[nanfinitum]

Yes we can actually.

I think it has something to do with Silicon Valley's obsession with money. To SV-people, billionaires are like gods. They are worshipped and invited to all the events worth going to (meetups, hackathons, etc.). Everyone wants to be like them.

And it seems to me to be a geographical problem too. In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains. Nobody particularly likes them (outside of select finance bros), and people openly express disdain for them and their greed.

[red-iron-pine]

NYC has a long history of the wealthy screwing people over. The fuck-you-pay-me has been a thing since NYC literally traded slaves.

California is/was New Money and comes with optimism and change and progress and was able to keep up the façade until fairly recently. Now the FAANG world is richer than god and has no reasons to even try to maintain illusions

[entropicdrifter]

It's also a governmental problem. Remember that Vance is functionally owned by Thiel, who also backed Trump's campaign.

So, the issue is really just that he has far too much power, as an individual

[lowkey_]

> In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains. Nobody particularly likes them (outside of select finance bros), and people openly express disdain for them and their greed.

I think you may be confusing 'power' or 'impact' with wealth in this take.

Paul Graham wrote about this in a blog post [1].

In NYC, being rich is cool, even if you just inherited it all. Having lived 12 years in NYC, I agree wholeheartedly. It's what everyone aspires to have; the Tribeca loft and the Patek watch.

In SF, PG wrote that nobody cares that you inherited a bunch of wealth unless they're a real estate agent. I think this is true — flashy wealth isn't impressive in SV/SF. Impact and power and the scope of what you've built and created is what's impressive, for better or worse. (I just moved to SF for this reason).

[1] https://paulgraham.com/cities.html

[pmdulaney]

It's getting harder and harder to even hazard a guess as to why a comment on HN gets downvoted. Is Paul Graham becoming persona non grata? Is that it?

[UncleMeat]

It is because it is incorrect.

[ryandrake]

> I think it has something to do with Silicon Valley's obsession with money. To SV-people, billionaires are like gods.

Just look at some of the comment threads here. So many replies essentially White-Knighting for a billionaire! Why does one take time out of their day to post an impassioned defense of this guy? He doesn't need your help. Do y'all think he's going to Venmo you $100 every time you defend his honor online?

Same thing for Musk. Say one thing bad about him, and the Musk Defense League reliably crawls out of the woodwork to passionately argue for him and downvote criticism. What's the point?

[dpark]

> In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains.

This is absurd to the point of being cartoonish. No one treats billionaires like supervillains. How many billionaires are in supermax prisons right now in New York?

> Nobody particularly likes them

This is not relevant, regardless of whether it’s true. A ton of people hate Thiel and Trump. Disliking a billionaire doesn’t take away their power.

[nancyminusone]

In cartoons, supervillains are rarely in prison either, even though that's where they belong.

[baseballdork]

> This is absurd to the point of being cartoonish. No one treats billionaires like supervillains. How many billionaires are in supermax prisons right now in New York?

"Supervillains" are comic book entities who are rarely in prison

[dpark]

Because they escape or cannot be captured. Not because there’s no will to lock them up.

But this is really not my point. Billionaires == Supervillains is not a commonly held view outside some echo chambers.

[smegger001]

I dont know "billionaire realestate mogul and serial criminal gets elected president" is the quick bio of both Lex Luthor and Donald Trump. Larry Elision buying up Hawaiian islands sure looks like a Bond Villian if you squint a little.

[dpark]

Being a billionaire seems to be a prerequisite for being a modern supervillain but most billionaires probably don’t qualify. There are 125 billionaires living in New York City alone.

Batman is a billionaire too in comic lore.