

Open letter to Silicon Valley: A True Story - technito
http://technitoblog.com/

======
ChuckMcM
I don't know, pretty snarky. Seems to read : you guys in the valley are
pretenders, we're going to get some "real" ideas to see how you do with them,
then we'll uh talk about them.

Ideas are free, if you don't like the investment choices of Y combinator or
the rest of the valley than by all means, come on out, put out your shingle,
and start funding _real_ game changers. In all seriousness, bring it on,
please.

~~~
technito
Ahh, in an attempt to convey humor it came across as snarky-- which is exactly
what I feared would happen. I have a feeling this misunderstanding will likely
be perpetual and that is not what I want. So, I decided to word it differently
to assure that this isn't perceived as an attack but rather an attempt to
rouse whatever it is inside of us that encourages us to aspire to be better. I
am beyond glad you were first to comment!

~~~
ChuckMcM
Sort of FYI this:

" The irony is that the culture in which these technologies derive from has
become a place where democracy is increasingly serving the plutocracy of
Silicon Valley, likely at the expense of innovation. "

Isn't humor, it is critique. It is also wrong.

It isn't irony (the word you were going for is paradoxical) there isn't a
'democracy' and there isn't a 'plutocracy'. So when you start that way it
sounds like you were going for profound but missed.

My suggestion, if you're open to it, is to actually write what you think you
mean. Don't try to make it sound 'smart' just try to make it clear. Use
rhetoric you are comfortable with and try to write it at the 'top level'
first, which is to say don't try to embed any clever subtext. If you're going
to be cynical you should be able to cite examples.

Re-reading it again you're entry says: 1) I'm (the writer) sad

2) I don't understand the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

3) I think people writing about technology are tools and that is part of the
problem.

4) I am not like these people who don't have morals I'm going to only write
truth.

5) Join my quest but sending all your press releases to me.

Now, if you've been successful at communicating your message to me through
your blog (and it is always possible you haven't and I've misread it) then it
might have easily been a single paragraph thusly,

"My impression of Silicon Valley is that startups, VCs, and journalists
[inadvertently?] collude on creating an understanding of what is worth doing
and what isn't. That collusion harms innovation by not giving voice to ideas
outside the group. In this blog I'm going to try to look at the ideas that
others don't, and bring them to your attention. To avoid conflicts of
interest, I don't monetize this content."

If I did correctly read your intent, then it would also help if you provided
an argument [1] for this group think you feel is pervasive since that would
help people know if you were worth reading, and finally the whole monetization
thing is non-obvious. Folks who don't have an obvious source of income for
their writing are often treated with great suspicion if it isn't known they
are independently wealthy.

[1] Strongly recommend you take this course:
[http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp...](http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=4294)
which will help with that. You can listen to it in your car.

~~~
technito
I'm learning a lot from this exchange. I think your statement is a combination
of truth as well as simply misreading what I was trying to say.

Sometimes, I have a tendency to create my own dialect in which only I
understand the context (self note: stop doing that). I am of course open to
suggestion and you are spot on-- it does sound like i'm trying to sound smart
( _cringe_ ) Def going to re-word that to express myself in a more
straightforward manner.

This isn't a blog to enviously rebel against those that have worked and
deserve the position they are in, but rather a blog to alleviate the organic
ramifications that are out of their control. This isn't a blog to cover
startups or ideas that aren't getting covered-- theres likely a reason why
they aren't. I am not hating on people that write about technology-- this is
their job and many are very good at it. But, the reality is they are working
for a company that desires to increase their bottom line just like any other
business-- as they should. My point is because of this, the ecosystem is click
driven. Which means a much greater frequency of startups will be covered.
Which means even if a startup is doing nothing new and the technology is
rather unimpressive, the brand attached to it means clicks ($$) so it gets
coverage.

When this is done at such a frequency, the greater the likelihood the
companies that are doing dynamic things fall through the cracks-- creating a
lower standard that isn't producing optimal results of what the space is
capable of.

Many of the startups I cover probably will be startups i've read about else
where and never even submitted anything. So, in essence this is just a filter
to differentiate from startups written for clicks due to brand equity and
startups that are doing dynamic things-- built upon a culture that
emphatically acknowledges this standpoint. That doesn't mean A16Z startups
won't get covered. That doesn't mean Y Combinator companies won't get covered.
This does mean not all their portfolio startups are doing dynamic things that
legitimately deserve acknowledgement.

And the only way to fully keep intact the integrity of this blog without
question is to not monetize. This is a hobby for me. Startups are my passion
and I like to write. I love giving product deep thought-- where are they
headed with this and what can this ultimately become and what sort of impact
can potentially proceed and how this will affect the ecosystem? I want to read
about startups that force my mind to think about these things, kind of like
your response has forced me to think deeper about this blog. And then cover
them from this perspective with the intent to set a higher standard for
everyone to aspire to.

That's really all i'm trying to do-- and maybe your standpoint of cynicism is
a result of me not initially expressing myself properly (aka the first
paragraph).

~~~
ChuckMcM
Excellent. I generate lots and lots of communications every day and find that
being misread is a way to score my effectiveness. Paul Graham points out that
his essays can't really have pages of footnotes to cover all the possible
interpretations of the writing and he is correct. We strive to make it
understandable to the widest possible audience and go from there.

I suggest you really closely examine this thought :

 _"The reality is they are working for a company that desires to increase
their bottom line just like any other business-- as they should. My point is
because of this, the ecosystem is click driven. Which means a much greater
frequency of startups will be covered. Which means even if a startup is doing
nothing new and the technology is rather unimpressive, the brand attached to
it means clicks ($$) so it gets coverage."_

There is a whole lot of assumption going on in there, and while you do have to
assume some things [1] its not true that you can assume all things. To check
yourself you can try to reason your way from first principles to the
conclusion that you expressed above.

You can stipulate that businesses want to be profitable. Some will argue with
that saying some businesses are non-profits but the point is sufficiently
accepted that you can get away with just stipulating it. Then you claim based
on that one stipulation that the desire for profit makes the business "click
driven." That bit of reasoning is weak, on what basis can you claim that the
only source of revenue for the web site is "clicks"? And I'll assume you mean
advertising clicks but how does that manifest here? The issue isn't that your
claim isn't credible in the small, you can say 'Techcrunch is supported
entirely by ad share revenue generated by the click through rate on its pages'
(and cite some reference for this), but you cannot generalize and say 'all
people who write about technology' live or die by the clicks they get on their
blog. I will give you a really clear example,

Robin Harris writes the Storage Mojo blog (<http://storagemojo.com/>) where he
talks about trends in the storage industry and the various players. He has
advertisements on his blog, but he doesn't live or die by them, rather he
lives on being a consultant to folks who want to tap into his wisdom about the
storage industry. That wisdom comes from putting in the hours watching the
industry. He doesn't care if you don't read his blog, but he does care that
Tom Georgens (CEO of Netapp) does. But more importantly to this discussion he
is a good example that your assumption about the relationship between tech
writers and money, _as a generalization_ , is invalid.

Walking through your own reasoning can be a great way of figuring out if you
are 'fooling yourself' or are really on to something. You know others will
demand you defend your viewpoint so having done the home work you are prepared
to engage right away. Then you jump into this:

 _"When this is done at such a frequency, the greater the likelihood the
companies that are doing dynamic things fall through the cracks-- creating a
lower standard that isn't producing optimal results of what the space is
capable of."_

This is a pretty classic move. It reads like you have convinced yourself that
the reason you haven't found folks who talk about these innovative startups is
because all tech journalists are click driven, and thus 'the space' is not
performing as efficiently as it could.

The challenge though is that your reasoning is counter to about 200 years of
free market research starting with Adam Smith. It would be safer to start with
the assumption that free markets work and are efficient and thus if you're not
seeing the content out there that you would expect, you should dig into why
that is. (hint: it isn't because the techno-journalists are click whores)

Last bit as this is getting too long, this one:

 _"And the only way to fully keep intact the integrity of this blog without
question is to not monetize. This is a hobby for me. Startups are my passion
and I like to write. I love giving product deep thought-"_

Integrity comes from the author, not from the money (or lack thereof, I know
people with no money and no integrity). Great to make a statement of your
principles on your blog somewhere and actually stick to them. Do that long
enough and people will believe you. The rest of this statement is pure gold,
you are passionate about startups and you like to think deeply about them. So
go forth and do that, write your pen dry as my grandfather once said. Don't
over think it. There is a good chance nobody will care, but in your passion
you will find reward (one of the ways I tell people they can discriminate
between true passion and one that isn't, is people engaged in their true
passion don't care at all if nobody else cares, just the doing is so wonderful
that they do it.) If you cannot be passionate in a blog nobody reads, then
perhaps its not really your passion after all. You will get lots of chances to
talk to people and all of that research and thinking will give you a chance to
make insightful observations and eventually, folks might seek out what other
things you written, but it starts with you just following your passion not
really caring if anyone else cares.

[1] There is a funny joke about a wife talking to her mathematician friend
about commitment while driving around in the car. She says "You won't agree to
anything, like there is a house painted white in this neighborhood, see there
is one right over there." To which he responds, "Well all we know is that _one
side_ of that house is painted white."

~~~
technito
I suppose the difficulty in my stance is that my views are primarily for the
most part qualitative-- meaning there really isn't data that could
sufficiently back me. It's an opinion that could seem very vague when trying
to quantify and then sourcing why this came to be is really all speculation.

There is such an abundance of money floating around in the space, consumers
are increasingly becoming more likely to adopt these technologies, creating an
environment most likely susceptible to innovation-- but the output isn't as
significant as these realities should potentially suggest.

Forget significant technological breakthroughs, such as Peter Thiel frequently
refers to-- I'm even talking about already existing technologies that aren't
fully being leveraged and if they were could further lead to these significant
technological breakthroughs. Why isn't this the case? Why is it that even
though curbs can be lined with some sort of proximity sensors I need to drive
45 minutes to blindly search for a parking spot when these sensors can ping me
the nearest spot when making a query? I think of all the data from every
aspects of our lives that is quantifiable and we create on a daily basis and
how if this was curated then interpreted to the consumer, how much more
efficient lives we could live-- why isn't this so? Why is it that that the
digital world is still yet to merge with the real world? Even from a product
standpoint-- I find that i'm increasingly using products where it almost seems
as if the founders aren't using the product themselves. I come across way too
many flawed user experiences and to be honest it is beyond frustrating to me.
Last week a 20 under 20 special highlighting the Thiel Fellowship aired on
CNBC, so I set my TiVo to record it not knowing it was a 2 part special-- TiVo
knows this. Why would I want to watch one part and not the other? Why wouldn't
a notification popup "Since you've recorded this, It's very likely you'd want
to record this as well. Would you like to?" This is a minuscule example but I
believe everything that i'm saying stems from not a lack of resources, not a
lack of ideas-- but rather a lack of depth in their thought when
conceptualizing a solution to the problem all the way through to executing.

So why is there seemingly such a lack of thought? There are many possible
reasons why, many of which are likely out of my control-- but I do believe
that part of this problem which I can potentially make a difference in, is a
deficiency of inspiration. Inspiration is directly correlated to consumption--
so if people aren't inspired enough I feel it's not illogical to question what
they are consuming. Technito is my attempt to cover startups and review user
experiences in such a way, highlighting the subtle features that most oversee
but really confirm the user experience of companies and founders that make you
scratch your head and question. The reader, should it be an entrepreneur will
be inspired to view product in a much deeper way and should it be a consumer
will walk away with setting a higher standard and having greater expectations
for the products they use which will ultimately trickle throughout the entire
ecosystem.

Independent bloggers that aren't reliant on ad revenue, such as Fred Wilson
are likely not going to be as click driven-- but the reality is the bulk of
content created (especially covering startups) that most of us are then
consuming aren't coming from independent bloggers, but rather tech journalists
working for media companies. I'm not claiming that the only source of revenue
for these sites are ad clicks-- but traffic is their currency, and they are
well aware of that.

My integrity is something that I take pride in for the fact that it will
always remain in tact. What I was referring to was the integrity as far as the
public perception is concerned-- which any way you look at has it's best
chance of fully remaining in tact if the platform isn't monetized.

I am relatively new to the HN community-- I'm probably going to post this link
a couple more times with the hopes of maybe gaining some traction. Do you have
any suggestions for titles/headlines that would appeal most to this community?
"Open letter to Silicon Valley: A True Story" does seem a bit hostile now that
I think of it (the irony)-- which was likely why you perceived it the way you
did in the first place. Any suggestions? This is all just a figment of my
imagination of I can't get readers!

