4 ms·
Year of the tech grifter: will Silicon Valley ever learn from its mistakes?
- readonthegoapp 4y agoseems like a bit of a weird title to me. were there mistakes? or did some people just have to offer the standard "mistakes were made" mea culpas to allow for the next con? Murdoch was a mark. Sequoia knew there was massive risk, and probable fraud, but couldn't pass up the opportunity of a lifetime. From Wells Fargo to Fyre Festival, the Scam Economy Is Entering Its Baroque Phase By Carina Chocano May 16, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/magazine/from-wells-fargo-to-fyre-festival-the-scam-economy-is-entering-its-baroque-phase.html?searchResultPosition=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/magazine/from-wells-fargo... Over the past few decades, as the regulatory and legal protections that once shielded consumers, workers and investors have been systematically rolled back, the character of American business has noticeably changed. Year by year, we’ve reverted toward a 19th-century style of capitalism, one in which the caveat is almost always up to the emptor. We’ve moved from an industrial economy to a consumer economy to a service economy to an information economy to what you might call a flagrant-exploitation economy — one in which branding and “storytelling” have replaced advertising and possibly even reality. It’s not just that we’re being sold the sizzle more than the steak. It’s that we’re being sold the sizzle instead of and at the expense of the steak.