Clive Davis was a piece of shit. But he was a successful piece of shit, so nobody realizes that he's actually a piece of shit. Everyone thinks he's Brian Epstein, but he's really no better than Suge Knight, if you want to make analogies. He takes what he believes are "great images" and puts his own cookie-cutter formulaic music behind it. Fake, fake, fake.
Just like these "judges" of the startup industry. Fuck them.
Exactly. The loudest voices and most effective negotiators are the ones who tend to rise to the top. The Suge Knight comparison is apt - someone with resources and intimidation skills, yet no talent pertinent to the meat of the industry, whether that's music production or tech. The game industry has it pretty bad, too, as far as promoting creatively bankrupt smooth talkers as soon as they've had the slightest brush with success. Try rewinding the clock a few years and pitching Minecraft to any of these guys, and they'd give you the game industry equivalent of Clive's rant, which I guess would be "Do you even play games? You have to have a narrative, an objective, a scruffy white male lead, and the ability to blow shit up. I don't even know what you're doing here, this isn't a game, it's a map editor. Nobody's gonna go for this shit." The solution is, of course, to scope your project like Notch did and release it yourself without listening to the cynics :)
Just like these "judges" of the startup industry. Fuck them.