Andreessen Horowitz has generated a positive reputation (in a field where most of its counterparts are ridiculous, incompetent assholes, so seeming strongly competent provides prominence) but here's a stark indicator for "wolf in sheep's clothing": <a href="http://a16z.com/2014/07/30/the-happy-demise-of-the-10x-engineer/" rel="nofollow">http://a16z.com/2014/07/30/the-happy-demise-of-the-10x-engin...</a> . Read it.<p>If you don't have a nose for rot, I'll point your way to it:<p><pre><code> Today, if you have a great idea for a software product, you need to either
be an engineer or find one. Tomorrow, that billion-dollar startup acquisition
might not need an engineer at all.
</code></pre>
I have no direct knowledge of A16Z, but admitting a desire to make software "a low-skill trade" is chewing our food for us. The moral conclusion is right there. They've actually admitted to being the bad guys, to wanting to commoditize top talent in favor of our MBA-culture colonizers.<p>Most of the time, the bad guys don't say, "We're the bad guys". You actually have to do some research. You have to poke around the countryside and find the emaciated political prisoners and the mass graves to figure out who the bad guys are. Not here. The good news is that the Silicon Valley elite have such unprecedented arrogance that, often times, they'll actually admit what they are. They'll flat out say, "fuck you programmers, you had your turn."<p>For those who aren't educated on the matter, the evil of Silicon Valley's last 20 years is that it has become an economy of resource extraction (like Saudi Arabia) instead of one that genuinely creates wealth. The difference is that, instead of said resource being oil or natural gas, it's the intelligence and energy of each generation of young people that hasn't figured out, yet, that the only people with a decent chance of getting rich in this Valley game are VCs and landlords (i.e. not them, the people doing the actual work).