Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

get in the box!

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/wework-and-counterfeit-capitalism

Inventing extended stay hotels

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Saturday, September 28, 2019 5:34 PM (three days ago)

exactly -- and the thing is, (as the article mentions) the tenants have to stay at least 30 days or otherwise it is considered a "hotel" which has different zoning classifications and restrictions (and somewhat different building/fire codes) -- basically they are complying with the letter of the law and saying fuck you to the spirit of the law (which is equivalent to what the tech bros did in the late 90s vis a vis live/work housing, and now there is basically no new live/work housing in San Francisco).

I currently work out of a WeWork lol (the co. I am working for part time is, for now, based here)

did you take all the snacks?

lol at thinking people weren't going to take all the snacks and not pay for them

I got here right before they got rid of the free snacks, though there are still a few Perriers and La Croixs left

oh and also still free coffee, craft beer and cider on tap

what flavor(s)?

even the ex-ceo took the snacks hundreds of millions of dollars

i was consulting at a ratings agency for the second time recently and noticed that they no longer had free vending machines. People used to annoyingly hoard the seltzer water in their desk which was annoying... but they had to start charging 25 cents because the CEO saw someone taking a duffle bag of cans home. My friend who is at a very, very well paying firm that has catered lunches was saying they recently stopped having fruit plates because people kept taking the entire platter to take home???

ps. the 25 charge caused soda restock orders for the firm to go down like 60%.

well yeah. who has quarters?

1. warm seltzer is gross
2. a duffel of soda cans is heavy
3. time spent waiting for your chip card to clear = more than a quarter

Though I dunno about anyone expecting anything else to happen with the catering trays at the end of the day. I’d be rolling up with fresh ziplocs in my bag every day just to mooch off that produce

My office has a lot of free snacks and I have definitely done the snacks-for-lunch thing numerous times, more because I don't feel like leaving the office for one of the mediocre options around here than to save money. The extra productivity they get on account of me staying at my desk me may even pay for the snacks.

No, they were taking all the fruit before lunch so no one else was able to have fruit. I got daily updates about this. Also ice machine.

it was happening very recently at a private equity firm owned by someone who also owns a sports team that rhymes with Retroit Winstons.

Yerac, why do you always end up working at places that seem vaguely Coen Bros / Mike Judge

It's because I am very bored and observant and live for this shit.

Fruit platter is such a weird thing to steal -- they go bad really fast and it's more fruit than a small family can eat in a day.

Freeze that shit for smoothies.

I have a former coworker who could definitely house an entire fruit platter during a meeting

I guess I should specify too that I probably used catered lunches wrong because the place has a kitchen staff that makes the lunch choices every day. And it was people in one particular department doing this.

cut fruit that's been sitting out for a while is a little bit gross to me also

If soylent wasn’t an option then you weren’t part of the topic of this thread btw

I have a tech coworker who appears to be drinking something called "huel" for lunch daily.

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fw6xoeVp8Wcw%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

There's free sushi in the lobby today.

huel is one letter away from hurl

fond remembrances of a fave character and the idea of vomit have both crossed my mind when seeing the logo

Huel = human fuel. Same idea as Soylent.

(Autocorrect suggested 'heil' and 'shouldn't' in place of the two brand names there...)

I find it an interesting idea but have never tried it.

huel is one letter away from hurl

irl lol

did anyone not get that it was meant to be “human fuel”, really?

it’s obvious what they intended but all of the associations and close homophones make it a godawful name

like why not call it pood for people food

can't believe you're giving that startup idea away for free

I was thinking Huel was like Nahuel (the half vampire/half human from Twilight).

huel howser

huel in the pool

Same idea as Soylent.

Soylent = Soy (i.e. you are a soy boy) + Lent (i.e. you are giving up tasty food)

i got banned from huel's facebook page after one of their ads popped up on my timeline and i kept commenting to ask whether their stupid fucking product contained also dangerous levels of cadmium and lead just like soylent

should have asked if it contains essential trace nutrients lead and cadmium

lol I have a weird compulsion to heckle facebook ads and huel was definitely one of my main targets

silicon valley's efforts to turn eating disorders into products is disgusting tbh

glad to hear there are still people engaging with #brands

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/marketing-expert-scott-galloway-on-wework-and-adam-neumann.html

we've seen that link twice in the Shitbin thread already

whoop

Sure, same naming scheme as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hufu

we've seen that link twice in the Shitbin thread already

― president of deluded fruitcakes anonymous (silby), Wednesday, October 2, 2019 9:38 AM (nine minutes ago)

I haven't seen it before, so thanks!

Galloway to WeWork: Dude, you have no IPO.

dude, where's my underwriter