[krisdol]

> and partly because billionaires get less than zero sympathy if they talk about having difficult lives

That quote from the essay reminds me of a Silicon Valley scene [1] where the CEO of the pseudo-Google company in the show gets vilified (rightfully so in the show) for complaining about how hard billionaires have it in this country.

I bet the creator's read PG's essay and were inspired by it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5zQpN28xa4

[rfrank]

That scene was inspired by Thomas Perkins' letter to WSJ.

http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230454950457...

[valarauca1]

Seeing as former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo joined the show as a writer I think this isn't a huge leap.

[rhizome]

I don't think he has a writer credit, does he? I thought he was under "script consultant" like Matt Cutts and other industry peeps, who I imagine get calls and say "yeah do that," or "you should include X."

[hyperbovine]

No, he is much more involved than that.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-silicon-va...

[rhizome]

I dunno, from what's described it sounds like his input was on par with Andreesen's, except he wanted to be more involved. He's not mentioned after the first third of the article.

[tdaltonc]

Or they read the news.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-26/kleiner-p...

[bitmapbrother]

>pseudo-Google company

I don't get why people think Hooli is some pseudo-Google company. In the Silicon Valley universe Google clearly exists. Eric Schmidt was in their series premiere and the show's opening intro animation clearly shows Google and YouTube.

[tekklloneer]

It's because they probably can't use Google but they wanted a Google. It's a writing device to get around that inconvenient fact.

[hyperbovine]

It's a composite of recognizable bad habits of a bunch of well known companies, including Google.

[noam87]

Hooli strikes me as a Google-sized Uber.

[justicezyx]

I cannot believe that the privileged rich created such shows to disguise their unjustified fortune; and still intelligent people believe these superficial arguments.

billionaires == jews?

Can something be more wrong?

[corysama]

It's not clear to me if you are aware that the video you are commenting on is from a comedy show satirizing Silicon Valley and it's billionaires...

[mulcahey]

Gotta hand it to them for the realism though getting the actual code conference interviewers.