4 ms·

I'm on the outside looking in, (and this might be an unpopular opinion in this crowd) but that's the reputation of tech in Silicon Valley, no? The mentality is

I'm on the outside looking in, (and this might be an unpopular opinion in this crowd) but that's the reputation of tech in Silicon Valley, no? The mentality is often "we'll be too small to prosecute until we're too big". That's how you end up with these seemingly superlegal entities like Uber, Google, hell even Crunchyroll. Theranos was the peak example of how tech companies are encouraged to misrepresent fact to both users and investors to ensure engagement and investment.

kaycebasques 5y ago
What happened with Crunchyroll?
- jonwachob91 5y ago
  It was founded as a platform for streaming pirated anime until it got big enough to acquire major VC investments and start buying streaming rights.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
enkid 5y ago
Not saying you're right it wrong, bit Theranos seems like a counter example to what you are arguing.
- jszymborski 5y ago
  I suppose what I meant here was that Theranos was so successful at misrepresenting facts to industry and the consumer that they were able to reach meteoric heights based on absolutely nothing at all. It's in that way that I mean that Theranos exemplified dishonesty in SV tech. Of course, unlike Uber/Google/Crunchy, Theranos was breaking the law in the service of a product that not only didn't existed, but couldn't. That meant the company had to eventually implode, but its entire existence was fueled by the same sort of dishonesty SV startups have (fairly or no) gained a reputation for.
jimkleiber 5y ago
I'm from Michigan and lived in the Bay Area for a few years building an app and was just taking about the cultural differences today. I think there's a tendency in SV startup culture to play up things whereas in Michigan there's almost a tendency to downplay things. So people there seemed to exaggerate how great something was that they did and I would tend to say something wasn't as great as it seemed to be. The stereotypically "I'm crushing it" "it was epic" etc. I think there are challenges with both. With the overselling of how great something is, I think it can slip into just straight up lying when bad things happen. On the other side, underselling may also fall into lying but often about the good things that are happening. So I read Zuckerberg's letter and much of his communication as so blatantly overselling that it bleeds into lies, which is illegal to do to some organizations. While many people oversell, I think as someone else mentioned, companies and CEOs are typically quite careful not to go too hard on overselling when in the court of law, and some either don't know how to turn it off or don't care or don't believe they should, or, as I've seen with some friends, don't seem to believe they are even doing it.

kaycebasques 5y ago

What happened with Crunchyroll?

jonwachob91 5y ago
It was founded as a platform for streaming pirated anime until it got big enough to acquire major VC investments and start buying streaming rights.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

enkid 5y ago

Not saying you're right it wrong, bit Theranos seems like a counter example to what you are arguing.

jszymborski 5y ago
I suppose what I meant here was that Theranos was so successful at misrepresenting facts to industry and the consumer that they were able to reach meteoric heights based on absolutely nothing at all. It's in that way that I mean that Theranos exemplified dishonesty in SV tech. Of course, unlike Uber/Google/Crunchy, Theranos was breaking the law in the service of a product that not only didn't existed, but couldn't. That meant the company had to eventually implode, but its entire existence was fueled by the same sort of dishonesty SV startups have (fairly or no) gained a reputation for.

jimkleiber 5y ago

I'm from Michigan and lived in the Bay Area for a few years building an app and was just taking about the cultural differences today. I think there's a tendency in SV startup culture to play up things whereas in Michigan there's almost a tendency to downplay things. So people there seemed to exaggerate how great something was that they did and I would tend to say something wasn't as great as it seemed to be. The stereotypically "I'm crushing it" "it was epic" etc. I think there are challenges with both. With the overselling of how great something is, I think it can slip into just straight up lying when bad things happen. On the other side, underselling may also fall into lying but often about the good things that are happening. So I read Zuckerberg's letter and much of his communication as so blatantly overselling that it bleeds into lies, which is illegal to do to some organizations. While many people oversell, I think as someone else mentioned, companies and CEOs are typically quite careful not to go too hard on overselling when in the court of law, and some either don't know how to turn it off or don't care or don't believe they should, or, as I've seen with some friends, don't seem to believe they are even doing it.