
Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave - mdev
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/technology/silicon-valley-network-mafias.html
======
georgewfraser
> The start-up world projects a meritocratic image, but in reality, it is a
> small, tightknit club where success typically hinges on whom you know.

This is...so not true. My co-founder and I had hardly any network in SV. We
applied to YC through the website, raised seed money after demo day. We ran on
seed + revenue up to about 60 employees and we recently did a series A.

If you don’t have a network, don’t be dissuaded. Silicon Valley is the least
credentialist, most open community I’ve ever been a part of.

~~~
yaacov
New York Times has had a consistently anti-tech slant the last few years. I
don’t know the reason for it, but I find it very annoying

~~~
csallen
The media has a lot to lose in a tech-dominated world.

They used to have a monopoly on reach. Readers came to directly to them. Today
that role belongs largely to tech companies. Media companies are heavily
dependent on the algorithms and whims of the likes of Google, Twitter,
Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. And it's not just distribution: it's their
business models, too. Apple taking a cut of NYC subscription revenue, Amazon
doing similar things through its Kindle devices, Facebook and Google ads, etc.

This would be an existentially terrifying position for any business to be in.
And as much as the media likes to portray itself as putting truth-seeking and
objectivity first, it's still very much a collection of self-interested
profit-seeking businesses.

When you're the media and you're faced with this situation, what do you do?
What weapon do you have? Your content of course.

It doesn't need to amount to full-scale propaganda or anything obvious. You
simply hire writers and editors who are themselves anti-tech, and results will
follow. Even if you don't hire that way as a media organization, your
employees' incentives are aligned such that they should naturally lean anti-
tech, given the realities of the business situation and its effect on their
jobs.

~~~
jacques_chester
Most newspapers have a clear division between the editorial and money-making
parts.

Journalists look _down_ on the advertising and classifieds departments. The
consider it beneath their worthiness. If you think they're hiring because they
give a shit about the lowlies who pay to keep the lights on, you haven't
worked in the trade.

~~~
michaelt
True, you don't need to go out hiring journalists who have an anti-tech
stance.

But does anyone think print journalists haven't noticed their industry is
fucked and loads of people are getting laid off? No need to break the firewall
between editorial and ad sales to know that Gannett cut 400 jobs in January,
McClatchy cut 450 jobs in February, BuzzFeed cut 200 jobs in January, and so
on.

~~~
jacques_chester
> _True, you don 't need to go out hiring journalists who have an anti-tech
> stance._

Reporting on shitty behaviour by tech companies isn't an anti-tech stance.
It's reporting. If what you want is PR puff pieces and sloppy butt-kissing,
_Wired_ has the pro-tech angle well covered.

I mean do you actually think it's an interview question at the _Times_? "Tell
me how much you hate Google, in words of three syllables or less". This is a
literal conspiracy theory, and it's embarrassing.

 _Everyone_ hates journalists, who aren't used to dealing with them. Everyone
feels victimised when it's their turn. I've seen it more than once. Hell, I've
been on the receiving end of shitty coverage. But it wasn't an agenda any more
complex than "does this make a good story?"

~~~
michaelt
I'm confused how you quoted my post saying you don't need to hire journalists
with an anti-tech stance; and that lead you to ask if I think hating Google is
an interview question at the Times?

I merely find it plausible that a critical view on the tech giants is more
popular among people whose jobs are threatened by tech than among the likes of
us, whose jobs are created by tech. No conspiracy required for what I'm
saying.

~~~
Faark
So you think their business being endangered because of changes caused by tech
makes them incapable of reporting about it. And that makes it totally fine to
sweep their critical reporting about tech under the rug and ignore it, because
there cannot be a strong bias of those criticized to live in a reality where
they're not in the wrong?

Yeah, I see a much stronger/more direct incentive for the second one. And this
makes blanket statements in the spirit of "media cannot be unbiased about
tech" on this site kinda worthless.

Media does screw up and can be bias. Criticizing that on an individual case by
case basis is fine. Spinning a general they-vs-us narrative less so.

~~~
michaelt

      So you think their business being endangered because of
      changes caused by tech makes them incapable of reporting
      about it.
    

No, I didn't say that.

I think we actually agree more than you think: I believe that both the press
_and_ HN posters have biases; and that opinion on HN will pay relatively less
attention to criticisms of tech, while the press will be relatively more
critical.

For example, HN popular opinion would broadly say "self-service/user-generated
content can be automatically filtered, but some things will inevitably get
through because there's just so much stuff, dealing with that stuff after it's
been posted is the only option" whereas the press would broadly say "we can't
ignore this problem, and if a working solution means self-service/user-
generated content isn't scalable, that's just too bad"

I see this division on deceptive ads, and satirical news being repeated as
true, and I suspect we'll see it on self-radicalisation and livestreamed
shootings too.

------
habosa
I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these
millionaires sickens me.

In no order:

* The business is fundamentally based on ignoring the law.

* They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever.

* The money keeping them afloat is very dirty (mostly from Saudi Arabia)

* The culture is well-known to be awful.

* The drivers are completely exploited, working long days with no security and taking huge financial and physical risk.

* Their headquarters is at one of the most awful corners in the city, which they've done nothing to improve.

And in the end they'll have to start making money. Which means either
increasing their prices or increasing their cut. When that day comes we'll
realize what we've lost.

But yet, all the people who signed up and coded the app will be millionaires.

Smells like society misallocating value.

~~~
JesseAldridge
* They created a transportation network that enables a huge chunk of the world to get from point A to point B quickly, safely, and cheaply.

> something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me

This feeling is called envy.

~~~
TAForObvReasons
It's hard to explain to people without a strong sense of morality and
fairness, but many of us were taught to do the right thing, that "ends don't
always justify the means", and that people who cheat or lie or steal or engage
in other dubious activities will eventually be punished. If you read the
parent post, there's a strong sense that the author doesn't believe the ends
justify the means. Your comment suggests that it's ok to do morally
reprehensible things in the favor of profits, which is why it's difficult to
empathize with the parent.

When you're taught to always do the right thing and not to engage in the
profit-maximizing morality-disregarding behavior we see from companies like
Uber, when you make the decision not to become employees of those companies,
seeing that others did decide to work with those companies really forces you
to re-evaluate how the world works. The first step in that process involves
disgust reflecting on the bad actors.

~~~
kitkatkid
I have a strong sense of morality and fairness and want to do the right thing,
which is why I love Uber (and Lyft, et al).

A single entity managed to smash apart the corrupt, racist and unaccountable
taxi cartels in thousands of cities. No more taxis refusing to pick up dark
skinned riders, no more taxis refusing to drive to neighborhoods where those
same people live. No more apathetic dispatchers who don't care that the taxi
driver was drunk or the car was being driven by someone other than the license
holder. No more exploitative cartels bidding up taxi medallions and forcing
low-skilled immigrants to work 14 hour days while preventing competition.

Ride sharing apps have fundamentally made the world a better place, especially
for women and people of color. I feel far safer taking an Uber in an
unfamiliar city than I ever did with the luck of a taxi, both in terms of
physical safety and in terms of getting scammed.

------
40acres
This is the cycle of Silicon Valley at play, and an example why despite the
Exodus of many entrepreneurs and engineers SV is still the leader in software
based start ups.

Take the "PayPal mafia" for instance, out of one successful company spawned
others -- SpaceX, LinkedIn, Facebook (via investment cash). These companies
will spawn others, so on and so forth.

It's a cycle that feeds upon itself and has been a successful model, but it
does have major flaws due to "hardcoded" pattern recognition.

~~~
chii
> It's a cycle that feeds upon itself and has been a successful model

you just don't hear about the failures out there. I bet there's much more
failures than there are successes.

If it weren't, banks would've all lent out money to startups!

~~~
thereisnospork
> you just don't hear about the failures out there. I bet there's much more
> failures than there are successes.

Sure there are, but a few successes can make up for a lot of failures.
Ycombinator, for instance, has been doing its thing for quite a while now and
appears to be doing quite well.[1]

[1]Not personally having looked into their financials

------
mushufasa
The people who were willing to work for a risky startup with a vast vision are
willing to work for another risky startup with a vast vision again.

The reverse causation seems like a compelling explanation: innovators built
Uber and AirBnB, rather than Uber and AirBnB built innovators (as the title
implies).

~~~
dasil003
It's a little of both, and some other factors as well. People joining risky
ventures with vast visions all the time, in all kinds of places, you just
never hear about the ones that fail. And for the companies that do succeed,
especially in SV, there is always a post-hoc founder story told retroactively
in order to keep the troops motivated and investor money flowing. If you
actually look at FAANG they all started with very focused products with the
vision scaling just ahead of their successes to propel hypergrowth for a long
period of time. And doing so, btw, takes a lot more than just innovators, it
takes an army of people who are mostly focusing on the right things at the
right time.

The advantage of ex-Uber, ex-Airbnb folks is not that they are more
innovative—it's that they have experience in solving the organizational
problems of doubling the size of a company over and over and over again within
a very short time frame. If you only get people who are good at making
innovative small-scale projects then they'll hit a wall when the
organizational challenges of hypergrowth suck all the productivity and
alignment out of the team. If you get people who only have experience
operating at huge scale they won't be able to prioritize short term goals
needed to get and maintain traction.

------
akhilcacharya
It's interesting to see a credential effect here similar to universities.

Which credentials are the most valuable then? Which company as a new grad is
most similar to Stanford, MIT?

~~~
krn
I think as far as credentials go, it's pretty simple: (market capitalization
of the company) * (the level of responsibility given at the company).

The smaller the company is, the higher the position has to be to make the
credentials stand out.

For instance, being a recent graduate at FAANG is probably more or less equal
to being a pre-A series startup CTO, if there are no other entries in the CV.

~~~
chrisweekly
I didn't downvote, but I take issue w/ the example you cite. In terms of
credentials & signalling, recent grads taking jr software engineer / entry-
level positions in FAANG are not comparable to startup founders.

That said, at more senior levels, your model fits more closely. A mid-level
Alphabet product manager is likely to have been a founder or C-level exec in a
startup or two.

~~~
krn
> not comparable to startup founders.

I was referring to early stage startup founders, which are very likely to fail
in the first 12-18 months. After a startup receives VC funding or becomes
profitable, of course the credentials of its founders stand above the entry-
level positions at FAANG. Otherwise, they might just signal a lack of fair
judgement.

------
warp_factor
Airbnb or Uber are not really tech companies. They are business companies with
a WebApp required as part of the execution. They didn't invent anything on the
technical level, they brought some business ideas to existing tech (I mean
Airbnb is literally a website with a DB)

In the same way that United is not a tech company, but they have a website
that accepts reservation.

Tech companies create new Tech as part of their lifecycle: Intel, AMD, Google,
etc etc. They create new Tech that didn't exist before, and this is core to
their product.

I get that Silicon Valley shifted from Real tech 20 years ago to Futile
WebApps that deliver pizzas faster, but it makes me sad that the new
definition of tech shifted so much to pure business.

~~~
tracer4201
What defines a “real” tech company? Gatekeeping what can or cannot be defined
defined as a tech company. Am I on Reddit or hacker news? Wow.

~~~
warp_factor
I was actually making a point that what defines a tech company shifted over
time.

10 years ago, we had some "hard tech" with a lot of tech innovation. I was
arguing that the meaning of "tech company" shifted to a business company,
using tech as a way to streamline operations. Those are very different in my
opinion.

I obviously prefer the first one. But I accept that in the collective mind,
tech company mainly means a website nowadays.

------
gandutraveler
Times were different during PayPal mafia. I don't see how just working at
Airbnb or Uber makes one any different than the rest in 2019 to start a
successful startup. Bias maybe ?

------
tanilama
I started losing the grab of the term 'Tech'

------
AndrewKemendo
Perfectly encapsulated in this tweet:

18: Go to Harvard or Stanford for CS.

22: Work at FAANG companies.

25: Quit and raise millions for your startup.

26: Sell your company to a FAANG company/IPO

28: Join a VC firm, invest in people like you, and make predictions on Twitter
all day.

[https://twitter.com/TheLexTimes/status/1105131411411886081](https://twitter.com/TheLexTimes/status/1105131411411886081)

~~~
pdog
I don't get it. Should highly capable people not pursue a lucrative career
path?

~~~
Judgmentality
People can do whatever they want, but if they're truly "highly capable" maybe
they should try something a little more challenging than following the herd?

I hold no ill will against all of these people getting rich this way. Let's
just not pretend like they're innovators, though.

~~~
pdog
I still don't get it. Are the CS programs at Stanford and Harvard not
challenging enough? Are Google and Facebook not demanding places to work?

~~~
adamnemecek
They aren’t compared with your own startup.

------
matchbok
Ah yes, "innovation" in skirting regulations as AirBnb does. Harming local
communities and extracting wealth in the name of "tech disruption".

~~~
closeparen
Disrupting and extracting value from NIMBYs would definitely be on my personal
“request for startups” list.

~~~
toomuchtodo
NIMBYs seems to be the new slur for "exerting property and voting rights".
That's democracy and capitalism.

There's a reason it's not in their backyard. _It 's their backyard._

~~~
ghobs91
If it was property rights, they'd be voting on what can be built on their own
property. Instead, NIMBYs vote on what can be built in the surrounding
neighborhood and beyond, as if the purchase of a home also includes a
guarantee that everything around it can never change.

It's elitist gatekeeping and deep selfishness masked as "wanting to retain
neighborhood character".

~~~
koboll
It's rational economic self-interest. This is why zoning regulation needs to
come from jurisdictions higher than the local government.

~~~
YaxelPerez
Like Japan: [http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-
zoning.html...](http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-
zoning.html?m=1)

