this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2024
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62
The moral bankruptcy of Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Two of Silicon Valley’s famous venture capitalists make the case for backing Trump: that their ability to make money is the only value that matters.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Lol

I'm voting for Harris to stop Trump, as I would have done for Biden again, as I did do for Clinton at an empty polling place, as I would for a baked potato to rot on the oval office desk for four years if it was the only candidate against fascism.

But let's not get it twisted, I do this out of harm reduction precisely because greed and greed worship are our sole PRACTICED national cultural values. The small number that have too much, and the legions who fantasize about being the immoral, exploitative, sociopathic bastards instead of breaking the wheel.

If they weren't, we would have pulled the owners out of their towers and l guard gated golf clubs decades ago for what they've done to us and our children.

And we've used our state department and military to propagate our greed disease for decades. We are patient zero for the greed rot of the developed world.

I wish we weren't, I wish we'd change, and I wish the vast majority of Americans didn't laugh Occupy Wall Street off their occupation, but like it or not, and I despise it, We are the United States of Greed.

But if you'd like to argue that that isn't all we are, we can talk about the role our national pastime, shooting eachother, has in our national ethos.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

IMO, Pete Buttigieg is the best political communicator of this time.

"I know there are a lot of folks who say, 'What's going on with these Silicon Valley folks veering into Trump world with JD Vance, and backing Trump?' . . . We've made it way too complicated. It's super simple. These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican party that tends to do good things for very rich men."

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Too bad he's also a huge hypocrite who helped those very rich men price fix all bread in Canada and was the only 2020 contender that competed with Biden when it came to billionaire donors.

He knows it so well because his job is to do good things (or, when the head of a regulatory agency, do nothing more than wag a finger after the fact) for very rich men while pretending to be a man of the people and devoted civil servant.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, fixed the price of bread in Canada? My, my. And who do you fix prices for?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He might be a shitty Doogie Howser knockoff, but he wasn't born as mayor. 🙄

Before that, he worked as a consultant for the profiteering maximization firm McKinsey for 3 years.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So, you're telling me he worked for an investment firm and played a market? I'm shocked. Next thing you'll be telling me is that as a DA, Harris put too many people in jail.

But, you know the story you won't tell? That they created several million dollar businesses and sent them into bankruptcy, leaving the little guy holding the bag.

Why? Because, they were actually good at their jobs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

When your job is extracting as much money as possible, including via unnecessary mass layoffs, being good at your job is a BAD thing.

His job was to help screw workers over to maximize the wealth of already rich people and to a certain degree, it still is.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Spoken like a guy who has never been in business. Maximizing profit is what you are paid to do. I've worked for large corporations and created small companies. Without the realization of that fact, you cannot be successful in either.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Maximizing profit is what you are paid to do

Which is a societal disease, not an immutable fact of life. Seeking profit maximizing at the expense of the workers and/or the quality of the product or service you offer is not virtuous or natural.

Without the realization of that fact, you cannot be successful in either.

That's just false. Many of us would consider providing a good product or service and providing gainful employment the end goals of commerce. Not maximizing profit at the expense of everything else like a goddamn parasite.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not a disease for anybody who believes in free enterprise. It's true for management and workers.

Building good product and services is a way to maximize profits. It really isn't an either/or situation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

believes in free enterprise

Like religion, that's a concept the powerful made up to control the market.

Truly "free" enterprise, IE unburdened by regulations, inevitably ends up with the powerful dominating the powerless.

As I'm sure you'd agree, being dominated by someone who's more powerful than you is nobody's idea of free. In fact, even if you're into it, it tends to be rather expensive.

Building good product and services is a way to maximize profits. It really isn't an either/or situation

That used to be the case, sure, but nowadays there's all sorts of ways to tweak profits that necessitates compromising on either quality (including treatment of workers) or profits.

So if you want to maximize (achieve the maximum of) profits, you literally have to compromise the quality, how you treat your workers, or both. Almost all companies do both.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've only seen such opinions from Iron curtain countries that strive to get enough toilet. paper. Good luck with that, btw.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I've only seen such opinions from Iron curtain countries that strive to get enough toilet. paper

It's not my fault you live in a bubble of people with no class consciousness or solidarity with the exploited majority.

Good luck with that. And congratulations on always having enough toilet, paper.