The logic of gambling undergirds everything coming out of Silicon Valley

Commenters reacted to the NYT piece arguing that gambling logic underlies much of Silicon Valley by taking sharply different tacks. Some, like davesque and thesmtsolver2, mocked the move as an overreach - equating ordinary probabilistic reasoning with gambling or joking that pointing out probabilities is like discovering quantum mechanics uses chance. Others raised concrete critiques: FreakLegion disputed the geography and origin claims about DraftKings, Polymarket, and crypto, while instagib noted a specific Polymarket spoof used to fake streamer winnings. Several expressed real worry rather than sarcasm - digitaltrees warned about harms to children and addiction mechanisms, and karlitooo admitted tech’s addiction-based features cause “genuine problems” even while criticizing the article’s tone.

Opinion split over whether business risk is the same as gambling. Jamesforestwest and pixelatedindex argued for a distinction: betting on sports is entertainment with likely negative expected value, whereas founders’ bets can be positive expected-value efforts where outcomes are influenced by action. Brendoelfrendo focused criticism on investors, saying VC and PE often gamble with other people’s money in pursuit of huge returns. Others called the thesis unsurprising or unnewsworthy (boringg) and raised concerns about misuse of statistics and p-hacking in tech discourse.