Silicon Valley's Big Lie

HughPickens.com writes: Danny Crichton writes at TechCrunch that startups in Silicon Valley run on an alchemy of ignorance and amnesia and that lying is a requisite and daily part of being a founder, the grease that keeps the startup flywheel running. Most startups fail. The vast, vast majority of startup employees will never exercise their options, let alone become millionaires while doing it. But founders have little choice as they sell their company to everyone, whether investors, employees, potential employees, or clients. "Founders have to tell the lie – that everything is fine, that a feature is going to launch even though the engineer for that feature hasn't been hired yet, that payroll will run even though the VC dollars are still nowhere on the horizon," writes Crichton. "For one of the most hyper-rational populations in the world, Silicon Valley runs off a myth about startup success, of the lowly founder conquering the world."

Comments

Avoid companies that are there just to IPO

[tompaulco]

If you believe in the product you are creating, don't build it at a company whose vision is to build the company just to sell it or to IPO it. They don't care about the product, only selling the company. They will shortchange everywhere they can, cut corners, not test or QA, and eventually, once you have the product built, they will let you go before you get a chance to cash in.

Re:Exploiters need chumps

[Alomex]

No, value can be created, something that Marxist theory conveniently ignores, just like you did above.