Douglas_Knight comments on Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Clarity 27 June 2016 01:46AM

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Comment author: Daniel_Burfoot 29 June 2016 01:22:44PM *  4 points [-]

This comment got 6+ responses, but none that actually attempted to answer the question. My goal of Socratically prompting contrarian thinking, without being explicitly contrarian myself, apparently failed. So here is my version:

  • Most startups are gimmicky and derivative, even or especially the ones that get funded.
  • Working for a startup is like buying a lottery ticket: a small chance of a big payoff. But since humans are by nature risk-averse, this is a bad strategy from a utility standpoint.
  • Startups typically do not create new technology; instead they create new technology-dependent business models.
  • Even if startups are a good idea in theory, currently they are massively overhyped, so on the margin people should be encouraged to avoid them.
  • Early startup employees (not founders) don't make more than large company employees.
  • The vast majority of value from startups comes from the top 1% of firms, like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. All of those firms were founded by young white males in their early 20s. VCs are driven by the goal of funding the next Facebook, and they know about the demographic skew, even if they don't talk about it. So if you don't fit the profile of a megahit founder, you probably won't get much attention from the VC world.
  • There is a group of people (called VCs) whose livelihood depends on having a supply of bright young people who want to jump into the startup world. These people act as professional activists in favor of startup culture. This would be fine, except there is no countervailing force of professional critics. This creates a bias in our collective evaluation of the culture.
Comment author: Douglas_Knight 10 July 2016 07:31:30PM 0 points [-]

You never explained what you mean by "startup culture," nor "good."

One can infer something from your arguments. But different arguments definitely appeal to different definitions of "good." In particular: good for the founder, good for the startup employee, good for the VC, and good for society.

There is no reason to believe that it should be good for all of them. In particular, a belief that equity is valuable to startup employees is good for founders and VCs, but if it is false, it is bad for startup employees. If startups are good for society, it may be good for society for the employees to be deceived. But if startups are good for society, it may be a largely win-win for startups to be considered virtuous and everyone involved in startups to receive status. Isn't that the kind of thing "culture" does, rather than promulgate specific beliefs?

By "startup culture" you seem to mean anything that promotes startups. Do these form a natural category? If they are all VC propaganda, then I guess that's a natural category, but it probably isn't a coherent culture. Perhaps there is a pro-startup culture that confabulates specific claims when asked. But are the details actually motivating people, or is it really the amorphous sense of virtue or status?

Sometimes I see people using "startup culture" in a completely different way. They endorse the claim that startups are good for society, but condemn the current culture as unproductive.

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