Summary

Vivek Ramaswamy criticized American culture for prioritizing “normalcy” over excellence, which leads tech companies hiring foreign-born workers over Americans.

In a post on X, he argued that U.S. culture celebrates mediocrity and undervalues nerdiness, hard work, and academic achievement.

His comments sparked backlash across the political spectrum, with critics labeling him out of touch with American culture.

The controversy may jeopardize his standing in the Trump administration.

  • @suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.ml
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    1686 months ago

    Never met a craftsman in my life who didn’t want to produce excellence.

    The reason they don’t is because management at best doesn’t value it, and more often punishes it. This is you and your buddies fault Vivek Ramaswamy, you absolute shit for brains knob.

    • @HootinNHollerin@slrpnk.net
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      6 months ago

      100%. The amount of times management has derailed a good design of mine for some garbage based on their limited technical understanding and priority of fast and cheap that costs more in the long run

    • @Gork@lemm.ee
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      376 months ago

      Which is absolutely dumb because you gain a solid reputation for craftsmanship when you consistently make great pieces of work. This drives business up.

      I mean yeah I guess management could skimp and cut costs, but if that results in an inferior product, your customers will definitely notice it, and perhaps take their business elsewhere.

      I hate short-sighted business decisions, but they’re everywhere in modern life.

    • @Mirshe@lemmy.world
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      126 months ago

      I was about to say, you know what happened at every workplace I’ve ever been at when I did excellent work? I got more work piled onto me. I didn’t get a raise, I didn’t get a promotion or any recognition other than that excellent work being recognized as my new baseline.

      Eventually, you just decide to stop caring too much and settle for mediocrity because it’s a hell of a lot easier than busting your ass for forty hours a week, so why bother doing that if you aren’t getting anything for actually doing good work?

  • db0
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    596 months ago

    Lol first musk, now this guy. These techbro wranglers are about to discover what getting into bed with fascist nationalists really means.

  • @rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    North America as a whole - America mostly, but also Canada being not that far behind - has been on a crazy rush to the bottom with cultivated ignorance.

    Anything intellectual is mocked and degraded. Children who are smart try to hide it because it’s “not cool”. Adults who are competent and erudite get treated like freaks.

    As of late, my longer-form content been frequently flagged as a product of AI because I use “big words” – and the language I use is no more sophisticated as something put together in first or second year university. It’s not sophisticated in the least, but the problem arises because a majority of adult Americans can’t read past a 5th grade level. So when I write at a completely bog-standard adult level, most adults simply cannot keep up.

    And this intellectual decline in our culture is hella terrifying.

  • @dhtseany@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    The controversy may jeopardize his standing in the Trump administration.

    doubt.jpeg

  • @chakan2@lemmy.world
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    346 months ago

    He’s not complaining about us being ba workers. He complaining the average Joe doesn’t treat their manager like a king like in Indian culture.

    I worked for an Indian company once, I only made it 12 months before the harassment became too much.

  • LasherzM
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    326 months ago

    Vivek made his money lying to investors and then fleeing using insider information. Who thinks he would he know about hard work? Nobody in doge ever worked a day in their lives.

  • @GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    316 months ago

    I’d definitely say that Americans value hard work. To the point of their own detriment. I’d also say they often strive for excellence in product making, but it rarely comes out excellent. When comparing product quality between Europe and the US, Europe almost always comes out ahead. Plus, Europeans value a good balance between work and life. That’s true excellence in my book. The US seems to mostly survive on size and quantity rather than quality.

    • @zabadoh@ani.social
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      6 months ago

      Americans train their kids to become engineers, but after they graduate, companies like Musk’s won’t hire them because foreign H1-B engineers work cheaper.

      • @sinedpick
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        46 months ago

        h1-b visas make up a vanishingly small percent of the workforce. There are plenty of reasons to hate immigrants but this ain’t one.

          • @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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            26 months ago

            What really sucks so hard is when you work at a company flooding the place with H-1Bs and not being able to really discuss in frank terms what they are doing. Because there are just enough people that have not really thought things through (as well as the idiots in HR) that will call you a “racist” for pointing out the scam.

  • anon6789
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    276 months ago

    Somewhat related story, but I’ll share it to put a win for the little guy somewhere in these comments.

    When I was in my late teens I worked in the deli of a large supermarket chain. We had a hot food section with reheated frozen crap that was always dried out and gross, and a pizza oven to cook school cafeteria quality pizzas. Needless to say, no one bought anything.

    Right next to that was the deli section where I worked evenings. We had the fancy Boarshead stuff, including a bunch of fancy Italian meats. Nobody bought that stuff either cuz we’re not redneck here, but city people kind of treat us like we are, and nobody knew what soppresetta and that kind of thing was.

    All this stuff would just sit until it got thrown out from not being sold. I would take bits of it all on its way to the trash, and I started making calzones with the pizza dough and the nice deli meats and ringing myself up for the price of like a quarter pound of meat, which was fair to me and the store. I made them for myself at first, and then some other people in the department.

    The one day I made a few and gave samples out to some of my regular customers and of course they liked them because they were made with care and attention and better ingredients than any of the store stuff. I started making them in nights I was in and putting them in the hot bar and they sold decent.

    One day the manager came back and cried it wasn’t in the plan-o-gram and blah blah and I had to knock it off.

    Maybe a week later, they came back to me again and asked how I had been pricing them and I said I was basically just charging the weight of the deli meat and they tweaked the price a little and I kept making them, as people had been ticked when I said I wasn’t allowed to make them anymore.

    I left not too long after, and I can’t say it was due to me or anything, but now all of those sites around here make little calzones and have them in the deli section as a grab and go item to cook at home.

    It wasn’t enough to teach me everything I needed to know about how companies treat people that go above, but it definitely contributed to my education about work vs reward. But I’m glad I won that one. I liked saving food from the trash, and I liked seeing people enjoy something that was my idea and made purely by me and my skill. I guess I learned some things about myself as well.

  • nifty
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    6 months ago

    Tbf, he’s probably saying a lot of this because he’s experiencing prejudice for being an outsider, kind of like Steve Bannon at Harvard syndrome. People like that just want to burn the world when they find out that conservatives really only favor an in-group of their own kind, and people like them will never truly belong.

    That said, hard fucking lol. The only reason India gets so much support is because US wants to prop up a puppet in SE Asia. Indians also get ahead on political fronts in America because they’re currently the “safe minority” and not scary Chinese, Arabs or Latinos. He’s literally a DEI hire for white supremacists.

    Also, America has most noble prizes than any country. But dumb cunts like him will never admit that the public education and progressive policies in America favored it a lot. All of these conservatives should FAFO, but their bad ideas will only make it worse for vulnerable people.

    • @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      46 months ago

      Wait, Bannon felt like an outsider? That guy gives off such insider energy, but an insider that is aggrieved about very stupid things.

    • @vin@lemmynsfw.com
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      36 months ago

      lol @ India gets so much support USA started pulling down restrictions around 2009, and even after that it’s been transactional arrangements, rather than support

  • @someguy3@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Lolol yes do it, keep talking Vivek and Musk. Burn all your bridges to the actual elected GOP. Make yourselves and DOGE hated before it even begins.

    • @postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Make sure all DOGE executives and agents must always fly on Boeing aircraft.

      To fly others is UnAmerican, Communist, and Woke.

  • Optional
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    136 months ago

    lol

    Hey he’s not a CEO but, y’know. Maybe we could make an exception.