The scary part to me is that it actually works. Not practically, but that upper management and whatnot actually buy it.

Most early stage startups around me right now are built on the premise of replacing groups of people. There's a startup strapping sensors and cameras onto blue collar workers in developing countries to take "egocentric" data and train "world models" to the get robots to replace skilled physical labor. Lots of "ambient capture" to then automate away the work of the employees getting recorded.

Even what I'm building right now, which was initially just a tool to help me with my ADHD and memory problems is slowly getting twisted towards the same direction based on where the money is.

I would love to know how to build a company that serves real humans rather than the accumulation of capital and the extractive nature of corporations.

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ccakes an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> The scary part to me is that it actually works. Not practically, but that upper management and whatnot actually buy it.

That “below average” intelligence pool are well represented in upper management. FOMO is a powerful thing, smart people are often tricked by dumb ideas because they don’t want to miss out on something or be perceived to not understand the value of a bad idea

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hamper653 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> I would love to know how to build a company that serves real humans rather than the accumulation of capital and the extractive nature of corporations.

Wouldn’t we all. It is not possible, actually.

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latexr an hour ago | parent [-]

> Wouldn’t we all.

Clearly not. Otherwise Bezos wouldn’t create a culture where employees feel the need to pee in bottles and continue working while a colleague is dead on the floor.

> It is not possible, actually.

I don’t believe that. Sure, if you want to be filthy rich you’ll exploit people, but there are plenty of smaller companies who treat their employees well (some owners have even left their companies to their employees) and genuinely care about customers as people.

	▲	hamper653 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, and these ♥genuinely-caring♥ capitalists always end up either bankrupt, or Bezos. > I don’t believe that. Of course not. Bezos is spending a lot to make sure you don’t.