5 ms·
I love the fantasy that this is in any way unique to tech. Tech's problem is that they are less adept at hiding it -- partially because they eschew normal corpo
by ng12 10y ago
I love the fantasy that this is in any way unique to tech. Tech's problem is that they are less adept at hiding it -- partially because they eschew normal corporate bureaucracy which does a fantastic job masking these issues. The underlying reality is this is behavior that is seen when you have people with large amounts of wealth and power (and guess what, it happens to people of every gender!).
- convolvatron 10y agoI quite disagree. Yes these kind of things exists outside of tech. but if you dump tens of millions of dollars on any fresh faced person that shows up at your door, this is what you get.
- sargun 10y agoElucidate? What's the connection?
- spitfire 10y agoMoney magnifies character faults. We saw this in the first dotcom bust. Completely clueless people given tons of money do stupid things. The worst past is many of these buffoons managed to make their bones during the first go around (or the 1.5 go around leading up to GFC). Success is nasty in that it blinds you to your faults - and what actually made you successful. So now many of these buffoons have won, don't know why or how they won and have started investing in people like them. And we wind up where we are now.
- convolvatron 10y agosorry, i thought it was clear. vc largely trades in the story. because for the longest time they could cash out on the promise of a thing rather than concrete earnings or anything remotely objective. the silicon valley vc culture has been such a dependable shower of money, with a few minor blips, that its quite believable that some random people, with no particular idea in mind would wander by hoping to get wet. so if a vc, in fact many vcs, invest very heavily in a story ,largely based on each others faith, and that turns out to be a company run by narcissistic idiots with no real long term economic value, we shouldn't be surprised.
- jdoliner 10y ago> if you dump tens of millions of dollars on any fresh faced person that shows up at your door Unless that fresh faced person is Mark Zuckerberg, or Larry Page or Bill Gates or any of the fresh faced persons who were actually the real deal.
- callmeed 10y agoUmmm, perhaps you aren't familiar with all the trouble Gates and MS got in back in 90s. Zuck's record isn't spotless either. Fortunately he got good "adult supervision" early (which this article hit on).
- yuhong 10y agoI have been thinking about "Yishan-style" CEOs for a while now.
- fatjokes 10y agoCare to elaborate? What's a Yishan-style CEO?
- M_Grey 10y agoIt's not even that it's unique to tech, it's mostly unique to a specific subset of tech. There's a reason that 'Silicon Valley' is also a comedy, and it's not a compliment. Yes, you can find this behavior elsewhere, in the same way that you can find gold in most rivers and streams. If you want to mine for big fat nuggets though, go to Silicon Valley.
- eridius 10y agoIt's not unique to tech, but it's particularly prevalent in tech, and should not be dismissed on the grounds that it's not unique.
- jjaredsimpson 10y agoPeople keep saying it's particularly prevalent in tech. Which I don't believe at all.
- mercer 10y agoI'm skeptical too, but very open to change my mind, so I'd love to hear how we're wrong.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cb21 10y ago> The underlying reality is this is behavior that is seen when you have people with large amounts of wealth and power (and guess what, it happens to people of every gender!). It happens to the 25% of employees in leadership positions that are women and the 75% that are men. How equitable!
- xbmcuser 10y agoThe bro culture is not unique to tech. Companies and funds willing to put billions into tech startups with such culture is unique though. For most other kinds of startups they would want seats on the board and accounting of every dime. Investors let tech startups get away with too much stuff.
- callmeed 10y agoIt makes sense though. I'm sure Wall Street is as bad or worse. The thing is, everyone already hates wall st.. SV and startups have become part of pop culture. It's "cool" to have a startup. People are eschewing Wall Street, Madison Ave, and big 4 consulting jobs to work at startups or VC firms. It's only natural that journalists and media outlets will look to expose the flaws in what's popular. A similar story about stock traders would not raise eyebrows. Actually I think it's a good thing.