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It depends on what circles you're in. I'm in your boat - most of my friends talk about startups and tech and are routinely skeptical, if not brutal, in our asse
by potatolicious 11y ago
It depends on what circles you're in. I'm in your boat - most of my friends talk about startups and tech and are routinely skeptical, if not brutal, in our assessments.
But I also know a few people who are much closer to the money side of the business who don't ever shit-talk startups, no matter how crazy and dumb they are, or no matter how scummy their behavior.
I would say that the social acceptability of criticizing startups is proportional to your professional distance from a VC. Accordingly, the social acceptability of criticizing the meta-aspects of startups (fundraising, investing, etc) is the square of your professional distance from a VC ;)
There's definitely a "cone of silence" effect around VCs/incubators. Everyone walks on eggshells around them and criticism is extremely muted. Forget optimism/pessimism, even criticism of downright unethical/illegal actions is largely nonexistent.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago>Forget optimism/pessimism, even criticism of downright unethical/illegal actions is largely nonexistent. This is something that scares me about Silicon Valley. That kind of attitude opens a market for respectability, and once that becomes accepted, the tech bro douchebaggery is going to get shunned, hard. The services they made so cheap will make it even easier for someone else to eat their lunch, and even pointedly NOT being a part of the Valley could be a point in a company's favor (privacy-centric consumers who see SV companies willingly send personal data to NSA dragnets). Then it becomes a matter of fashion. ("You're still using snapchat after X came out? What are you, 12? The government is reading all of your snaps by the way.") But leave it to a society of nerds to forget the vital necessity of being cool.