Girl Ziplocked writes sharp, profane Medium essays criticizing Silicon Valley, venture capital, startups, and capitalism.
HN commenters link her pieces as rebuttals to Paul Graham and in debates over why Amazon runs at a deficit.
Paul Graham deeply misunderstands the argument against inequality, and he's also dead wrong that starting startups is what makes most people reach. Most wealth is institutional and/or based on rent-seeking. Starting startups is not rent-seeking.
After writing this article, Graham was justifiably annihilated by journalists, fellow VCs, real economists, and founders.
YC-funded founder: http://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/paul-graham-wrong-inequality.html
Mark Suster: https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-i-don-t-celebrate-income-inequality-84290db74956
Harvard sociologist: http://qz.com/586563/paul-graham-just-accidentally-explained-everything-wrong-with-silicon-valleys-world-view/ and also https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/paul-graham-is-still-asking-to-be-eaten-5f021c0c0650
Roundup of several economists: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/14/what-silicon-valley-doesnt-understand-about-inequality/
And so did Amazon for the longest time, and also to much controversy.....
This older piece explains it more 'eloquently' than I can [first third is about Amazon running 'no profit,' the rest is colorfully comparing that to national deficit].
https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/why-amazon-isn-t-a-fucking-idiot-and-runs-a-deficit-f9d5734b68ec
The metric you really want to follow in these cases is revenue growth over time. Cloudflare is a great example. They run a very successful business while still technically "at a loss". However, with numbers showing almost 50% rev growth since last year.
>Commenters stating that the essay blames poverty on the poor really are reading something into the essay that wasn't there (at least for me).
He did call those who disagree with Zuckerberg's letter envious losers, so how can you read something like the Inequality essay without that colouring it?
https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/paul-graham-is-still-asking-to-be-eaten-5f021c0c0650#.eoovofivs
profit != success of a company. some of the best companies in the world run a deficit and its a smart thing to do. https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/why-amazon-isn-t-a-fucking-idiot-and-runs-a-deficit-f9d5734b68ec. so the fact that they have no profit means nothing.
I think this previous rebuttal to pg's pretence of broad mindedness still applies https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/paul-graham-is-still-asking-to-be-eaten-5f021c0c0650
The original poem, "Paul Graham Is Asking to be Eaten":
https://medium.com/@girlziplocked/paul-graham-is-asking-to-be-eaten-5acf72aa776f