If you want evidence that HN has a fetish for money, it's that the technical details of Whatsapp's success are only closely inspected now that gratuitous cash has been thrown around.
You may view this comment as too cynical for this particular topic, but the ridiculous surge in Whatsapp stories doesn't lie. And of course we should inspect the action of successful companies.
I am merely pointing at the crude vulgarity of the Valley's barometer for success.
Money is certainly not an indicator of true success, other than, of course, success of acquiring money. However, why is money vulgar. Sure, there are many vulgar things one can purchase with money. But money in and of it self isn't vulgar.
Many people here want to understand how WhatsApp managed to convince someone to pay so much money for it, perhaps so they can replicate this success and also become rich. What's so wrong with that?
> perhaps so they can replicate this success and also become rich. What's so wrong with that?
My theory: Perhaps because an ever growing population of tech professionals are disgusted with the race for more wealth?
I will be the first to admit, I'm an Elon Musk fanboy, although I think its justified. Instagram. Whatsapp. Messaging apps! Billions of dollars! For messaging! With that same amount of cash, Musk has delivered goods to an orbiting space station and has succeeded in changing the direction of transportation, something an entire auto industry wouldn't (not couldn't, wouldn't) do.
I could be wrong. Perhaps money is still the end goal for everyone. If its just to have money for money's sake, I feel sad for you. If its to pursue your passion, I think we can all empathize with that.
Money for money sake is silly. You can't take it to your grave, and you can't enjoy it unless you spend it. But there are a lot of cool toys money can buy, like space rockets or cool cars and motorcycles. In my case money would buy me time for tinkering with unprofitable projects and building things with my hands, which I enjoy doing
What do you expect? It's a startup-oriented hacker bulletin board run by a guy that suggests that hiring is obsolete and most nerds should be able to start a new venture and make a killing.
Even if it's overly optimistic, it's a pretty reasonable aspiration compared to the wage slavery most have to endure, so I fail to see why this is wrong.
There are plenty more of stories of failure studied at HN than successes like WhatsApp. That's actually more correlated with reality than the mainstream business media that focuses mostly on success.
Still waiting for the explanation of why it's rotten to want to create value through technology and seek reward for it.
One might argue WhatsApp isn't worth what was paid for, or that the money would be better spent elsewhere. But that's a rather subjective judgement. Spending $16 billion on, say, philanthropic causes, doesn't necessarily lead to desirable or sustainable effects. As with any scarce resource, it depends on how the money is managed.
There's nothing vulgar or clueless with loving money and wanting more of it. Most startups got started thanks to people who have insane amounts of money and enjoy making more, this includes investors in startups that changed the world such as Google, Apple and Facebook. The world needs people who love money so they can fund people who love making stuff that put this money to good use. Simple as that.
So yeah, get off your high horse and please stop lecturing people with cheap and meaningless moral judgments.
I didn't say I personally enjoy making money more than coding/building cool stuff. I just said it was ok if some people do. And yes, when you call something "vulgar and utterly clueless", you're definitely making moral judgments.
> consideration for your position
You have enough consideration to feel like posting a comment about how much you feel about it.
>And yes, when you call something "vulgar and utterly clueless", you're definitely making moral judgments.
I know! My point is merely that I wasn't lecturing.
>You have enough consideration to feel like posting a comment about how much you feel about it.
I suppose I enjoy throwing the moral imperative into sharp relief; making it clear just how much I disdain your vulgar acceptance of the love of wanting money.
That moral imperative alone is enough to carry weight in this thread. It has wandered in as mere sentiment without ever presenting an argument.
...Now, of course, I have strayed into lecturing you about the mechanics of this whole thing--but note I still have not lectured you with the moral judgment itself. I don't care about convincing you that money is vulgar. Sanctimony is enough for me.
You are quite right, though; I have spent enough time here.
> I suppose I enjoy throwing the moral imperative into sharp relief; making it clear just how much I disdain your vulgar acceptance of the love of wanting money.
Really? You disdain the love of wanting money? Looks like you have some personal issues, you're taking this way too personal. Get over yourself, some people love making money and there's nothing wrong with that. I tend to worry more about people who hate making money and have to rely on others, even if that means giving away their freedom or stealing.
At what point has my absolute contempt for "loving money and wanting more of it" been unclear to you? Because you really should have clued in around when I said "Yes?".
>Looks like you have some personal issues, you're taking this way too personal.
This is banter while I fold my laundry.
>some people love making money and there's nothing wrong with that.
See, you just keep on repeating your disagreement with me as if it's going to change anything. Moral imperatives are, well, imperative, you know? I'm just going to reiterate: there is something wrong with that.
I'll rephrase you: some people hate the love of money and there's nothing wrong with that, or at the very least, you can't do anything about it.
You're wasting your own time and giving me more opportunity to bash greed, which is, as I said, making the folding of my laundry more enjoyable.
But I guess it might bother you that someone might think your moral compass is off center because of your position on money.
I'm fine with people hating money, but people hating the love of money? Sounds like personal issues to me. I don't hate hating money as I don't have a personal grudge against people who hate money but it sounds like you do with people who love money. Oh, and I used to think greed was bad too, like when I was 12 but since then I've figured every single one of us act out of greed all the time and waiting for a greedless messiah is naive at best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
> Yes? It is not only vulgar, it is utterly clueless.
I don't have the knowledge or experience to say otherwise, so if someone were to ask me if WhatsApp was a success, $16B seems like a good reason to say yes. Are you implying that WhatsApp's sale was a failure case for their owners, and success for them would have looked differently? (reject the sale and continue growth of the platform?)
I think the app may not be used much here so people were not expecting it to be bought for so much. Anecdotally I know people who use Line, WeChat, and GroupMe. I don't know anyone who uses Whatsapp.
Perhaps among the Erlang community but I only found out as a result of digging into the company.
Would be great to have someone from WhatsApp speak at CUFP this year [1]. If anyone reading this can encourage them to do so (or put me in touch with someone one there), that would be great.
I disagree. If a food charity enhanced their distribution system in a way that allowed them to feed an additional million people internationally I think we'd be just as interested in what they changed in order to meet their goals. We're interested in any significant success. As it stands though, for any for-profit company, money is the primary measure of success.
Please. Money is a measure of value, plain and simple. If a lot of smart people thought WhatsApp was worth 14B then it's probably worth taking a second look at what WhatsApp did to get to this point.
This seems to me to be an excellent example of the kind of poor thinking money promotes; do prove me wrong.
>If a lot of smart people thought WhatsApp was worth 14B
Why are they smart? Because they have billions of dollars? Because Whatsapp is valuable? Because Whatsapp was less useful before the smart people bought it?
Are you incapable of viewing the transaction of 16 billion as a possible utter mistake? As financial hand-waving assigning a liquid value to shares whose value might well be inflated?
Money is a poor measure of value. Plain and simple. Are you drawn to the volume of the transaction because you think it signifies true success?
> it's probably worth taking a second look at what WhatsApp did to get to this point.
Something I never contested and agreed with explicitly.
> Money is a poor measure of value. Plain and simple. Are you drawn to the volume of the transaction because you think it signifies true success?
Money is just a number. I can't quite tell if you're suggesting that value can't be quantified, or if you believe we could quantify value some other way that would be more functional than capital markets. Do Tell.
Value cannot be adequately quantified. At its best, money is an inadequate substitute for such a quantification that is often useful; at its worst, the failure to be mindful of that inadequacy exacerbates its inaccuracy.
He's just starting a conversation, and while I wouldn't advocate handing out participation ribbons, you're just trashing someone that had a thought and expressed it--you and gfodor are buddying up to one another over how worthless that thought is.
Spare us your revelry.
I'm as big a fan as a dirty flame war as anyone. I find complaints over HN's critical culture to be tiring and self-defeating.
But if you're going to be negative, don't give each other high fives about it.
Edit: I suppose this is directed more at you, lutusp, because gfodor seems to be posting criticism in earnest.
I posted what I did so nontechnical readers wouldn't be misled. Would you object if I similarly addressed someone who claimed that evolution must be wrong because it's not in the Bible?
> ... you're just trashing someone that had a thought and expressed it ...
Indeed, that's what I did, but it was because of what was expressed, not the fact of its expression.
Surely it has by now occurred to you that you're defending this person's right to say whatever he chooses, while denying me the same right? Or did that escape your attention?
> Oh, get over yourselves, both of you.
Under the circumstances, it's time for you to get over yourself. The OP's post, and my reply, are perfectly symmetrical -- one demands the other.
You've just demonstrated that you're a study in hypocrisy and have no grasp of how you sound. Under the circumstances, what's my incentive to continue?
There's trying to cross trends for other people (your example) and trying to cross trends in order to find your own niche within expectations. Witness all of the not-quite-fits in the examples the author found.
I think you'd find that an amicable suit-wearing programmer could easily do well at an interview.
What a waste of time. I haven't given too much weight to criticism of Bitcoin's use of computing resources--there's enough low-hanging fruit--but this is actually somehow reprehensible.
Hardly a waste of time. You haven't seen this for what it truly is; a waste of time is your cash sitting in a clearinghouse for days before going overseas. a waste of time is any value transaction that takes more than minutes on a global scale. A waste of time is when the authorities freeze your accounts and cancel your cards. Cryptocurrency solves these problems and more.
You may view this comment as too cynical for this particular topic, but the ridiculous surge in Whatsapp stories doesn't lie. And of course we should inspect the action of successful companies.
I am merely pointing at the crude vulgarity of the Valley's barometer for success.