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I always saw Silicon Valley inevitably being covered and cared about as much as the Hollywood insidery cabal of power and influence. As much as we believe in t

I always saw Silicon Valley inevitably being covered and cared about as much as the Hollywood insidery cabal of power and influence. As much as we believe in the ideas, teams, executions, it's still very much an old boys network. Don't fool yourself otherwise. The community upturns its nose constantly about gossip or fluff. But you don't get it, that's all there really is. Gossip and fluff. Tech reporting is as dry and pointless. How many times can you rehash someone releasing, fixing, investing, or selling something? On top of all this we got exactly the tech reporting culture we deserved. People clamor for dispatches from foreign lands, substantial news, authentic stories but here's the real secret... there's no demand for those things. There is demand to sell ads on pages. There is demand to hire expensive publicists to befriend the journalists that switch from site to site like musical chairs. There is demand for real time updates of something happening because we're digital addicts. Read Silicon Alley Insider for a day and watch how they wring blood out of stone. The game is rigged. We know to win you adorn your hastily put together A/B-ed MVP LP with TechCrunch and Mashable logos. Or you syphon off mojo storytellers that have consistently the past 5 years been slowly making the story equal part themselves; their backs scratched by everyone eagerly waiting their turn. Be that way long enough and you get dangerously jaded not caring whether it's fingernails or a knife. If you don't like it, too bad, millions do. And the millions more that's descending into Silicon Valley seeking their fame and fortune do too. It is what it is.

dasil003 15y ago
In other words, hate the game not the playa.
- seanp2k2 15y ago
  Yeah man, respect the playa and keep Black Rock City weird.
  - dasil003 15y ago
    I was making a point not a joke, but I guess it went over peoples heads.
nikcub 15y ago
In the tech industry we definitely make celebrities of the wrong people. I can't recall a single other industry where journalists are the top-tier talent attraction, and I can't explain why that is. The closest in influence is perhaps the top editors in fashion - but otherwise we are in a league of our own (I have seen small-time contributors to Techcrunch get mobbed at tech events). I have watched new tech bloggers starting out in the right direction and then getting dragged in by the mob to insert themselves into the story. The entire context of tech journalism shifts from reporting the facts to reporting on them reporting and before you know it every half-wit tech blogger has their own column where they endow the world with their opinion of things. Before long they are opining as 'we' - meaning they are speaking on behalf of everybody else (which for me is a lot worse than the worse style of 'I' editorial). There are more opinion-style journalists in tech than there are straight up reporters, and that says something. And it is the entire audience that is culpable, not just the lovers, but the haters as well. If your intention as an opinion journalist is to get a reaction from people, then the haters are participating and perpetuating just as much as the fans are. I know a lot of tech bloggers who would furiously refresh the comments after they post the piece and look forward to the hate as much as they look forward to the applause. A lot of them intentionally rile up their audience just to get that reaction - sometimes even publishing a point-of-view they don't believe in just to get that rise out of the haters. It may be because the real heros of this industry are less accesible, so we turn those who we have ready access to into faux heroes and villains. The movie and film industry has privacy invading gossip pages for readers to get their gossip fix from, they also have regular movies and awards shows. We don't have that with Zuckerberg, so we do it to whoever is next in line. You can't observe tech gossip or talk about it without participating in it. All you can do is completely ignore it - but ignore it without saying that you are ignoring it, because that means you really aren't ignoring it. I don't think that will happen though, there may be less interest in some stories at times but the gossip will always be there, it is part of human nature. We just gossip about the wrong part of the industry in tech.
- zerostar07 15y ago
  I think you mean "tech journalism industry" maybe? My perception from back when i was reading lots of tech blogs is that tech journalists are just not good journalists, almost all of them (I can't think of an exceptional case, no offense intended). They almost never do real world research, just rely on google, big newspapers, press releases, the random dude who calls to promote his new website and lately on HN / reddit (that strikes me as extremely lazy). You almost never read discussions or interviews with actual tech people in a calm, focused tone (a-la charlie Rose), their attention span is that of the average redditor and the thought process is usually shallow. Articles go out in minutes, they wait for commenters to correct them, and the opinions are tailored to the fan crowd in order to provoke the usual fan/troll replies and pageviews. You say that the "real heroes are inaccessible", but i wonder if tech bloggers try hard enough to access them.
thornofmight 15y ago
If you want a good example example of gossip and fluff in the tech industry just look at 99% of the articles that hit HN frontpage in the past few days about the $1b Instagram purchase.
- npsimons 15y ago
  Yeah, seriously. I ditched slashdot and came to HN because slashdot was becoming filled with Apple fanboys and Microsoft shills ("oh look! Apple released a white iPhone!"). The instagram thing was pretty annoying, but at least it didn't stay around long. What I'd really like to find is a technical site with discussions about programming and computer science, preferably with a strong bent towards Linux and other F/OSS. I'd like to find a place with people smarter than me (shouldn't be hard to find) who talk nothing but shop, no gossip, no fluff.
  - MrMan 15y ago
    good luck. this site exists to enable the business practices of "tech" entrepreneurs and investors. gossip and fluff, as you call them, are necessary to hype the various start-ups or the skills and personalities of the teams involved. you need to smile all the time and ignore the little voice in the back of your head that says "we do not need another way to share photos."
  - untog 15y ago
    Well, this isn't the place you're looking for. This is a discussion board about startups- it includes programming and computer science, but isn't dictated by it. Perhaps /r/programming on Reddit would work better?

dasil003 15y ago

In other words, hate the game not the playa.

seanp2k2 15y ago
Yeah man, respect the playa and keep Black Rock City weird.
- dasil003 15y ago
  I was making a point not a joke, but I guess it went over peoples heads.

nikcub 15y ago

In the tech industry we definitely make celebrities of the wrong people. I can't recall a single other industry where journalists are the top-tier talent attraction, and I can't explain why that is. The closest in influence is perhaps the top editors in fashion - but otherwise we are in a league of our own (I have seen small-time contributors to Techcrunch get mobbed at tech events). I have watched new tech bloggers starting out in the right direction and then getting dragged in by the mob to insert themselves into the story. The entire context of tech journalism shifts from reporting the facts to reporting on them reporting and before you know it every half-wit tech blogger has their own column where they endow the world with their opinion of things. Before long they are opining as 'we' - meaning they are speaking on behalf of everybody else (which for me is a lot worse than the worse style of 'I' editorial). There are more opinion-style journalists in tech than there are straight up reporters, and that says something. And it is the entire audience that is culpable, not just the lovers, but the haters as well. If your intention as an opinion journalist is to get a reaction from people, then the haters are participating and perpetuating just as much as the fans are. I know a lot of tech bloggers who would furiously refresh the comments after they post the piece and look forward to the hate as much as they look forward to the applause. A lot of them intentionally rile up their audience just to get that reaction - sometimes even publishing a point-of-view they don't believe in just to get that rise out of the haters. It may be because the real heros of this industry are less accesible, so we turn those who we have ready access to into faux heroes and villains. The movie and film industry has privacy invading gossip pages for readers to get their gossip fix from, they also have regular movies and awards shows. We don't have that with Zuckerberg, so we do it to whoever is next in line. You can't observe tech gossip or talk about it without participating in it. All you can do is completely ignore it - but ignore it without saying that you are ignoring it, because that means you really aren't ignoring it. I don't think that will happen though, there may be less interest in some stories at times but the gossip will always be there, it is part of human nature. We just gossip about the wrong part of the industry in tech.

zerostar07 15y ago
I think you mean "tech journalism industry" maybe? My perception from back when i was reading lots of tech blogs is that tech journalists are just not good journalists, almost all of them (I can't think of an exceptional case, no offense intended). They almost never do real world research, just rely on google, big newspapers, press releases, the random dude who calls to promote his new website and lately on HN / reddit (that strikes me as extremely lazy). You almost never read discussions or interviews with actual tech people in a calm, focused tone (a-la charlie Rose), their attention span is that of the average redditor and the thought process is usually shallow. Articles go out in minutes, they wait for commenters to correct them, and the opinions are tailored to the fan crowd in order to provoke the usual fan/troll replies and pageviews. You say that the "real heroes are inaccessible", but i wonder if tech bloggers try hard enough to access them.

thornofmight 15y ago

If you want a good example example of gossip and fluff in the tech industry just look at 99% of the articles that hit HN frontpage in the past few days about the $1b Instagram purchase.

npsimons 15y ago
Yeah, seriously. I ditched slashdot and came to HN because slashdot was becoming filled with Apple fanboys and Microsoft shills ("oh look! Apple released a white iPhone!"). The instagram thing was pretty annoying, but at least it didn't stay around long. What I'd really like to find is a technical site with discussions about programming and computer science, preferably with a strong bent towards Linux and other F/OSS. I'd like to find a place with people smarter than me (shouldn't be hard to find) who talk nothing but shop, no gossip, no fluff.
- MrMan 15y ago
  good luck. this site exists to enable the business practices of "tech" entrepreneurs and investors. gossip and fluff, as you call them, are necessary to hype the various start-ups or the skills and personalities of the teams involved. you need to smile all the time and ignore the little voice in the back of your head that says "we do not need another way to share photos."
- untog 15y ago
  Well, this isn't the place you're looking for. This is a discussion board about startups- it includes programming and computer science, but isn't dictated by it. Perhaps /r/programming on Reddit would work better?