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by Aurornis 387 days ago
FYI this is Sahil Lavingia, who has a long history in the tech world and HN. He's definitely not a villain and has done some good things in the tech world over the years.

However, he's also very good at PR and spinning things in his favor. He has a long history of going full hustle-culture on trends as they come along, including everything from NFTs to LLMs and now DOGE. He's very good at wiggling out of difficult situations and rewriting history about himself, and this article is a good example of that.
2 comments
joshstrange 387 days ago
Willfully ignorant or villain, pick one.

This isn't ancient history, all of this /just/ (is) happened. We were all there. How is it that so many people took one look at DOGE (_before Trump took office even_) and saw it for what it is but this person with "long history in the tech world" couldn't see it? I don't care how many "good things" they've done in tech, they were a willful and active participant all of this.

> He's very good at wiggling out of difficult situations and rewriting history about himself, and this article is a good example of that.

Is it? It makes them look like an idiot. An idiot for not seeing what so many people saw before or an idiot for thinking we would buy this load of BS. In fact, I'm not even sure what this is supposed to accomplish, they do not come off looking smart or any positive trait I can think of.

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JohnFen 387 days ago
I have no way of knowing if he's a villain or not, but this article sure makes it sound like he must either be that or dangerously deluded.
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ergocoder 387 days ago
Which part is deluded? I don't really see it.
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JohnFen 387 days ago
That part where he doesn't see how he materially contributed to seriously harming people.
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ergocoder 386 days ago
> he materially contributed to seriously harming people.

There are 2 points:

1. Umm he wasn't an exec who had any power to decide whether to lay off somebody or not.

He built some prototypes and launched 1-2 improved UI. Was improving a website harming people?

2. Laying off unnecessary workforce isn't a net harmful to the society.

Are you saying we should never ever fire or stop hiring anybody ever?

Have you ever stop hiring someone in your life? A house cleaner. A babysitter? Stop going to a restaurant? Did you harm them when you stop paying for their services?

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