Disclaiming introspection is itself a form of introspection. Arguing against introspection, rationalizing one's own dysfunction, is just too cute by half.
Look, it's just really disturbing that this guy is the paradigm of a successful VC. He's literally a prideful ignorant, and possibly just a terrible person.
> don't believe that Facebook/Meta would continue to grow next year
Huh.
The time I worked at a hyper growth company, us working in the coal mine had much the same skepticism. Our growth rate seemed ridiculous, surely we're over building, how much longer can this last?!
Happily, the marketing research team regularly presented stuff to our department. They explained who are customers were, projected market sizes (regionally, internationally), projected growth rates, competitive analysis (incumbents and upstarts), etc.
It helped so much. And although their forecasts seemed unbelievable, we over performed every year-over-year. Such that you sort of start to trust the (serious) marketing research types.
IMHO Pax Americana ended (passed the point of no return) with GWB. Iraq, 2008 financial crisis, SCOTUS picks, unitary executive, extraordinary rendition, breaking of weapons treaties (nuke testing, bio & chem warfare), abandoning peace between Isreal & Palestinians, etc, etc.
Forfieted any remaining goodwill.
(Post 9/11, It would have been so easy to choose the other path.)
The origins of each colony (a la Albion's Seed) continue to shape our politics. Spoiler: The Virginians won.
> it took a "white knight"
Yes and: each progressive reform, however modest, barely squeaked thru, overcoming huge opposition. The Farmstead Act (et al), New Deal, Great Society, ACA, IRA, etc.
Followed by an outsized reactionary backlash. Every single time. Just like the current cycle of revanchism.
Authentic human activity has been completely overwhelmed by bots and slop. Discerning signal from noise becomes too burdensome to bother with.
Of course the physical medium continues to exist.
Of course there are still humans, such as yourself, producing free content, to be harvested and regurgitated by parasites.
But authentic human activity is increasingly going out of band, no longer discoverable. Whatsapp, discord, private groups. Exactly as the theory predicted.
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