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The collapse of companies like SVB is triggering demand for corporate merch
- colesantiago 4y agoI don't think there is a market for merchandise of bankrupt crypto companies collapsing. They will be as worthless as the fake crypto tokens they created. I would expect though to see more bankrupt crypto companies and this is the only way they will have to sell off their assets.
- rx_tx 4y agoWell the article does mention FTX hats and bobbleheads, so the highest profile crypto companies at least do have some "valuable" swag.
- colesantiago 4y ago> FTX hats and bobbleheads hardly a collectors item, probably needs to be thrown away, recycled or burned in shame.
- samtho 4y agoPeople have a morbid fascination and collect infamous mementos all the time.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- te_chris 4y agoNgl, was in SF at the weekend and got a pic outside a branch downtown.
- RyJones 4y agoI regret not holding on to my Sun Microsystems merch with both hands.
- zeruch 4y agoI still have some of mine (e.g. an original Java varsity jacket). All in storage somewhere. I loved working there in the 90s
- RyJones 4y agoNice. I got a nice jacket for shipping SSDM for NSPG, but I lost it at some point
- CalChris 4y agoI had one of DEC’s t-shirts, The Network is the Network and the Computer is the Computer. We regret the confusion. But no one got the joke anymore and I let it slip away.
- invalidator 4y agoI worked at Sun around that time. Our version: "The network is the computer, and Cisco is the network... therefore Cisco is the computer."
- quesera 4y agoI still have a stack of mousepads from Sun from when I purchased servers by the truckload (and after they gave up on optical mouses). Fortunately, I still use a mouse at my desk. I hope to work through my collection in this lifetime. Unfortunately, the art on them is of inconsistent appeal: - "The Network is the Computer": corporate-lame art - "The Dot in Dot-Com": OK art, slogan still funny - "Ultracomputing": Decent art, least-fun slogan
- solarkraft 4y agoThese slogans, especially the last, sound fit for ironic use, "hack the planet" style.
- user982 4y agoNot how I expected that headline to end.
- Krisjohn 4y agoSome of this is going into the background of interview videos to back up the claims people make of having worked at places that no longer exist and can't be verified.
- gnatman 4y agoPretty funny if this is common practice!
- synaesthesisx 4y agoThis is what's currently happening with Twitter (since they laid off the entirety of HR).
- spudlyo 4y agoAs an ex-Twitter employee who started a new job at the start of the year, I can confirm that they did not respond to inquiries from the company that performed my background check. There was some back-and-forth with the recruiter at my new gig about it, until I reminded him that the reason my boss recommended me was because I worked with him at Twitter.
- kirykl 4y agoCan you keep the merch and sell an NFT for it?
- gnu8 4y agoI could imagine a company that vaults physical objects and tracks ownership by NFTs. The NFTs could then be traded and the current owner of the thing attached to the NFT could view the object through a web cam. Of course the owner could take delivery of the object for an added fee.
- solarkraft 4y agoYeah but you can also just sell the token without any obligations attached
- i67vw3 4y agoInstead of storing the original in a vault, you can just burn it. Meaning the NFT is the only 'authentic' piece now.
- _trampeltier 4y agoThat's all nothing compared to the SKA/CS cap. They had been already cult before CS colapsed. In the 80s, they had been everywhere. Almost every person in Switzerland had one. https://bellevue.nzz.ch/mode-beauty/stilkritik-cs-krise-eine-muetze-fuer-die-seele-ld.1731485 https://bellevue.nzz.ch/mode-beauty/stilkritik-cs-krise-eine...
- pcurve 4y agoHad a friend of friend who worked at Enron. Years ago, she showed me her Enron Beanie Baby corporate merch. (Oh the irony..) I wonder if she still has it. It's obscure enough that you can't even find a photograph it online. I guess it might be worth a few bucks these days.
- zer00eyz 4y agoStory time. In 2001 when the bubble was bursting we had a business deal with one of the trendy dot-com's. Because their office was across the street from us we had a lot of in person meetings, and they always had us come to their far more swanky office. Along with free drinks and food we always left with the pile of merch they shoved into our hands. It got to the point where my self and several co-workers had boxes of their crap at our desk. They were in a consultant role. They often told management nonuse and made our lives hard on good day and miserable on a bad one. To say we could not stand them would be an understatement. Then it happened, the news came down that there would be a massive layoff (ahh fucked company was great). I grabbed my perch box, and a coworker and his merch box and dressed as many homeless people as we could, head to toe in their gear and had them sit out side their main office door. Folks were streaming out of their office, boxes in hand with a bunch of homeless people dressed in their march. That line in the sand between funny and asshole, I laid down and made a sand angel in it that day.
- abuehrle 4y agoBecause homeless people wearing their company’s merch, in your minds, would further degrade the company’s image? Or something else? I’m an anonymous internet stranger, but I invite you to think about what you’re actually saying, and whether it reflects true views you wish to hold.
- bombolo 4y agoWhen my company changed name the last time, they actually told us to destroy any merchandise we might have. No donating. I actually keep wearing them. I don't have much anyway.
- SilasX 4y agoSimilar issue with that Abercrombie & Fitch CEO who only wanted "cool kids" to be seen in his clothes, so someone made sure to give donated A&F clothes to the homeless: https://www.businessinsider.com/man-gives-abercrombie-to-homeless-people-2013-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/man-gives-abercrombie-to-hom...
- CPLX 4y agoAbout a year ago that guy Carlos Watson from Ozy reached out to me cold and wanted to have coffee. I said sure why not then he cancelled on me short notice. Then a month later that big story came out. Then a day after that I went on their website and bought an Ozy coffee mug, which is sitting on my desk as we speak.
- flappyeagle 4y agoFor anyone who is confused or making up theories, cursed corporate swag is a bit of a fashion trend https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/the-dark-allure-of-blackpilled-swag https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/the-dark-allure-of-black...
- floren 4y agoNext time somebody asks me what "extremely online" means, I'm gonna send them this link.
- jjoonathan 4y agoConversation pieces have been a thing for centuries at least, and probably forever. Maybe you're the one who should get out more?
- throwawayben 4y agodid you read the link? it's extremely online language
- diordiderot 4y agoHe was talking about the style of writing. It's funny, this particular online culture/group/vibe the author is a part of is one I very rarely encounter but do occasionally stumble upon. It blows my mind to think that for some people, this 'vibe' may be the majority or at least a large part of the online content they consume / online spaces they inhabit. It makes me wonder how many more foreign to me online cultures there are. Bronies, sports lovers, 4chan-ers etc
- CommieBobDole 4y agoI think it's satire. Maybe?
- nemo44x 4y agoIt’s irony. There’s a difference but difficult to discern sometimes. You could wear those clothes in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn bar and you’d get smiles and pleasant remarks from those who are with it for example.
- JauntTrooper 4y agoI have an Enron-branded calculator. It's one of those cheap ones companies used to give away at convention booths. I've always toyed with the idea of re-programming it so that the math comes out all wrong. 2+2=7.
- smabie 4y agoI have an Enron hat and a Worldcom hat.. need to add to my collection tho
- dpflan 4y agoHa, yes, modding it would make it a more accurate 'fraud'-ulator.
- TylerE 4y agoIf you want to be really evil make it mostly work right, and only invoke the bogus logic of the 5th bit of the first argument is set or something, so it fires maybe 1/10 Or 1/20
- rwmj 4y agoI have an Enron mug which I "liberated" from the London office staff kitchen.
- euroderf 4y agoGrammar nitpick: for "which", do you mean "that" ? Overuse of "which" seems to be a British thang.
- paxys 4y agoUnofficial corporate swag is an entire industry in itself on Etsy. I don't understand it, but then when it comes to fashion who ever does?
- nickfromseattle 4y agoIt's true. After the Theranos scandal broke I bought a hat on ebay. It sits on my desk as a conversation starter.
- tennisflyi 4y agoLike you couldn't spin up the merch yourself if you really wanted to. Obviously it wouldn't be authentic.
- gzer0 4y agoI still have my Arthur Andersen shirt back from when they were considered "the big 5" (now it is the big 4). They were the auditors for Enron, and when the scandal unraveled, a judge divested all of their clients to the big 4 [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen
- WhereIsTheTruth 4y agoA quick ebay search and lot of "sponsored" items in the results and very few "watchers", sounds like a scam, don't fall for it
- willis936 4y agoI know I'll be holding onto my SVB p-card as a trophy.
- jbverschoor 4y agoReminds me of sgi stuff :)
- shagie 4y agoOne of my old tech company items that's still with me - my three color Silicon Graphics Inc (not 'sgi') logo back denim jacket with the tan arms. The nice thing about it is that while it is ancient, it is still quite durable. A lot of my T-shirts grew holes and faded their way to the trash.
- guyzero 4y agoSunnyvale Goodwill is the best for this. I don't know why but I always get a kick out of seeing mugs for things like NASA projects from the 90s or some Intel internal milestone award where the mug is just covered with acronyms that mean absolutely nothing to outsiders. Absolutely the best store shelf in the whole city.
- beej71 4y agoI was just there for the first time and passed on a Sun Microsystems coffee mug, which I regret. I was really missing Weird Stuff, though. Haven't lived down that way for a decade.
- lyind 4y agoThe collection of relics is an old phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic
- bilekas 4y agoGoogling some of these products in the article has led me down a small rabbit hole I didn't expect.. But found this bizarre website : (Probably shouldn't buy anything) https://svbgiftingportal.com/ https://svbgiftingportal.com/ Honestly can't tell if its serious or just someone trying to take advantage of the situation.
- solarkraft 4y agoOn first and second look I thought it was a random shop with their logo slapped on. Om the third look I found the "guidelines" page, which is the first thing that suggests to me that this may actually be custom to SVB.
- wolfgang42 4y agoI’d guess that this is serious; this sort of thing is common so the corporate compliance department can make sure the company doesn’t accidentally cross the line from “gift” to “bribe” when account managers send tokens of their appreciation. (There are all sorts of limits, like “only $X per gift, cumulatively $Y per person per calendar year”.) Note that you apparently need a “Star Compliance code” to actually check out, so you can’t buy anything from here even if you wanted to. On a related note, maybe five years ago I bumped into the Google employee swag store and discovered it was built on a platform that I happen to know is written in COBOL. There are all sorts of niche providers for random services that are needed by large companies.
- solarkraft 4y agoI'd buy these as a joke. For some reason I find it funny to claim to associate with these as if they were really cool and successful right now.
- aflag 4y agoI'm still waiting for my pets.com t-shirt.
- euroderf 4y agoIt's still stuck in transit with the 50 pound sack of cat litter.
- dvt 4y ago"Triggering demand" is a little strong. I also bought an Enron sweatshirt for the lulz, but that doesn't mean there's actual demand (in the economic sense) for Enron stuff there.
- e12e 4y agoBut there's "actual demand" in the Enron sense.
- wanderingstan 4y agoMy roommate in college made a small fortune selling “Vintage Dr Pepper” t-Shirts on eBay. They weren’t actually old shirts at all. On Dr Pepper’s site you could buy old style shirts as “Vintage”. He’d but them for $20 and then get around $40 in auctions on eBay.
- stickfigure 4y ago...and dead tech companies aren't likely to pursue IP claims, so you can print them on demand for $10.
- zestyzeta 4y agoI worked at a startup that failed in an impressively incompetent manner. The founders and core employees could not ship in a timely fashion and refused to validate their product or talk to users. However they made sure to give employees the most outrageous bunch of swag. I'm talking mugs, blankets, hoodies, tote bags, backpacks, pens, really anything you could imagine. All very good quality. I gave a lot of it to family and loved ones, who still use it. I still use the blanket personally. Maybe the founders should have gone into the swag industry? Honestly seemed to be where their hearts were.
- nayuki 4y agoMerch for failed companies like SVB would give new meaning to "tombstone": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deal_toy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deal_toy
- anonu 4y agoFrom my experience this stuff is not really collectible. It's more of a novelty that wears off after some time.
- silveira 4y agoI still have tons of things from Sun Microsystems. I love it.