
Ben Horowitz Explained - bhaumik
http://fitsnstarts.tumblr.com/post/72678355503/ben-horowitz-explained
======
jmduke
To contribute a little to an excellent post:

The best class I ever took was _Race, Rhetoric, and Poetry_ , which stitched
together early African-American poetry and hiphop. The central thesis of the
class was that self-expression is proof of humanity, especially for African-
Americans: one of the most iconic parts of being a slave (and thus being
subhuman) was illiteracy; just as Wheatley, Hammond, et al argued their
humanity through their works (explicitly and implicitly), generations of hip
hop artists escaped their fates by recording their life and finding success in
the written and spoken word.

There's a lot of depth and lineage in hiphop, lurking barely under the
surface: whether it's Drake sampling Gil Scott-Heron who references Nat
Turner, or Kanye cribbing Nina Simone's cover of Billie Holiday's Strange
Fruit (which of course was written by Abel Meeropol). There's a reason that
self-glorification and bildungsromans are such pervasive motifs; it's not just
self-aggrandizement, its self-affirmation.

If hip-hop was a codebase, it would be a massive lump of spaghetti, spiraling
into itself with migraine-inducing dependencies. It would be impossible to
refactor or decouple, and I mean this in an incredibly positive way.

~~~
zmitri
Perhaps Dawkins' "meme"
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme)) is a
simpler - and not negatively associated like spaghetti code - way to describe
it's evolution?

~~~
jfb
All the great human artifacts are messy; because humans are messy. I
appreciate the bracing asceticism of Scheme, but I love the impossibly
complicated English language.

------
lhnz
This is a beautiful post. I don't know these people personally but I've deep
respect for those that understand inequality, and wish to pay it more than
just lip service.

They are completely correct. You can't just create separate clubs for new
cultures entering the system, you have to help them to connect into the
dominant networks and that means legitimising their own culture in the
dominant one. This is one of the reasons I've found it so disgusting how the
tech community reacts around the site RapGenius: there's this undercurrent of
hatred for baller/rap/black (so-called "douchebag") culture which seems to
aggravate every single PR problem they have.

I remember a couple of weeks ago seeing a few people turn their noses up at
poetry.rapgenius.com (and other networks on the same platform) but I can't
think of a better way to let both cultures cross-pollinate.

>> Networks equal access to jobs, funds, and deal flow, and the networks that
run silicon valley are Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Google, HP, Ebay, Facebook,
Apple, and PayPal.

Is anybody else genuinely annoyed that sites such as angel.co use these as
legitimising signals of worthiness?

~~~
michaelochurch
_there 's this undercurrent of hatred for baller/rap/black (so-called
"douchebag") culture which seems to aggravate every single PR problem they
have._

Douchebag culture and black culture are radically different. First, there are
several different black cultures: everything from upper-middle-class to
working-class to poor African-American, plus several Afro-Caribbean cultures,
plus a huge number of distinct African cultures.

Douchebag culture (which is in vogue among the VC darlings, especially in the
elite networks OP described) is a historically white phenomenon: popped
collars, brogramming, saying shit like YOLO and WHPH ("work hard play hard").
Douchebag culture _is_ a dominant culture in the Valley (not the only one) and
we need outlets like Valleywag to remind everyone how ridiculous it is.

~~~
lhnz
>> Douchebag culture and black culture are radically different.

You're talking about a bunch of white guys creating a rap site and telling me
that they're not trying to channel black culture. If the stylings and bravado
at RapGenius weren't related to culture from rap/hip-hop I'd be very
surprised.

In the past in the UK we used to have "Wigger" culture [0] and it actually was
fairly similar... I don't think this anger has anything to do with being a
douchebag. I've met people that dressed and spoke weirdly that have been
perfectly nice people. I think that people recognise the style as douchebag
because it's uncomfortable for them to see white people "acting black".

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigger)

~~~
Ryanmf
Stop.

>> You're talking about a bunch of white guys creating a rap site and telling
me that they're not trying to channel black culture.

Oh, they're _trying_ alright.

Said douchebags are roughly as representative of black culture as Ali G was.
Though it would seem they're not in on the joke.

There is no "channelling" going on. You can be a person of any color who
appreciates and celebrates hip hop culture without reducing its participants
to cardboard cut-outs.

~~~
lhnz
There's no joke here. And little harm being done. RapGenius is a well loved by
its market.

If you believe that how people dress and speak defines their worthiness as a
human being (and it seems you do) then go along your own way.

I do not.

~~~
Ryanmf
This isn't complicated.

There's a difference between identity and affectation. When your affectation
conflates "acting black" (as if that's even a thing one can do) with "acting
moronic", your affectation is intrinsically racist. And when you willfully
adopt a racist affectation because despite being a Yale/Stanford Law grad
you're apparently incapable of understanding how fucking offensive that is, I
am not obligated to show you one single iota of respect.

These guys don't represent anyone but themselves, and—of late—they're doing a
poor job of it.

(btw — I think Rap Genius is a great product. I hope its founders don't ruin
it.)

~~~
lhnz
>> This isn't complicated.

Stop insinuating that I don't understand you. I understand you, I just
disagree with you.

>> There's a difference between identity and affectation. When your
affectation conflates "acting black" (as if that's even a thing one can do)
with "acting moronic", your affectation is intrinsically racist.

Do you think that they believe they are acting moronically?

Or is this perception of moronic behaviour your own? If it's the latter -
which I expect it is - then you are projecting racism onto them. It's not
something which is intrinsic - it requires the perceiver to have your value
system.

(My perception is that they are not acting like morons. And that it's all just
good fun.)

The problem I have with this whole argument is that even if a guy had a popped
collar, was wearing dark sunglasses inside and kept saying everything was
"baller", I'd prefer him infinitely over the guy that looked at him and
declared him to be "moronic" and a "douchebag" because of his style. One is
harmless but the other is something which to me signifies a close-minded
asshole.

~~~
Ryanmf
You asserted that the douchebags with popped collars saying stupid shit are
"channel[ling] black culture." You further asserted that the primary objection
to "'wigger' culture" (wow) is that white people "acting black" makes other
white people uncomfortable.

Your assertions are objectively false.

You also suggested that the negative reaction to the objectionable behavior of
the Rap Genius founders is in fact not a reaction to specific behavior by
specific individuals, but part of an "undercurrent of hatred for
baller/rap/black (so-called 'douchebag') culture". I don't even know what to
do with that.

>> _The problem I have with this whole argument is that even if a guy had a
popped collar, was wearing dark sunglasses inside and kept saying everything
was "baller", I'd prefer him infinitely over the guy that looked at him and
declared him to be "moronic" and a "douchebag"_

Good for you. I know plenty of black folks who wouldn't.

~~~
lhnz
>> You asserted that the douchebags with popped collars saying stupid shit are
"channel[ling] black culture."

I didn't say anything about people saying stupid shit. A negative statement
like that would be inconsistent with the rest of my argument.

I also didn't say that they were douchebags. I said "(so-called "douchebag")"
which is a british word to show that you believe a term is unsuitable and not
correct [0] also I said: "I think that people recognise the style as douchebag
because it's uncomfortable for them to see white people "acting black"." I was
implying that it was just a term which people use to describe a behaviour that
they do not like for classist/racist reasons but which allows them to dodge
allegations as such.

>> You further asserted that the primary objection to "'wigger' culture" (wow)
is that white people "acting black" makes other white people uncomfortable.

Yes. I believe there is a heck of a lot of underlying racism there - and that
we're seeing the same thing here.

>> Good for you. I know plenty of black folks who wouldn't.

Who am I to take away somebody's right to be a dick or offended?

I don't want to continue arguing anyway - my core point was that we shouldn't
judge books by their covers: there are plenty of people that speak differently
and wear very different clothes from both you and me and we should allow them
to be and (in the case of the OP, instead of RapGenius) actively include them
in our own culture.

[0] [http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/so-
called](http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/so-called)

------
newnewnew
"Let’s deconstruct the common misuse of the word “diversity” as thrown around.
In Silicon Valley the word means “non whites”."

"The fact is that we don’t have enough black and latino founders"

I'm not sure why, but South and East Asians are often ignored in discussions
of Silicon Valley's diversity. If you expect that Silicon Valley's "lack of
diversity" means that tech workers are immersed in white American culture all
day, you are greatly mistaken. It's the kind of place where it is easy to hear
5 languages sitting at a coffee shop.

~~~
obblekk
Do you think that Asians are discriminated against, perhaps in different ways?
I've never been to the Valley and have been curious about its dynamics for
some time.

~~~
newnewnew
On the one hand, Asians don't count as "minorities" because there are too many
successful Asians. Your startup isn't "diverse" because you have 30% Chinese
engineers. On the other hand, their success isn't dismissed as the fruits of
unfair privilege like white people (this accusation comes mostly from other
white people). Part of the reason that writers ignore Asians is that they
upset social justice narratives.

On the ground, there are few social barriers between whites and Asians. The
exception is that I seldom saw an Asian man dating a white woman, as a
commenter mentions below.

In the tech blogs, the large contributions of Asian people and culture to the
Valley are just ignored. It is easier to find a noodle shop than a breakfast
place. I think Cupertino had the first majority-Asian city council in the US.

~~~
obblekk
Are there limits to how high Asian/Indian employees advance up the corporate
ladder into management? Are there differences between foreign Asians and
American Asians?

~~~
newnewnew
Asian CEOs and VCs do exist, but I would guess those demographics are
underrepresented. I would guess this is due to the first few waves of
entrepreneurs being mostly white (Fairchild and Microsoft company photos were
much paler than a typical company today). Remember, the whole country was much
whiter then, and the United States as a whole has over 5x the proportion of
Asians today as compared to when SV was getting started[1]. Asian VCs I can
think of made money off of late 90s companies and Facebook.

[1] [http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2013/05/Screen-
Sh...](http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2013/05/Screen-
Shot-2013-05-07-at-7.33.46-PM.png)

------
heydenberk
>> For so long hip hop culture has been the culture of poor people. The art of
beta culture. An oddity that voices the raw emotion of the poor, and that
glorifies the suboptimal traits that keeps poor people from mobilizing up the
ladder in society. To outsiders, that’s all it is. But by using his voice and
stage to elevate rap as a useful medium for informing business, it is creating
a legitimacy in the business world for this culture and those that come from
it.

This is problematic and untrue. There is a great deal of sophistication and
cultural consciousness in hip hop and it certainly has its share of successful
businesspeople. Sean Combs (formerly Puff Daddy), Jay-Z and Dr. Dre come to
mind immediately.

~~~
zmitri
That's only 3 people and they have all come up as entertainers first. Why
entertainers first?

I agree that hip hop is packed with sophistication and cultural consciousness,
but hordes of young wealthy teens listen to rap music almost exclusively as
entertainment. They often don't parse the emotional and powerful context of
the lyrics - as they are often tied to racial, social, and financial issues
they have never had to deal with. They often listen to it as outsiders in that
regard.

By prefacing his posts with lyrics, Ben is focusing on the good parts of rap
music - hustle and determination - as opposed traditional media which very
rarely does that. In that regard he is "legitimizing" rap in the eyes of many
people, or at least opening up their eyes and mind in a positive manner.

Excluding entertainers - if you look at CEOs, executives, tech startups - I
think what he's saying is extremely evident. It's also especially strange how
few there are considering how influential hip hop culture is in current youth
culture, and how influential African American culture has been in the history
of America.

Are investors rational decision makers? or gate keepers? It's hard to say in a
system he so eloquently and accurately described in the first few paragraphs,
and where so few companies actually get funded.

~~~
argonaut
>> There is a great deal of sophistication and cultural consciousness in hip
hop and _it_ certainly has _its_ share of successful businesspeople.

Read carefully.

------
ironchef
"Ben is using his power and time (and trust me he is the _only_ one doing
this) to build and advocating and acting on the design and construction of an
authentic network that facilitates participation and adoption of the culture."
\- I would suggest others are doing this; however, I think none are doing it
AS WELL as Ben is these days.

It's funny because people think Ben's cultural/rap thing is a shtick. I've
worked around Ben a long time. It most definitely is not a shtick. It's like
his love of bbq and the raiders....just part of who he is.

------
ghshephard
All I can say is when I started working for Ben back in 1999, he was
relentless in his passion for HipHop and Rap, and spent some time trying to
educate us in the difference between the two genres. His love for that broad
category of music goes way back. Also possibly related - the Oakland Raiders
were his favorite team at the time...

~~~
tptacek
What's the distinction? I listen to a bit (mostly backpack rap stuff like De
La and Tribe, plus ultra-mainstream stuff like Jay-Z and Kanye before he
started sucking) and before reading this comment I would have assumed the two
were synonyms.

~~~
HillRat
Mostly in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. One way to look at it is that rap
is something you do, hip-hop is a way you live.

More specifically, hip hop is a _cultural_ phenomenon that developed as an
interplay between Jamaican immigrants and the Bronx of the 1970s and 1980s,
and includes MCs, DJs, B-Boys and graffiti artists as primary drivers. Rap is
a specific element of hip hop, practiced by MCs, in the same way that
turntablism (e.g., scratching, mixing, cutting and juggling) is an element
practiced by DJs.

~~~
tptacek
Ok, but, as musical genres (however seriously you want to take that concept),
this isn't a distinction I need to care much about?

~~~
pdeuchler
Rap is the story telling medium of Hip Hop. Hip Hop is a style of music that
can encompass everything from RnB to Soul to even some Electronic Music. Rap
is Hip Hop that has a specific emphasis on lyricism, meaning, and narrative.
All Rap has elements of Hip Hop, but all Hip Hop does not have elements of
Rap. Obviously this is all subjective to a certain degree.

To answer your question, Jay-Z's MCHG is probably more Hip Hop than Rap, while
old school Kanye is mos(t) def(initely) Rap. However, unless you plan on
getting into conversations like this in the future I really wouldn't worry
about the difference.

~~~
tptacek
Ok, this makes sense. I pretty much invariably call the hip-hop/rap music I
listen to "hip-hop". De La Soul? Hip-hop. Jay-Z? Hip-hop. The Roots? Hip-hop.
Run DMC? Hip-hop.

~~~
msutherl
As somebody who listens to a bit of hip hop, but very little rap, I find the
distinction useful. Some hip hop (not rap) in my music library:

    
    
      - Teebs
      - Flying Lotus
      - Onra
      - Dabrye
      - Prefuse 73
      - Clams Casino
      - Phaseone
      - TNGHT
      - ARAABMUZIK
    

Exceptional examples:
[http://youtu.be/hYZ5uL35kpU](http://youtu.be/hYZ5uL35kpU),
[http://youtu.be/2om8SMeDJPY](http://youtu.be/2om8SMeDJPY),
[http://youtu.be/HbkRvclQS4M](http://youtu.be/HbkRvclQS4M)

------
andykmaguire
"Ben is using his power and time (and trust me he is the _only_ one doing
this) to build and advocating and acting on the design and construction of an
authentic network that facilitates participation and adoption of the culture."

The above statement is completely false. Two examples of many - Dave McClure
at 500 Startups and Mitch Kapor at Kapor Capital, among others, are deeply
dedicated to building highly diverse networks of talent and capital that
encompass diversity in every respect you mentioned and more.

------
swombat
So what attack is this responding to? I'm a bit lost here, it looks like
someone is stepping in to defend Ben from something, but what?

Is it related to
[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/12/addre...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/12/addressing-
silicon-valleys-race-problem.html) ?

~~~
IsaacL
Sam Biddle of Valleywag, of course. Who else?
[http://valleywag.gawker.com/prominent-venture-capitalist-
dis...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/prominent-venture-capitalist-discovers-
black-people-1486759377)

~~~
swombat
People read Valleywag??

------
morgante
Am I the only one who feels that rap/hiphop has become the dominant culture in
tech (see VC darlings Rap Genius)?

These days, having a traditional professional demeanor and not knowing a thing
about Drake seems far more likely to get you ostracized.

------
michaelochurch
_Networks equal access to jobs, funds, and deal flow, and the networks that
run silicon valley are Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Google, HP, Ebay, Facebook,
Apple, and PayPal._

This is precisely why Silicon Valley is past peak. When it was becoming great,
Silicon Valley technologists _were_ the network. You like computers and
technology? So do I, let's see what we can do for each other. Or just hang
out. Often the best "networking" isn't called that; it's just people with
shared interests getting together.

The fact that there's such a thing as a "Paypal Mafia" is a fucking disgrace.
Same with the influence of Stanford or MIT connections; nothing against these
schools, but after 5 years the signal is gone and it shouldn't matter.

What made Silicon Valley great is that there was an era when common interests
were enough to get you in. That's what gave it its initial power: a lot of
smart people who wanted each other to succeed.

Now it's dominated by a bunch of horrid little good-ole-boy clubs that don't
even respect technology.

~~~
newnewnew
When successful hackers from the last generation stick around, that probably
helps the culture more than if they disappeared, even if the hierarchical
structure thereby created is less aesthetically pleasing to some.

~~~
michaelochurch
You seem to have missed what I am saying completely.

