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Listening to Cryptonomican 20 years after reading it. It is a curious embodiment of this "cult" but from a deeper, more epistemic place. The way Steaphenson tre
by simpaticoder 1y ago
Listening to Cryptonomican 20 years after reading it. It is a curious embodiment of this "cult" but from a deeper, more epistemic place. The way Steaphenson treats the world, the way he describes it, is frenetic, packed with trivia and connections and ADHD deep-dives into related topics...but there is no heart to it. It's an empty, mechanistic view of the world, reducing almost every person a neat little network of abstractions, and then moving on. It is a strange book in that it seems to be a promotion of a narrative viewpoint rather than about the plot or characters. It is certainly the viewpoint of the "modern" tech entrepenuer, circa 1999. Somehow both extremely open minded AND judgemental; utterly unsentimental about anything, including the self; mere acceptence and wariness about indelible human needs. And so on.
Word on the street is that Cryptonomicon was required reading at Thiel's early Palantir. I read it now and it definitely hits differently. To accept that you must dwell in something in order to understand it, and therefore in order to wield power over it with any wisdom, is the antithesis of "The Cult of Doing Business". The hubris is baked in deep at an epistemic level, which is demonstrated to lead to epic moral hazards at an epidemic level.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- anon_hn_pltr 1y agoIt definitely wasn't required reading. I have never met anyone who's read it or even mentioned it.
- fullshark 1y agoI heard that anecdote but it was at paypal/x, which makes more sense given the book's plot.
- FredPret 1y agoBut Stephenson describes things in this mechanistic, ADHD way. It’s just his technique - he still paints a picture of people with rich inner lives and strong desires. Maybe the characters’ sentiments (mostly pro-Western tech optimism) don’t resonate with you, but that hardly means they don’t have any.
- fullshark 1y agoYou should read Zero to One if you really want to unlock Thiel's thinking re: business. It's both the best business book I've ever read and the perfect distillation of the core soullessness at the root of the matter. The goal is positive cash flows that can't be successfully attacked by competitors. That's the game, that's all everyone here is working for.
- tchock23 1y agoI will never, ever understand the praise for that book. It can be summarized in one sentence: ‘Get a monopoly if you can.’ Brilliant insight there - thanks captain obvious! If the author wasn’t famous it wouldn’t have even been published, and certainly wouldn’t have appeared as a ‘best business book.’
- fullshark 1y agoWell for myself it broke things down clearly in terms of the framework to operate in (zero to one, one to infinity) and what types of products you should even strive to build. I recall not seeing a lot of the ideas put so down so clearly and cleanly before, and as far as I know a lot of the book's framing became conventional wisdom in this industry after publication, or after many took his course at Stanford. So maybe it's nothing new to you because the lessons have been internalized already.
- giraffe_lady 1y agoMaybe, arguably, true when he wrote it. But it is clear now that Thiel absolutely has values-based motivations behind his business goals.