His "VC" fund is a social good company that prioritizes people's wellfare over profits. and who cares if its a success or failure, VC is hard.
He isn't a hero and he isn't a "Dickhead". He's just a human.
If you don't know him personally you really shouldn't be making these kinds of baseless adhominem attacks.
Reading your comment history, its nothing but black and white opinions and pointless preferences.
I am leaving this community forever. This whole place has gone down hill. There are no more hackers here. There is no more real discussion of anything. I feel bad for paul graham. This website is a disgrace.
And, in fact, the stuff you don’t know is even worse.
Something seems a little off lately with the sudden uptick in PR/guest interviewing/attention seeking behaviour as of late.
Steve Jobs, the example that always gets invoked here, was a horrible human being. Did that make him wrong? No, it didn't, it made him an asshole. And Chamath being an asshole doesn't make him wrong here either. Is Chamath Steve Jobs? No, but who cares. I found what he said interesting, and probably right in ways that make people uncomfortable.
Which probably explains why folks are bringing up his love life.
yep - people here wants those who are virtuous to be more successful than those who aren't. 'cept in real life, there's no correlation, and logically there wouldn't be. In fact, the more of an asshole you are, the more likely you'd be able to take advantage of people to succeed.
The actual problem as hinted, is it gets upvoted.
It's how Twitter has become the toxic mess it is devaluing actual content.
To grow people need to go through this stage, but it's hard to know were they can do it. Like an off topic tag.
The comment "The guy is a stock promoter through and through" was an interesting accusation and on topic, but it's lost now.
His VC fund had LPs that lost money. I don't think they really give a shit about "welfare over profits". Once it's a family office yeah sure preach about welfare over profits but remember he had a fiduciary responsibility to his LPs which he (likely) broke.
"No more real discussion". This is what real discussion looks like. People LOVE chamath and I am explaining what I see is wrong about him.
Box, Slack, Yammer, Palantir. I guess I don't know what the definition of "major" is, but those seem decent. The VC fund did eventually "burn down", but not because of bad investments but because he had some personal issues.
I don't have a strong opinion about him as a person. I just don't understand why a criticism was that he was a bad VC. It seems like he probably came out OK there.
Yammer was bought by MSFT for more than it was worth (and likely more than it was valued at when he invested).
I was on reddit watching this speculation frenzy unfold. These idiots follow this guy's words and then spin rumors off of them....then those rumors circulate in this echo chamber until everyone is saying the same thing.
Then you have stuff like GME and AMC. I'm not surprised at all what is happening because there are so many people that just see the next big trend and just pile in.
You clearly can, considering your comment hasn't been removed. Why do you think your opinion deserves to be on the top of the page over anyone else's?
I mean if you have a disagreement with his ideas, it makes sense to debate them/attack them but on a post about his comments on the WSB debate you've tried to take his personal life and accomplishments to the cleaners.
> Yes, I am pretty pro WSB just like chamath. I think he is wrong about the "research" that is happening though. There is a bull case but not a $25 bil mkt cap one
And that's after you've already mentioned that you're pretty pro WSB. Is he wrong though, WSB posters identified, correctly, that they could use the GME short interest in their favour by squeezing the folks on the other side of the trade. @chamath never mentioned there's fundamental research to support a $25 billion market cap.
I don't know the backstory on his time at facebook but from all the articles I've read on his VC fund, he returned north of 30-40% / year while it was active. When commenters have pointed out his wins, you've discounted it as 'oh, but it's just one company' or something along the lines.
Additionally, Steve Cohen isn't really a fair comparison - that dude's company was literally shut down for insider trading - it's a whole different ballgame that Steve Cohen pretty much got away without so much as a slap on the wrist though.
Also the world is littered with people who've made poor decisions / decisions that are suboptimal to the external observer but I think given you don't have a microphone into their personal stuff, it seems really disingenuous to use that to disparage him.
It helps that there aren't very many big names with airplay in the media right now that aren't being ridiculously biased against WSB here.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f3/f9/6c/f3f96c06ddc73aa35cfa...
I think it is a stretch to say r/wsb insiders are obviously taking advantage of newcomers. You can’t spend much time with WSB without developing some financial literacy, and there are compelling ideas. It is not just flexing and hype. Also, I don’t think there is a precedent (such as the pyramid scheme) for what they are doing in the market.
I think there is some truth to your mention of young Reddit person being vulnerable, but I think it is risky trying to protect them with regulation.
Most times WSB talk about normal stocks and positions and the gains or losses thereof. A few like TSLA, PLNTR and now GME hit the mainstream airways are meme stocks. Losing money and bragging about is about as big a kudos as gaining as much.
The level of organisation and criminality you might think exists isn't there at all.
The guy from Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary can raise a fund just by virtue of that, being a known brand.
He seems like a person with good intentions, but just kind of a hustler, not a bad one, I don't think he's starting pyramid schemes - but I also don't think he has anything to contribute.
We're in a new era of Twitter/Youtube experts with a ton of populism via RobinHood and ETrade Retirees so we're going to have to live with the talking heads.
Slack?
But imagine retail investors doing this out of sentiment, a la Facebook. It is even scarier and more sinister.
Thieves robbing thieves, it is best to stay out if you have ethics.
>Comes from nothing
>is a billionaire
EDIT: That's according to him. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy overhypes his assets. Also his divorce likely cost him half (they got married before he joined FB).
He has an incredibly story (coming from nothing) but lets look at his career:
He "leaves" (aka fired) Facebook for being a D*ck head. Nobody is willing to work with him because he is rude and a jerk. His direct reports would cry regularly. Steven Levy talked about this in his book on Facebook.
He starts a VC fund. The fund has no "major" wins. For a guy writing checks in 2011 he didn't get any of the big wins. The VC fund literally "burns down" as Axios put it because he divorced his wife and was chasing a girl in Italy rather than being in the office.
Now he SPACs worthless companies selling them off to retail traders who think he is Warren Buffett. He is a salesman. The guy is on CNBC every other day.
I get the "holding truth to power" narrative is attractive but Chamath is not our saviour. I would argue he is just as bad as any other hedge fund manager. Taking advantage of retail investors.
Chamath talking about protecting the little guy is like Steve Cohen talking about respecting securities laws.