

The Startup Backlash - akristofcak
https://medium.com/p/577832af331d

======
wavefunction
I can't leave any comments on the actual blog so I'll just leave it here:

This is some bullshit written by a very entitled young man that is apparently
aimed at very entitled young people. To wit:

"You didn’t even need to be a finance major to get aggressively courted by the
bulge bracket firms. Goldman Sachs, in particular, seemed to have an obsession
with taking the most liberal-arty kid"

Maybe if you are one of those kids that went to an Ivy, but this is so not
true for the vast majority of college graduates in the US as to make the rest
of this post really ridiculously meaningless.

It's not a backlash against "startups," it's a backlash against the same sort
of douchebags that brought us CDOs now flocking to the tech industry cause
it's a "hot scene."

I know I'll get voted down for this but everything about this guy and what
he's writing about is exactly what's wrong with this country.

~~~
michaelochurch
Startups are just small companies trying to grow fast.

Some are good, some are bad; but there are systemic reasons why there are a
lot of douchebags becoming founders (hint: they have the social contacts to
raise money on ideas alone and tap into the private welfare system called
"acq-hires") and we need to address the problem, have the conversation in a
no-holds-barred format where no solution is off the table, and drive the
fuckers back where they came from.

The problem isn't "startups". There are great startups out there. It's this
horrible ecosystem that has become a devastating talent graveyard and the
latest mechanism through which an entrenched elite can mine the brains of
their intellectual superiors for extreme profit.

~~~
wavefunction
I agree with most of what you've written, though I don't agree with the part
about "intellectual superiors." Certainly it seems like a flashy rich kid can
walk into a room and have a lot of success selling a pretty silly idea built
with some hard work by some smart folks just because of his connections and
advantages and that really bites, but I think sometimes engineers and
scientists can fall into an ego trap as well when we get bitter about the
weirdness of that same situation.

My main issue is when I talk to people and they tell me they're "in tech," and
they're a marketer or sales person or biz dev and they could be doing the same
thing in some other vertical for all they care. (the "for all they care" is
the important part too)

I would rather they just go back to Hollywood or the Media/PR world or
wherever they generally come from and leave the tech industry to focus on
creating cool tech in a more sensible fashion than the way it seems now.

I don't want to sound jealous either, because I've been fortunate to learn a
lot from incredibly smart people, work on some challenging and fun projects,
and pay my bills.

~~~
2pasc
My only caveat is what does "in tech" mean nowadays? > Enterprise
software/SaaS Companies have very often been started by sales oriented
founders (Siebel, Benioff come to mind). > Ecommerce/marketplaces have very
rarely been started by CS majors/engineers.

So sure, you can have very engineering focused Companies like New Relic,
Heroku or Dropbox, and that's great, but if you send all business people to
Hollywood, I am not sure how you could actually have a tech industry in
Silicon Valley.

~~~
kyllo
_Ecommerce /marketplaces have very rarely been started by CS
majors/engineers._

Except for, you know, the biggest and most successful ones: Amazon, eBay, and
Craigslist.

Who were you thinking of?

~~~
2pasc
You are partially true. Omidyar had a business co-founder. Airbnb founders
were front end/design folks, Vente-privee in Europe was started by people who
came from the liquidation industry. If you look at the last 10 years, many
successful eCommerce sites (Fab, Modcloth, One Kings Lane, Gilt) or
marketplaces have not been started by CS majors.

~~~
kyllo
Sure, some e-commerce sites have been started by people who didn't major in CS
--particularly the ones that have started recently. No one is arguing that
_all_ e-commerce sites have been started by CS majors.

But it was inaccurate to say that e-commerce sites are _rarely_ started by CS
majors, when three of the largest and most well-known ones were all started by
CS majors.

~~~
rdouble
Also, three of the companies he mentioned have CS majors as co-founders.

------
bdcravens
It seems that folks get upset at these types of narratives about SV because
they're convinced that it's an attack on tech entrepreneurship. It's not: it's
an assault on the Series A -> writing checks to Lamborghini lifestyle, and the
poor allocation of resources that world rewards.

Real businesses that use tech as a lever are steps of progress that moves the
world forward. You don't have to cure HIV, but you shouldn't receive a seven-
figure check to pursue your dream of predictive music based on the color of
cats you upvote on Reddit either. Anything that destroys the fallacy that
working in this industry requires you to live in a tiny region in a certain
state in a certain nation is good, and in a very small way, pushes humanity
closer to the egalitarian ideal of the Internet.

Build a SaaS app that improves a dentists relationships with their patients
from the middle of Minot, ND. Hell, take some kids in a village in the middle
of Africa, teach them to code. Let them launch something using little more
than a circa 2000 class laptop with a 3G connection, in a hut with a
generator. $300,000 a year in revenue. Total. That totally changes the game
for things like world hunger. That kind of business will revolutionize the
world far more than 10-figure exits for photo-sharing apps ever will.

------
Fomite
"The same way that VCs invests in 50 shitty startups and expect to make maybe
one phenomenal exit, it’s unreasonable to expect every or even many startups
to make something truly revolutionary and socially impactful."

I might agree with this, but if it's the case, then some folks need to stop
pretending each and every hot internet startup is Disruptive, Revolutionary
and Socially Impactful. And the weight given to What SV Entrepreneurs Think
should probably be reduced if most of them are just building better ways to
order a pizza.

There's nothing _wrong_ with coming up with a better way to order a pizza. But
it doesn't make you a noble visionary of things to come.

~~~
akristofcak
Absolutely agreed! Some of the language being thrown around many companies can
be nauseating.

I didn't write about this possibility in the article, but there's also a
universe of apps/tools/companies which do seemingly trivial things that don't
transform anything on the face value and eventually end up being rather
impactful. Take Twitter: for the first X years, many people dismissed it as
that stupid thing where you write about what you had for breakfast.

Now it's basically a media company. Granted, no lives saved, but a major
player in the landscape.

Point being: you can end up doing something truly revolutionary in the end by
doing something trivial and useful at first. A better way to order pizza
_could_ become a better way to do [something that doesn't sound as banal].

(I would also posit that this kind of serendipity doesn't necessarily make you
a visionary.)

~~~
Fomite
I certainly think it is possible to be doing something "ordinary" and end up
having it be something revolutionary at the end. It happens with some degree
of frequency.

I just don't think a given location and a few keywords let you claim the
revolutionary bit beforehand :)

------
aaronbrethorst
> Even if the vast majority of engineers and designers today are obsessing
> about...car rides

There's a lot I don't like about Uber, but that doesn't change the fact that
it has changed the way I interact with transportation. I hate the word, but it
is _disruptive_.

I would love to see every startup cause as much of a shitstorm as AirBnB and
Uber have managed to do. At the very least, the public conversations they
force us to have are incredibly useful.

Despite the fact that it flamed out spectacularly, think about how different
the music industry would be today had Napster never existed.

~~~
Cookingboy
Uber is disruptive because it caters toward the SV/SF crowd (20 something
professionals living in a crowded city with bad infrastructure but have quite
a bit of disposable cash) better than the traditional public transportation
can. Sure it's useful, but these days so many starts are no longer aiming to
solve even first world problems now, they are aiming to solve the unique
"silicon valley problems" that most people in this country can't even dream
about.

Then investors throw millions at those companies and media put them under a
glorified spotlight while the rest of the country is going through a rough
recovery from one of the worst recessions in most people's memories, and
that's when there is a backslash.

Again, not saying companies like Uber don't provide value, but how much
capital in the form of money, talent, time and effort need to be poured into
solving Silicon Valley problems for 20 something single professionals making
six figures?

------
jval
Am I the only one getting a 'sign in to read' prompt?

~~~
minimaxir
A/B testing content-gating? Well, Medium has to make money _somehow_...

~~~
raymondduke
All you need to do is sign in with a Twitter account. As far as I know, that
doesn't cost you money.

------
michaelochurch
I'm really glad that this is happening, because I think the character of
"tech" has gone to shit in the past few years as assholes who care only about
their gaudy, disgusting parties-- but don't actually love technology or want
to improve the world for real-- have come into the game.

This elite isn't ready to rule. They won't even run companies that are decent
to the people who build and maintain them. It's easy to take the Silicon
Valley perspective and say that the old legacy elites are full of idiots (and
that's true) but "our" "elite" is just as full of useless, garbage humanity
that should not be trusted to manage a bag of rock salt. Let's start with the
brogrammers, douchey VCs exactly like the caricature in that Tesla video,
hipster turds who become managerial favorites because their mancrushing did-
their-20s-wrong bosses live vicariously through them, sloppy coders who think
they're "rockstars", horrible management at all levels and in most firms, and
companies using "fast failure" as an excuse to unapologetically do the wrong
thing, because it's somehow OK if you're the Next Steve Jobs.

I am really glad that VC-istan has, over the past year, developed a tropical
wave of a morale problem that threatens to become a Category 5 showstopper,
and I'm really proud of the part that I played in that. There are a lot of
brilliant, innovative people out there in this country and I can't wait to see
what they come up with once they start falling for cheap lies.

Nerds are such horrible judges of character that we tend to throw obscene
amounts of effort when some smooth-talking ex-IBDer (fired because he was too
unethical even to sell subprime) gives us the time of day and manages to
convince us (by pure assertion) that his half-baked idea will "change the
world". But I'm starting to work on that problem by exposing painful truths,
and maybe we can change it in some timeframe like two-thirds of a generation.

~~~
eclipxe
I'm very happy that my world view in SV is so vastly different than yours
Michael. I appreciate reading your viewpoint though, I just can't connect with
the experiences you portray.

------
malachismith
"I find it difficult to distinguish what tech is doing to the valley and SF
from what Wall Street has been doing to New York and London for decades."

I couldn't have said it better myself. And sadly the author doesn't see
anything wrong with the statement while for many of us - this sums up
EVERYTHING that is wrong.

~~~
akristofcak
That's a misunderstanding: I am not saying there's nothing wrong with what is
happening (and my personal beliefs are very much to the contrary). My point is
rather than much of the criticism of tech seems to be a criticism of
capitalism. So if you want to have a debate about inner cities, poverty, etc,
by all means, let's have it, but it's not a tech phenomenon.

~~~
malachismith
Many of us in SF would like to PREVENT this city from turning into a place
like NYC. Yes... there is a problem with capitalism (or, more accurately, with
unfettered "market driven" capitalism). But there are two other problems which
you ignore. First - in the Bay Area the problem isn't just capitalism, it's
also the behaviors of those working in startups. These behaviors make startups
in particular (and tech in general) a very (VERY) easy target. Second - do we
want homogeneity in our lives? Do we want SF to be just like NYC? Is there
something different and special about SF that deserves preservation?

------
dustincoates
The New Yorker article link is broken (it goes to Pocket). Here's the actual
link:
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/27/130527fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/27/130527fa_fact_packer)

~~~
Cookingboy
It's a fantastic article that offers a critical yet mostly objective take on
the mild insanity we all live in here in SV.

------
peterchon
Maybe if companies like google and yahoo stops forking over billions for
acqui-hire, the madness will slow.

------
george_ciobanu
There is some truth in this article, and lots of great advice: read more,
don't take shitty offers etc. But SV is changing the world, and some of other
the articles listed here are, though maybe just for effect, superficial.
Facebook and AirBnB have changed the world and are super valuable. Keeping in
touch and creating new opportunities - Facebook has done both for me. AirBnB -
I'm staying at someone's house in a small prefecture in Tokyo - this is money
coming into the economy. This is change - the worldly kind. Yes there are tons
of shitty ideas and shady deals in the Valley, and we should work more
efficiently not just more, and dedicate more time to our families and friends.
But the point is, as with free speech, that nobody knows ahead of time what
will be good and what will be waste - that's the whole point of startups. My
invitation to the authors who mention Facebook as a useless tool - will you
close your FB account and never use it again? Didn't think so.

------
kenster07
Is this anything new? Hubris is woven into the fabric of human history. The
world-wise won't take long to recognize a smoke blower. To the rest, good
luck.

------
w_t_payne
"many of these companies are tools of secret government surveillance" ...
mutter mutter revolving door mutter mutter ...

------
danso
Wow. What a non sequitur at the end:

> _That is, until the NSA scandal broke. Nothing made the purported
> libertarianism of Silicon Valley more laughable and aggregious than the fact
> that many of these companies are tools of secret government surveillance.
> This is why I had to include Paul Carr’s article about Silicon Valley’s
> participation in our security state infrastructure._

This is not even a complete thought, never mind a pretty blithe treatment of
the actual issues involved. And also, the companies most under fire,
particularly Google and Microsoft, are not "startups"

~~~
akristofcak
Yep. This wasn't exactly an essay, just some thoughts around a "trend" I
picked up on (ie the backlash). I could write a whole separate article about
the NSA but I let Carr's article speak for itself. The reason for including it
was that the NSA disclosures put a different light on the tech vs society
question. But yea, it could have been more developed.

~~~
jacques_chester
It just seemed like a lazy attempt to somehow slur those kooky libertarians,
god bless 'em!

Guilt by a vague association:

* Some libertarians live in the Bay Area

* Some people in the Bay Area worked on projects, companies and systems being exploited by the NSA

* Therefore ... wait, huh?

~~~
akristofcak
If you read the Carr article, you might see that these associations are much
less tenuous than you suggest.

------
ahoyhere
Follow the money… or the self-image and self-interest.

The startup boosterism is a lie that everyone wants to believe: the VCs want
it to be true (and they want other people to believe it), the new startup kids
want it to be true (riches, fame), the older tech guard want it to be true
(hey this thing we've been doing forever is finally cool). Sigh.

Apropos of this… I wrote an essay about startups called "Fuck Glory."
[http://unicornfree.com/2011/fuck-glory-startups-are-one-
long...](http://unicornfree.com/2011/fuck-glory-startups-are-one-long-con)

