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Silicon Valley's Loony Cheerleading Culture Is Out of Control
Nerval's Lobster writes "Kernel editor-in-chief and noted firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos swings away at Silicon Valley's current startup culture, noting that it's resulted in herds of wannabe founders and startup groupies who don't exactly have a track record of starting successful companies or even producing solid code. 'Though they produce little of value, they are the naive soft power behind aggressive capitalist machines in Silicon Valley: the trend-setting vanguard of the global Web and mobile industries,' he writes. 'We should be very wary indeed of these vacuous cheerleaders whose vague waffle about the transformational potential of photo-sharing apps is more sinister and Orwellian than anything dreamt up by a dictator.' How long can such a culture continue before it dries up, and the whole tech-investment cycle begins anew?"
While the content being generated by these startups may be vacuous, there is at least the spark of new ideas (in some cases) or tangental thought that leads to other ideas. Someone else does the real legwork if it's a good spark, if these small startups can only talk the talk. Contrast the want-to-do's with the Microsoft archtype of staying safe and not innovating or thinking fresh.
There is some value to the cheerleading, even if it's just to provide grain for others to mill.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
How long can such a culture continue before it dries up, and the whole tech-investment cycle begins anew?
As long as people with money keep getting sucked in by it
"the transformational potential of photo-sharing apps is more sinister and Orwellian than anything dreamt up by a dictator."
Flickr is worse than Hitler? What?
Wow, judgmental much? People who may not have talent are actively looking for money, investing time & dedication in getting expertise... the horror!
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
than the attitudes prevalent prior to the dot com bubble (and subsequent bust) in the late 1990s? All of that money being poured into companies with little to no revenue and no solid plans to generate revenue. It blew my mind at the time.
"War makes me sad." - Me
As someone who has optioned sub-rentals on a lot of garages in Silicon Valley, I can't complain. Nothing attracts VC money like showing off how you're young, hip, and working in a garage in Silicon Valley!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
programming jobs have gone overseas, leaving fewer to programmer jobs to go to after college. AND if your college didn't teach you exactly the right languages, or enough of them, no one will hire you because they don't have the brains to do it even if you can. I'm not a bitter little cheerleader geek groupie. Not At All. --wasn't there already a story about females in tech? talking about it to death, doesn't mean girls are going to flock to the keyboard...
What we're seeing here is that Silicon Valley has become no different than any other business/industry group. Flash, buzzwords, bullshit, business lunches, golf - People that are good at appearances rule in the business community, mostly to the harm of everyone else.
My nephew has gone through two of those buyouts. The purchasing company abandons the previous product and puts the developers to work on their pressing needs. At least he gets a nice purchase bonus out of it. But I would be a little psyched out after writing years of stuff with no one ever using it. At my company I find that having customers wanting to buy and use your stuff to be a psychic reward.
Simply describes how it's always been - cheerleaders create buzz; buzz creates interest; interest creates potential; potential creates investing - wash, rinse, repeat.
Good, bad or otherwise, it's the core of the valley.
In every boom there are con men who see piles of cash and people desperate to invest it. It has always annoyed me when these guys skip in from low-integrity industries like property development, come up with an idea that might even be impossible: "cluster smartphones into supercomputers for small business", round up millions of dollars, have the biggest booths at the local tech conferences, hire up a bunch of dillweeds, rent A+ locations, appear in dozens of self promoting articles "Top 40 under 40", drive around in $90,000 leased cars, and then flame out in a huge way. The only good thing is that when the bankruptcy people liquidate their stuff the stacks of unopened Aeron chairs and the Alienware computers go really cheap.
The massive downside is that they give a black eye to, or outbid, anyone with a valid product trying to raise money, hire developers, and rent locations.
someone's a hater
Dot.com 1.0 in the 1990s. A.I. and Pen computing in the 1980s. COBOL in the 1960s.
It reaches this point when pundents say "eveyone should be a programmer". "It should be taught to 8 year olds and English majors." I've even heard some politicians say this in the last year. Not everyone has the temperment, motivation, special creativity to be a good programmer.
The field turns into a bubble, it collapses and compuer science departments shrink. Inevitable.
They do it because it's hot, new, cool, chic, hip, swag, fly, swank, vogue, and gosh-darnit a whole lotta fun!
The real legacy of Steve Jobs was to engender feelings of inadequacy in a whole generation of tech bosses. So instead of solid, maybe a little boring, mostly behind-the-scenes approach to technological development, we have everyone and their grandmother trying to emulate the once great king of consumer tech (long live the king!) with dramatic unveiling ceremonies that remind one more of a pop concert than a product release. Frankly, in some cases it's a little embarrassing, because not everyone can pull it off. In fact most people can't. So don't do it because you suck at it. I'm also looking at you, TED.
When investors realize that new =/= good (and in most cases = shit), then we might finally witness the inevitable implosion and with any luck a healthier restructuring of the tech industry. But until then, thundercats ho!
As long as someone is willing to give/loan them money they will continue.
If you can beat them join them. If you can develop a better idea/product go get some of that money and do it. I'm not an entrepreneur so I will continue to work my day job. There are plenty of "Rags to Riches" stories because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. How many "Upper Middle Class to Riches" stories do you hear where someone risked everything they spent a lifetime earning for a small shot at super riches?
I got a get rich quick scheme too. I will most likely buy a lottery ticket for the 100+ million drawing tonight. Yeah I most probably will not win. But $2 gets me an entry into the "What if I win" game and I consider it entertainment. Even if I do not win, I get a better idea of what I might like to do with money and most of that is still achievable on an descent income if not "instantly".
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
If these "cheerleaders" are so bad at their pitch, content, leadership and ideas why are the venture capitalists so eager to throw money at them? I realise it's a numbers game: that 999 will fail, 1 will succeed and 1 in 1000 of those successes will be the next Facebook. However all that the money people would need to do is get anyone with 6+ months of IT to review these startups' technical plans and they could probably cut their own failure rate to a quarter.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
While I agree that the startup culture of silicon valley provides very little of value, the article is a rambling incoherent rant seemingly conflating a variety topics the author happens to dislike.
They are fake: their clothes are fake, the music they listen to is fake, their sneaker brands are fake.
There is one or two points of truth in the rant. But in general it is designed to make the reader feal superior to other people.
I am "bootstrapping" my latest venture and we are Doing quite well. But, I simply can't stand to talk to other startups. It is always "how much money we raised" or "how much are you raising" - the conversations never are about how much cash you are making and how many paying customers you have.
There is a lot of allure to raising money and a lot of back patting, which is why I just can't stand them.
Why exactly should I care that stupid people with money are willing to give some to other stupid people without money?
#DeleteChrome
....but also plenty of flat-out shilling.
Half of tech media is/are breathless cheerleader fanboy^H^H^Hpersons, and the other half is/are cynical shills ready to sell whatever half-baked notion the Valley's highest minds have come up with now.
Welcome to Zombocom! www.zombo.com
Young people with an idea and drive but maybe not a lot of experience seem to be the bread and butter of Venture Capital. You can complain all you want that the ideas may not pan out or the inexperienced developers make make a messy system, but that's the nature of the beast. Sometimes they'll have a billion dollar idea and everybody wins. Nobody ever said VC was a low risk business.
I read the internet for the articles.
Anyone who actually puts the words "vacuous cheerleaders whose vague waffle" together - sont des mots qui vont tres MAL ensemble - ought to be banned from using the English language any further.
What a polite way of saying "flaming asshole".
Seriously, who pissed in this dude's cornflakes? Did some VC or entrepreneur steal his lover or something?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Here's where venture capitalists play a deleterious role in the process. They don't care about ground-breaking ideas or real vision or even solid business plans with solid revenue models. They care about whether they can turn around their investment in 6 months to a year for some multiple. That's it. That's all they care about. So if right now they feel reasonable certainty that they can unload a photo-sharing site on 2nd round sucke...er, investors, they'll invest. They don't care that there are 100 other such sites out there. They don't care that the founders are 22 years old. They don't care that the business plan is written on a napkin. They care about the flip.
The problem is no one else in the early-stage game understands VCs have that motivation, and only that motivation. They think that when a VC plows money into something that that something must have something going for it. They think it makes the invested-in company real. A million stories about 22-year old founders turning around with that money and blowing it on coke and hookers does not dissuade them of that.
So a lot of the good money that could flow into real entrepreneurs, that is, real people trying to really solve real problems, does not because of the smoke screen thrown up by the VCs and their PR firms. And a great deal of social progress stifles because of it. The real entrepreneurs usually have to literally weave whole cloth out of thin air on what they can beg, borrow, or steal because no capital flows their way.
Once in a blue moon those guys make it through that Dantean hell and produce something world-changing like Apple or Google. But imagine a world where an Apple or Google emerged every 4-6 months. Think of the undiscovered possibilities. Think of the rapidly expanding markets. Think of the jobs, jobs, jobs, that would generate. Think of the benefit to humanity.
I would love to live in that world, wouldn't you?
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
In the site/book Stuff White People Like, the article about "Awareness" summed up much of this mentality:
Getting clean water consistently in a hell hole like much of Africa is a truly transformative experience for many people. Public sanitation, reliable electricity, etc. Nothing your mobile/web app is doing is as transformative for the world as replicating consistent, basic utilities for all of mankind. It's unsexy work that is more commonly associated with redneck laborers (guys who actually make these systems work) than hipsters.
Technology companies have produced remarkably brilliant new opportunities and efficiencies, but they have also raised the specter of lives bled of purpose, of the inhumanity of the new social structures that are emerging. What do we do to keep everyone gainfully occupied when globalization and technological change render the bottom two thirds of society redundant?
This is a point that I always feel gratified reading, and it really cannot be stated often enough. We are reaching a stage where we simply don't need as many people employed as we used to. Instagram was worth $1 billion when it was bought by Facebook, and it had only 13 employees. Could you imagine thirty years ago any business at all being worth that sort of money with a dozen employees?
It isn't just web services though, it's the manufacturing and retail / service sectors too. Even down to those obnoxious self checkout machines in supermarkets, which are costing several people a job while at the same time making the customer do more of the work.
We're already in a position where job creation is lagging population growth. How much worse will it need to get before people actually start discussing this?
(My pet solution is a guaranteed minimum income, enough to allow people to live comfortably with a decent amount of disposable income.)
Someone found a thesaurus!
"The artifice of start-up culture is a portent of what is to come."
"At once the zenith of the cult of excessively educated bourgeois bohemians and nadir of a glossy new venture-capital-funded geek culture..."
This reads as a writers masturbatory exercise.
I suppose the value in starting a tech company in California is that you're closer to a potentially strong talent pool. But that argument goes out the window when you consider outsourcing or the appeal of H1B visas. Anyone intent on hiring American talent certainly could find it in most places if they look hard enough.
I suppose there's the belief in sharing of ideas and whatnot, but in today's world much of that has been rendered irrelevant by the internet. It's trivial to know what anyone's doing if you keep up with current news. And I'd argue people aren't necessarily coming up with better ideas merely because they've got the same zip code. This isn't some kind of research environment with open discourse and sharing of ideas.
I'm convinced the proximity to Hollywood is a big culprit behind this Silicon Valley stupidity. There's an irrational fixation on name dropping out there. Most people I've come across inevitably start rattling off names of high profile individuals they've met. And I suppose, when you're in the midst of it it's inevitable you will meet these people. But they seem to act like that gives them instant credibility.
They've created this culture that the rest of us is supposed to believe is desirable. And I guess there are a lot of naive individuals who do fall for it. So they end up working in exploitative environments in the hope that they'll get a piece of the pie. Although, I've found that people don't even think that far, often they just want to be part of the in-crowd. They're convinced they're doing the coolest thing ever and management certainly likes to reinforce that belief, but they're really just being taken advantage of.
To be fair, this is a problem that you'll encounter elsewhere in the country, but California in general seems to offer this unique confluence of problems. Anyone with any sense would avoid starting a tech company anywhere in the state.
Yes! We must deregulate! A worker's paradise awaits!
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I had a good position in a large, solid software company for over 8 years, but last year I was feeling bored of doing the same things for so long, and my thinking was: "well, I live in Silicon Valley so I should give a start-up a chance", so I started looking around. The sheer amount of start-ups out there with grandiose visions of changing the world is insane!
I can absolutely validate some of the comments on this thread as I've seen them myself, but what I really want to emphasize here, is that start-up "CEOs" will lie, and will promise you infinite wealth with no backing whatsoever. It not only about the products, which many times sound good (even if they are just smoke and mirrors), but it's also about their business practices. Many of these companies don't yet have a culture other than "survive and grow", so ethics and even business appropriate behavior is not there. Many times their HR is just an external service and there is no recourse if you have an issue.
I ended up leaving my position, joining the start-up and working my ass off for almost half a year when I realized this was really going nowhere. One day, out of the blue, the CEO called me to his office and said "we need you too leave" just like that. No explanation other than "there is no fit". Later on I realized he was right, I was no fit for their "culture", and I ended up coming back to my former employer, this time in a better role with 20-25% more pay than I had before. But I know I was also lucky. It could have been way worst.
So here are my lessons learned in hopes that this will be useful to anyone out there:
- Do your homework. Research the leadership team, their track record of success or failure as well as each one of their investors.
- Don't trust in anything verbal. Every promise must be clearly in writing
- Negotiate your contract. Never take their "stock contract" that only protects them. Invest in a legal service ahead of time and have your own template.
- Make sure you negotiate your exit as part of the contract. It's like a pre-nuptial agreement. You can't imagine it's going to be useful some day. - When you are evaluating a company, leave your passion, your beliefs and your ideals at the door. It's business. Look at them as a business that will be the source of your livelihood. How viable are they really?
If any of the points above don't click, then leave. Don't take it. There are another hundred of them out there. Most will die but a few will make it. Do everything in your power to choose wisely.
Meaning: who cares, as long as we get our beaks wet? Is it pointless? Yup! Is it bordering on a pyramid scheme? Yup! Should we change it? Hell no! (CA-CHING!!).
... tell me exactly how these two are in any way related? getting a successful startup seems mostly to be about getting the hype right ;)
It's not the argument of a Luddite. The author isn't railing against technology or the component of technology that is software. He's railing against the industry that prioritizes useless ad delivery and photo-sharing over 1) new tech which is actually useful for something and 2) deployment of existing (useful) tech to new regions.
.: Semper Absurda
"Famous for being famous" used to be a Hollywood thing. (Angelyne is considered to have invented this. In the 1980s, she rented billboards in LA to promote herself.) Now it's a Silicon Valley thing too. Paul Saffo and Vivek Wadhwa come to mind as heavily into self-promotion but lacking a track record of results. Nicholas Negroponte (MIT Media Lab, One Laptop Per Child) is close, but he actually got some real things done in his younger days.
As with Hollywood, it helps to be good-looking. Shai Agassi, former CEO of Better Place, the failed car-recharging company, was like that. I've met him. He's very good looking, a good speaker, and his business plan was bullshit. His company got over half a billion dollars in funding before it went bust.
It's probably worse in "social", but I try to ignore that crowd.
The real VCs will not throw money out the window. Good luck getting a seed round right now. Many of the top VCs are refusing to do them now as the returns have been so lack luster. They want to see a solid team, and at least 3 months of numbers demonstrating traction. Then maybe they will partake in an A.
They are meticulous and they do their homework. On pitch days (twice a week?), how many dozens of decks do you think they see? Over the course of a year hundreds. Of those a partner will do maybe a dozen deals?
Then there are the wannabes with stacks of cash and no clue. They have no idea what they are doing and will piss away their funds on bullshit. No one will notice because it takes a few years before the portfolios hit maturity.
I've certainly seen it, some of these guys are much better at producing hype than solid products. Leap Motion comes to mind, the hardware works ok, but the software is terrible and they rushed out their own "app store" long before the software is robust enough to warrant it-- no doubt because they wanted to get the gravy train rolling. The result is so bad I wouldn't be surprised if it kills off the whole enterprise. And if it does, it would be a shame because the technology does have some merit, it's the follow through that's lacking.
also: NASA and NIST have major presence in Boulder...i think Deep Impact control was in Boulder?
the Boulder tech sector is mini, but it exists...it's alot of little ad-on companies that have one institutional client (usually military)
technically, if two GIS PhD's take their geospatial mapping program they developed for their thesis and then use their connections from their academic program to basically implement their thesis project into some government project...
technically, that's a "startup" but I don't think it applies in this context...
because of things like facebook, people think of a "startup" as a small new company planning to become big that provides a product or service they would use
many "startups" are not that...they are just an extention of academia into the government contracting sector
even Microsoft started that way...the military wanted a computer on every desk, and IBM was the contractor...IBM needed to find some company that would shut up and follow orders...enter Bill Gates...
it was the money from that contract that made M$ successful...sure it's a 'startup' and no one would turn down those riches...but in analyzing 'what's wrong with startup culture' we have to make sure we know what we mean
Thank you Dave Raggett
I went to grad school at CU-Boulder around 2006 and have done government contracted research.
You break down the differences well, and your point about the plethora of young, hip urban professionals in the Front Range is right on...however when trying to divinate what makes a city a 'startup hub' the conversation starts and ends with money
In California, you could be in a coffee shop loudly yammering about your *next big idea* to your friend and have a Billionaire who is bored and looking to invest in something 'disruptive' overhear you...this is how things start...chance encounters of likeminded folk...
Or at a party you meet some rich-ass movie producer's kid who is ugly but smart and wants to make a name for themselves outside of the entertainment industry...
Or...or...
It's the scale...one conversation could mean 7 figures
The odds of that happening in Boulder/Denver are just nowhere near Silicon Valley. Sure lots of SoCal trustafarians go to CU-Boulder, but its still small comparitively and undergrad stoners (who are awesome) are not the capitalist-go-getter types.
Follow the money!
Thank you Dave Raggett
is scale
in all facets...data travels faster, what was text is now video, 'mobile', cpu speeds are exponetially higher...
which means *we can do more*
my example is Goldman/Sach's style high speed trading...they use Erlang to make trades litterally as fast as the wires can transmit the data and exploit latencies for $$$...were talking microseconds...
that means a market changing scale of trading (profit) in a non-human readable timeframe...
that is different
I surely agree that somewhere in the comparison between the original '.com bubble' and now you can say, "it's all the same...it's all just X"
TFA lists out 5 differences that I think are *very insightful*
Now, if you said that 1 & 3 were as true in 1890 as in 1990 I would agree...still comparitively now might be stronger
#2 is a hardcore truth that could make someone a billion dollars...the sheer ease at which a person can switch social networks or copy and share music is a technical advancement that fundamentally alters the economic factors in consumer decisions...a 'game changer' as they say
one billion users could leave facebook with 4 clicks of a mouse in a day (if you had good IT guys running your servers ;)
IBM never had to *consider* a mass exodus of subscribers in such a fasion
#4 & 5 go together and represent valuable 'case study' data...you can't know if Silicon Valley guys are truly 'tech' unless you talk to them, look over their shoulder, etc...a Shaun Parker can make himself out to be a Shaun Fanning easily...
heh, it's sort of like when Oliva Munn was on that Gamer show...the controversy over whether she was really a 'gamer' or just a hottie bimbo...I always said I assume the latter until I play her in SFII turbo *myself*
So yeah, it's different...and IMHO, for the 5 reasons in TFA, I think that difference is significant
Thank you Dave Raggett
People that are good at appearances rule in the business community
I agree, but something just seems off...they rule *now* but their tactics assure their eventual failure (re: microsoft)
maybe:
People that are good at appearances ruin the business community
i've seen the cycle over and over...the predatory, almost colonial capitalist playbook...like how the major labels glommed onto Seattle music scene in the 90s
there is no structural reason why the, say, shoe industry has to be dominated by Nike...there's no technical barrier to competing with Nike...it's all externalities...global supply chain, multi-year licensing deals with institutions, investors...none of which has anything to do with physically making a better shoe
all Nike's shoes could be made in the US from recycled material and the company would still profit...technologically we are there...we could do it
I guess it's about perspective, I *expect* businesses to make the smart decision, the long-term, sustainable choice...
when a business does as you say, become a mishmash of flash buzzwords, & bullshit...i don't see an invitable cycle...I see a preventable tragedy
Thank you Dave Raggett
I hate TED talks...just wanted to say that...
reminds me of how the Jobs film in theaters now starts off...it's this triumphant scene, just as you describe, where Jobs' introduces an 'industry changer'...it's the iPod
NO! NO you idiots! I want to scream...
the iTunes' store did indeed change the industry...the iPod was just big shiny .mp3 player...it was Jobs's ability to *convince the RIAA* to license the music for digital sale!!!
that was an innovation of **MARKETING**
see? I agree with you...
but you're still missing something I think...
IMHO that is on the tech bosses...Jobs was the real deal...people **HATE** how unusable products like Windows are...they hate it! Jobs was a *marketer* with tech background who had the egoism and hard-headedness to demand the user be the top of the design equation
the speeches matter **in the right moment**....like I said, I hate TED talks...a mile wide and an inch deep...
however, hype may win the battle but not the war...every Jobs needs a Woz...or is it the reverse?
Thank you Dave Raggett
I know some of these people. I see them at events and wonder why they're on stage and I'm working so hard to grow my little business that has been profitable for 7 years and pays 4 people's salaries without relying on any "angels."
But,
They're human beings and I don't despise them with the anger Inigo Montoya felt for the six-fingered man. They're no different from any of the thousands of people who make a living one or two degrees away from other ludicrously wealthy outliers like athletes or entertainers.
I do sometimes laugh at the job descriptions of these phonies, you know, stuff like:
"Milo Yiannopoulos is a journalist who specializes in privacy, piracy, start-ups, Internet culture and the media."
Oh wait.
I think I'd call him a Kling-on, by his own definition!