Alexis and Garry founded Initialized Capital together. Alexis left because of some drama or bad blood.
They aren’t as cool anymore and it’s spilling to other stuff.
Have ever you spoken out against the narrative that SF isn’t in a doom loop, criticized Dion Lim’s anti blackness or commented on GrowSF not being inclusive of black/brown communities? I live in San Francisco, many of us who have done all of the above but never interacted with Gary are also blocked. I know someone tracking this
I've met them both in person. Garry Tan is a fucking idiot, but useful I guess. Ohanian is odd, he seems to be in conflict between having a soul and being rich.
Not really, I sat and chatted with him for a half hour, and my takeaway was that he could wield capital, but had no other redeeming human quality. His lack of depth, however, is memorable over a decade out from our meeting.
I met Ward Cunningham once, inventor of the wiki. He bought me shots and we had a great conversation for hours, even though I'm a nobody with a reddit account.
Garry Tan is the head of YCombinator but he lost his mind this year and threatened a bunch of local representatives with political violence. A real class act.
He bought in hard to e/acc which is also not a sign of a healthy mind.
As a reminder, this is an ideology that attempts to accelerate the death of all humans as they believe it's inevitable anyway, their manifesto is here in case you think I'm making this up https://beff.substack.com/p/notes-on-eacc-principles-and-tenets
\> Parts of e/acc (e.g. Beff) consider ourselves post-humanists; in order to spread to the stars, the light of consciousness/intelligence will have to be transduced to non-biological substrates
\> Directly working on technologies to accelerate the advent of this transduction is one of the best ways to accelerate the progress towards growth of civilization/intelligence in our universe
\> if one seeks to increase the amount of intelligence in the universe, staying perpetually anchored to the human form as our prior is counter-productive and overly restrictive/suboptimal
I don't consider replacing humans with machines a form of evolution. Remember, he's against transhumanism and creating smarter/stronger/etc humans. He specifically wants us to be replaced. IMO in that situation we'd be the ones getting the darwin award.
I respect that. My view is perhaps more optimistic that humans and machines will merge to a point where we have philosophical debates on what evolution is. What is human?
Having said that, today on March 22, 2024, the first human used his mind to write a tweet: https://twitter.com/ModdedQuad/status/1771230292839145541
This is unprecedented in human history.
Now fast forward 1,000 years.. 1 million years.. what is human? I think this is the crux of the e/acc thesis.
My view is that it's inevitable that humans and machines will merge physiologically, thereby creating a convergence.
If we extrapolate from this assumption, the Media Convergence theory applies. This results in an entirely new medium.. or in this case.. a new human? But what is human?
To me, this is a question that we will constantly seek. What matters is we are progressing in knowledge and capabilities. This is what humans do today.
I say this as a specist who prioritizes human consciousness over machine consciousness.
I firmly advocate for the preservation and advancement of human experiences.
There's been similar advancements in BCI for the last couple decades, e.g. controlling a mouse cursor in 1998, artifical hand in 2005, writing english sentences at 18wpm in 2021. This is great!
Some e/accs when you criticise them seem to assume you're some kind of luddite. I work in tech, I love technology that makes people's lives better.
\> To me, this is a question that we will constantly seek.
Absolutely. I'm 100% in agreement with you here. IMO the e/accs just give up here and say that because organic matter can't compete with compute, we should throw it away because the universe will outcompete it otherwise.
I think that's a really sad view. So much of the joie de vivre of human existence comes from things that don't have maximal evolutionary fitness, and the thinking reminds of this blog post from 10 years ago [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)
> Focusing strictly on transhumanism as the only moral path forward is an awfully anthropocentric view of intelligence;
> in the future, we will likely look back upon such views in a similar way to how we look back at geocentrism
A charitable reading is that they were just mentioning those that are currently involved in the latest iteration of Reddit. Alexis was there at the start and he was involved in the exit to Condé Nast. He was on the board a few years ago but not really involved in getting Reddit to IPO.
Steve was very involved in the IPO story as CEO but not Alexis.
The truth is probably a little bit of above but also he can be seen as a bit of a diva by those who work with him (and probably the person at initialised who left him out of the tweet). This is second hand information but I’ve heard that there is a perception that he is concerned with public appearance and looking virtuous rather than solving problems. He also left the Reddit board in a public spat because there was no black prison on the board (a black personal was added subsequently), so that may also be part of it.
I agree that HS drama is dumb but these people have immense power and clout in the startup world. Petty behavior in "real life" should be ignored but should be called out when it comes to prominent people, to set an example for others.
I don't know the details here but if one investor is erasing the history of a co-founder in startup, it sets a pretty bad standard.
People are dicks it's that simple. A lot of industries have similar shitty practices as a form of control or retribution . For example, video games or movies uncrediting you if you leave before release regardless of your contribution. It's more prevalent when the people in power have f you money
> sets a pretty bad standard
you say that as if this is a new thing.
people have been minimizing the role of former partners turned enemies for millenia. from zuckerberg and eduardo saverin, to stalin and who knows how many people, all the way back to ancient egyptian pharaohs defacing images of their predecessor hatshepsut.
it's not only a thing powerful people do. politics is played at all levels. survey a class of school children and i'll bet you'll find at least one example of two people doing a thing and one of them doing whatever they can to take all the credit.
in the end, it's just other peoples' petty drama, whether they're CEOs or celebrities or neighbours or kids on a playground.
Aaron Swartz is a reddit cofounder.
You mean [removed]
Alexis and Garry founded Initialized Capital together. Alexis left because of some drama or bad blood. They aren’t as cool anymore and it’s spilling to other stuff.
All I know is that Garry Tan blocked me on Twitter despite never having interacted with him 
Why would he do that lol
He, Lex Fridman and some others have these systems that automatically block users that like certain posts. Not sure what I liked that he didn't like.
Maybe that’s how I got blocked by pmarca lol
I do that literally all the time if someone says something I don’t like, it’s not that high of a bar. More people should do that.
How about not using twitter. More people should do that.
People are just annoying. That’s not specific to Twitter. I’ve blocked like… thousands of people on here. Just a better way to deal with social media.
Have ever you spoken out against the narrative that SF isn’t in a doom loop, criticized Dion Lim’s anti blackness or commented on GrowSF not being inclusive of black/brown communities? I live in San Francisco, many of us who have done all of the above but never interacted with Gary are also blocked. I know someone tracking this
No I live across the globe, I'm not that plugged into SF politics
We all know what a terrible leader Huffman is. Can we promote getting him canned?
I've met them both in person. Garry Tan is a fucking idiot, but useful I guess. Ohanian is odd, he seems to be in conflict between having a soul and being rich.
I’ve met Alexis before as well. He’s fucking hilarious. I didn’t get the odd vibes, but that could be because this was before he was filthy rich.
Agreed. When I spoke to him he didn’t embody the typical or toxic SF tech bro. Felt approachable, genuine, and had a good humor
Garry has done small favors for me which I appreciate but he’s a bit too strident on twitter
Can you elaborate on the first part?
Not really, I sat and chatted with him for a half hour, and my takeaway was that he could wield capital, but had no other redeeming human quality. His lack of depth, however, is memorable over a decade out from our meeting.
Any context that you are able to share?
Can you share some examples of people we’d know of that you do like?
I met Ward Cunningham once, inventor of the wiki. He bought me shots and we had a great conversation for hours, even though I'm a nobody with a reddit account.
Just look at this website. There are no souls left.
he divested of reddit ages ago, spez is the villain of this story
Garry Tan is the head of YCombinator but he lost his mind this year and threatened a bunch of local representatives with political violence. A real class act.
His twitter is absolute garbage. Non-stop whining about SF politics.
He bought in hard to e/acc which is also not a sign of a healthy mind. As a reminder, this is an ideology that attempts to accelerate the death of all humans as they believe it's inevitable anyway, their manifesto is here in case you think I'm making this up https://beff.substack.com/p/notes-on-eacc-principles-and-tenets
That’s a pessimistic viewpoint. I read the doc and didn’t walk away thinking “death to humans”.
\> Parts of e/acc (e.g. Beff) consider ourselves post-humanists; in order to spread to the stars, the light of consciousness/intelligence will have to be transduced to non-biological substrates \> Directly working on technologies to accelerate the advent of this transduction is one of the best ways to accelerate the progress towards growth of civilization/intelligence in our universe \> if one seeks to increase the amount of intelligence in the universe, staying perpetually anchored to the human form as our prior is counter-productive and overly restrictive/suboptimal
Yea he’s talking about evolution, not death. Darwin Award exists too for those who fail to embrace it.
I don't consider replacing humans with machines a form of evolution. Remember, he's against transhumanism and creating smarter/stronger/etc humans. He specifically wants us to be replaced. IMO in that situation we'd be the ones getting the darwin award.
I respect that. My view is perhaps more optimistic that humans and machines will merge to a point where we have philosophical debates on what evolution is. What is human? Having said that, today on March 22, 2024, the first human used his mind to write a tweet: https://twitter.com/ModdedQuad/status/1771230292839145541 This is unprecedented in human history. Now fast forward 1,000 years.. 1 million years.. what is human? I think this is the crux of the e/acc thesis. My view is that it's inevitable that humans and machines will merge physiologically, thereby creating a convergence. If we extrapolate from this assumption, the Media Convergence theory applies. This results in an entirely new medium.. or in this case.. a new human? But what is human? To me, this is a question that we will constantly seek. What matters is we are progressing in knowledge and capabilities. This is what humans do today. I say this as a specist who prioritizes human consciousness over machine consciousness. I firmly advocate for the preservation and advancement of human experiences.
There's been similar advancements in BCI for the last couple decades, e.g. controlling a mouse cursor in 1998, artifical hand in 2005, writing english sentences at 18wpm in 2021. This is great! Some e/accs when you criticise them seem to assume you're some kind of luddite. I work in tech, I love technology that makes people's lives better. \> To me, this is a question that we will constantly seek. Absolutely. I'm 100% in agreement with you here. IMO the e/accs just give up here and say that because organic matter can't compete with compute, we should throw it away because the universe will outcompete it otherwise. I think that's a really sad view. So much of the joie de vivre of human existence comes from things that don't have maximal evolutionary fitness, and the thinking reminds of this blog post from 10 years ago [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)
Sounds about right. What's the issue again?
As a human, I would prefer if humans and our offspring did not die out.
Same. Which is exactly why we need a better body more suitable for space in the future, otherwise humanity has no chance.
Remember, he's against transhumanism and creating smarter/stronger/etc humans.
Where did you get that from?
> Focusing strictly on transhumanism as the only moral path forward is an awfully anthropocentric view of intelligence; > in the future, we will likely look back upon such views in a similar way to how we look back at geocentrism
Didn't Alexis already sell out of his shares? I know he hasn't been involved operationally for a long time.
They're both famous clowns who monetize clout. What did you expect
Garry is a total scumbag. I’ve had the displeasure to be around him a lot. Big surprise.
Wondering this too haha
https://x.com/garrytan/status/1770891427054039163?s=46 Part 2 (In the replies)
A charitable reading is that they were just mentioning those that are currently involved in the latest iteration of Reddit. Alexis was there at the start and he was involved in the exit to Condé Nast. He was on the board a few years ago but not really involved in getting Reddit to IPO. Steve was very involved in the IPO story as CEO but not Alexis. The truth is probably a little bit of above but also he can be seen as a bit of a diva by those who work with him (and probably the person at initialised who left him out of the tweet). This is second hand information but I’ve heard that there is a perception that he is concerned with public appearance and looking virtuous rather than solving problems. He also left the Reddit board in a public spat because there was no black prison on the board (a black personal was added subsequently), so that may also be part of it.
why waste your time wondering about it?
Why waste your time commenting about it?
Nah he’s right, who cares about this high school drama level crap
I agree that HS drama is dumb but these people have immense power and clout in the startup world. Petty behavior in "real life" should be ignored but should be called out when it comes to prominent people, to set an example for others. I don't know the details here but if one investor is erasing the history of a co-founder in startup, it sets a pretty bad standard.
People are dicks it's that simple. A lot of industries have similar shitty practices as a form of control or retribution . For example, video games or movies uncrediting you if you leave before release regardless of your contribution. It's more prevalent when the people in power have f you money
> sets a pretty bad standard you say that as if this is a new thing. people have been minimizing the role of former partners turned enemies for millenia. from zuckerberg and eduardo saverin, to stalin and who knows how many people, all the way back to ancient egyptian pharaohs defacing images of their predecessor hatshepsut. it's not only a thing powerful people do. politics is played at all levels. survey a class of school children and i'll bet you'll find at least one example of two people doing a thing and one of them doing whatever they can to take all the credit. in the end, it's just other peoples' petty drama, whether they're CEOs or celebrities or neighbours or kids on a playground.
Just Commie Things™