It’s not a big secret, but Silicon Valley is filled with douchebags. Occasionally one of these douchebags will come up with something that actually does change the world, like Facebook, but more often they’ll just make some annoying and awful human being incredibly rich. Well before sports fans learned to hate Mark Cuban as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, tech journalists were hating him as the owner of Broadcast.com. Which he sold to Yahoo! just in time to avoid the dot-com crash.
Nonetheless, these people like to pretend that they’re not there to make lots of money but because they genuinely want to make the world a better place instead. So they all must be really pissed the New York Times yanked the lid off of how filthy rich they really they are.
The Times article in question explores how much excess exists in Silicon Valley and how obsessed these people are with spending their fortunes while keeping it a secret at the same time. For us the choicest quote was this one…
At Facebook, the first 250 employees are on a highly secret list called TNR250, for The Nouveau Riche 250. They discuss things they plan to buy when they sell their hundreds of millions of dollars in stock: boats, planes, artwork, even an island. (To be fair, philanthropy is also discussed.)
By “discussed” do we mean seriously considered, or spending five minutes laughing at the idea? True, it’s not as ridiculously excessive as some of the pre-dot-com boom shenanigans, but on the other hand, these are all people, with the exception of Sean Parker, who like to pretend that they’re just normal guys doing this to help the world. I never thought I’d say this, but at least Parker freely admits he’s in it for the money.
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Rich douchebags can be pretty annoying.
But they’re not as bad as petty, jealous, self-righteous bloggers.
Or trolls.
Or people who write the first comment on a blog post making fun of the blogger whom you read frequently, otherwise why the fuck would you be the first to make a piece of shit comment about how you’d never waste your time writing a blog like this, only to waste your time commenting on blogs about how you wouldn’t waste your time writing blogs. To sum it all up, fuck you
So someone actually made an account specifically to rip into me for a two sentence comment I made?
What a bunch of thin-skinned nerds. And no, expressing a contrary opinion is not trolling.
I dont think anyone would be surprised to find that rich people like to throw their money around,or that the way they spend their cash would make the average man vomit with rage. Why make money if youre not gonna enjoy it. I dont hate the rich, but I’m sick of hearing about them all the time.
There was actually a philosopher named Barthes who has a great essay about right-wing ideology versus left-wing ideology, in which he points out essentially that the poor are boring, which is why nobody likes talking about them. I’m hideously oversimplifying it but it’s a fascinating essay.
I’m sure there is some major douchebagery going on… but seriously? This is why we fantasize about winning the lottery. to think of all the ridiculous shit we would buy.
These guys are sitting on winning powerballs (Te he he), what else are they supposed to do but think of all the money?
It’s what I would do, and I’m a mild douche bag.
Whoooooo caarrreeeesssss. Uproxx used to be great but it is going downhill fast. Almost everything on it used to be must-read, now more often than not I feel like I am seeing articles like this one, which appears to be an otherwise intelligent blogger making snobby, unfunny value judgements.
Ive also noticed a bunch of reposts from reddit.
How did this turn into the UPROXX complaint department thread? This was supposed to be the “make fun of the rich Facebookers so we can feel better about ourselves” thread.
This is the Silicon Valley Dream, that and becoming Strikeforce heavyweight champion.
“They discuss things they plan to buy when they sell their hundreds of millions of dollars in stock: boats, planes, artwork, even an island.”
Looking on how Facebook continues to perform on Wall Street, they should probably buy that island pretty quickly.
I’m stunned. What’s next? Finding out hedge fund managers are nepotistic shitheads that have never accomplished anything through their own merits. THAT would be truly shocking.
I’m shocked that people actually WANT lots of money…….and when (an if) they get it……they waste it on shit they like…..
Someone ought to pass a law so that we enlightened ones can dole out the appropriate toys to these guys……and then keep the rest of the dough for ourselves….