook is restrictive in content distribution. I guess part of
me just wonders if by silencing outrage we're actually helping it proliferate
in other mediums - that emotional energy has to dissipate somewhere.

Edit: Saw your edit with link to guidelines afterwards. I understand
completely. Given this is a hot-button topic I guess I was supposing this
might be a good opportunity to let people air out concerns, but I also
understand the need to be consistent in enforcement. Cheers!

~~~
dang
I have no quarrel with what you're saying. Why don't you submit the original
article and then post a version of your comments in this thread as a first
comment to that one? This may help to seed good discussion. If it turns into a
flamewar we can always deal with that later.

~~~
keithwhor
Thank you for the offer! We're in the midst of helping students during a 36
hour Hackathon. This was a nice distraction, I thought it might be productive
to discuss here but don't know if I want to deal with the ownership of an
entire thread right now. :)

------
thaumaturgy
There is always a backlash.

Those kids growing up with absent parents are going to have some psychological
problems and some desires in common. The US had its "greatest generation",
followed by their children, the boomers; China will not escape that cycle.
Despite their cultural isolation and the Great Firewall, they will have a
generation that will want to live very differently from their parents.

There's no denying China's incredible growth over the last couple of decades,
but there's an excellent debate to be had about the long-term effects of that
growth.

Of course, VC's aren't known for their long-term thinking.

------
wellboy
Yes, so that they can accumulate wealth, so that they can build a safety net,
welfare, better education, freedom of speech, so that they finally can start
working less in maybe 10 years.

Working so much loses its importance once your country already has those
things, because it burns an entire generation, where people aren't humans, but
just working machines.

Another really short sighted article by a very very smart VC.

------
jorblumesea
> Beyond the week-long breaks for Chinese new year and the October national
> holiday, most will just steal an additional handful of vacation days.

Wow.

------
tanilama
As always there is some truth from his piece. What would SV do, when their
competing edge is waning? How do SV keep its perks when employers discover
they can do the same thing elsewhere with less money? The realization should
be, software is not a novel technique it uses to be, more people and more
countries can do it now possibly cheaper. To justify the money, SV needs to do
better. Whether it is to take the perks away and work longer, or find a new
competing edge, only time would tell.

------
superquest
Elon's take:
[https://youtu.be/GtaxU6DZvLs?t=1m36s](https://youtu.be/GtaxU6DZvLs?t=1m36s)

------
untilHellbanned
This guy has never created anything.

------
kawera
Tweetstorm by David Heinemeier Hansson:
[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/954319522151976960](https://twitter.com/dhh/status/954319522151976960)

~~~
tomasien
No need to read it - you know what it says

------
tzakrajs
Michael Moritz would be wise to stay in China since it's so damned awesome.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Is it satire?

~~~
joshuatopolsky
The piece linked to here is my annotation on a very real post by Michael
Moritz. Yes, my take is... a form of satire.

------
untilHellbanned
Money is power for stupid people.

~~~
jbigelow76
It’s also a power multiplier for intelligent people.

~~~
untilHellbanned
Multiplying by 0 is still 0.

------
superquest
I can see why people hate on this POV, but one thing is very reasonable:

Imagine company A and company B are equal in all ways, except company B's
workers work twice as much. If they come into competition, company A will be
crushed.

All the SF tech companies will come into competition with Chinese companies in
the next 20 years. And there's a chance they just get outworked.

~~~
kemiller
This was the line in the 80s about japan. Didn’t actually work out like that.
Edit: typo

~~~
superquest
True. Because everything else wasn't equal. And it won't be here. But if it
gets close to equal ...

I imagine Chinese work ethic had something to do with the destruction of the
Rust Belt, no?

~~~
kryptiskt
Work ethic doesn't matter much if one workforce works for a tenth of the wages
of the other.

~~~
superquest
And this explains Africa's dominance of the world economy?

