[metaphorm]

are you serious? if Horowitz was really committed to the cause he would just personally donate a large amount of money (he has plenty) and not bother engaging in any of the public virtue signaling behaviors.

it seems pretty obvious that he put the "donated to charity" sticker on the form to deflect accusations that he was profiteering from his fame. seems to me more like he was getting too much shit mail and wanted to try an experiment with gating it behind cash so people would put up or shut up.

[tptacek]

Yes. This. Ben Horowitz is petrified that we will perceive the immense revenues he's going to get from $20 Q&A sessions as profiteering, especially considering the paucity of his other business interests. Virtue signaling, indeed!

[gist]

Personally, I think it's cliche to always invoke charity as a way to lessen some perceived negative or appear to not be profiteering. After all the VC firm is clearly not a charity (his business in other words) so why is it necessary to walk on eggshells and always donate money to charity. To me this is just a typical pc correct way of doing things.

[emodendroket]

The fact that it's paltry strengthens, rather than weakening, the parent post's argument.

[metaphorm]

no, Ben Horowitz does not want to be perceived as engaging in personal nuisance abatement so he makes it look more socially acceptable.

in other words, he wants to be able to take questions by email, because there is some upside for him in that (discovering new prospects for investment probably), but there is huge downside in the risk of getting spammed by shit emails.

he implements a $20 cash gate on that to mitigate the downside, but then realizes he has introduced a new downside, of appearing greedy or craven in some way, therefore he donates it to a virtue signaling charity. it will be a very small amount of money either way.

my point is that the charitable donation aspect is NOT what is driving Horowitz' behavior here. I was responding to a post which suggested it was that.

[tptacek]

Definitely a fantastic way to abate nuisance outreach is to allow people to entitle themselves to your time for the price of a 12 pack of beer.

This will have the opposite effect of the one you propose. Virtually everybody can afford $20; what he's doing is giving people new permission to contact him, and not only that but by attaching a price tag to it he's giving them expectations about his attention.

[metaphorm]

yes, actually. compared to $0 cash gate, anyway. he wants some level of email interaction, but only if you're above some threshold of seriousness. its not a very high threshold, but is enough to prevent trolling and spamming in any case.

[tptacek]

You really think that now that he's posted this offer, nobody's going to troll or spam him without spending $20 first?

I'm not suggesting that this is the most impactful charity thing anyone's ever done --- this is marginal stuff, to be sure --- but the trope where we try to unwind any charitable impulse anyone has to some insidious subtextual personal interest is always tiresome and virtually never very insightful.

It's particularly dumb in this case.

[metaphorm]

you ever been to a bar/stage where there's a cover charge at the door? you know why the cover charge is such a tiny amount of money?

this is a cover charge. yes, I do expect it to keep out 99% of trolls and spammers.

[the_watcher]

Related to this, the meta description claims you'll only pay if you get a response.

[Trundle]

Pretty sure he signed up because he's a part owner of the cash gate company. If it was important to him to cash gate himself earlier he certainly had the means to implement a crude version of it.

[the_watcher]

You seem to be presuming that he has not donated a large sum of money to this cause.

[josh_carterPDX]

Snide comments aside, this entire response is jaded, accusatory, and presumptuous.

I don't know how much money Ben has nor do I care. I responded, paid the $20, and my message was a simple "Thank you!"

You either choose to see the good or try to tie in your own negative narrative. I choose to assume his intentions were noble and supported the cause.