Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again

Perceptions of Silicon Valley & startup culture

• Several comments argue SV is not fundamentally different from the broader unfair world, but its hype machine sells a false “unicorn lottery” dream despite structural limits on attention, capital, and markets.
• Others contrast a more idealistic, hardware‑tinkerer Valley of the 70s–90s with today’s hyper‑financialized, globalized tech hub, suggesting culture shifted as scale and capital exploded.
• Some see today’s tech giants as following the same playbook as tobacco and fossil fuels: privatize gains, socialize costs (e.g., mental health, polarization), while marketing themselves as progressive saviors.

Equity, capital, and “theft” debate

• Central dispute: the article’s claim that buying equity and founding capitalist firms are forms of “theft” or institutionalized exploitation.
• Critics say this relies on Marxian assumptions (labor theory of value, surplus extraction) that are neither argued deeply nor widely accepted; they see profit as compensation for risk, not theft.
• Defenders of the critique argue market power and lack of real alternatives make supposedly “voluntary” equity deals coercive in practice.

VC model, funding structures, and risk

• Thread digs into why equity exists: loans require collateral and personal guarantees; most startups lack both, so equity shifts downside risk to investors.
• Some argue the VC model encourages overfunded, wasteful, hype‑driven ventures; others say it’s rational given extreme failure rates and outsized wins.
• There’s debate over whether startups are meaningfully “employee‑owned” via stock, versus genuine worker control or majority ownership.

Capitalism, regulation, and lobbying

• Several commenters blame misaligned incentives: investors seek returns, not social utility, and unregulated markets become dominated by the largest players.
• Lobbying is seen by some as the line where firms move from “playing the game” to rewriting the rules; lobbying’s huge ROI is cited as evidence it undermines democracy.
• Proposed responses include stronger regulation, higher taxes on gains, curbing corporate personhood, and more executive criminal liability.

Alternative models & article criticism

• Worker cooperatives, unionization, and non‑profit software organizations are floated but seen as hard to finance at scale.
• Multiple commenters note the article offers almost no concrete transition path from equity startups to co‑ops or other models.
• Some dismiss it as oversimplified “far‑left” or “propaganda,” while others praise its moral indictment of SV but want more practical solutions and a focus on modern harms like attention addiction.