Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

William Gibson called it the Jackpot, a better name than the Event

Allegedly this is real. I wonder why the author doesn’t disclose the names of the people at this conference though.

In any case, embellished or not, it’s true that the billionaire class isn’t interested in humanity’s collective future.

that story’s 18 months old tbf, i’m sure our overlords have reconsidered their approach and embraced eco-friendly socialism by now

He probably can’t identify 100 investment bankers by sight? He was just the hired help.

he said there were only 5 people in this room

a gift of accountability? https://t.co/QXF9SQ7jMS

— Erin Griffith (@eringriffith) December 9, 2019

I don't know what this site is, that Slashdot linked to in their item about the news, but it speaks to what I found weird about the whole Away story when I got round to reading it after discussion here had died down. Y'know, that the only quoted example of the terrible culture was this one leader.

https://daringfireball.net/2019/12/away_replaces_ceo

The original article was also really weird about the hire of an intermediary manager to sit between the exec and the customer experience workers, making their magic work of disrupting the luggage business briefly more tolerable. The workers loved him and his sacking was a blow to morale. The story seemed to bend over backwards to avoid drawing the conclusion that, perhaps, when there is a chronic work backlog, maybe a company just needs to hire more fucking workers.

I skimmed that yesterday but it's pretty obviously Gruber being a weird bootlicker and doing some weird "no, I am the woke one" about a man replacing a woman

you see, The Verge got played by people who wanted to actually make this a success story about replacing a woman (who was toxic!) with a man, who we have had in the wings as we engineered this cover story

fwiw someone on twitter pointed out that the incoming CEO is coming from Lululemon, who notoriously have a weird corporate culture that's been documented elsewhere, including a period where they were sending their employees to Landmark Forum sessions

fwiw if you're interested in the other follies of mr. daringfireball.net: indefensible: john gruber

https://vcstarterkit.substack.com/p/getting-carried-away

uh as much as I'm loathe to relate to VC types, there are some decent (and some truly awful) responses here

as much as the outsourcing and globalization of support has led to roles moving away from US companies... why the fuck did they not anticipate a huge surge over the holidays and just hire a communications team elsewhere. maybe even one where.. christmas isn't necessarily a holiday for the staff?

https://daringfireball.net/2019/12/away_replaces_ceo

hahahahahahahahhaahha

incredible

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ELw20v-XkAAIPql.jpg

https://www.nuraphone.com

unbelievable

no YOU'RE a phone

ok yes fuck subscriptions in general but I am curious abt these headphones, afaik this design/tech/build is not elsewhere available?

otoh not sure I trust I would trust an app to EQ for me and am afraid what it would tell me about my hearing loss

EQ is a joke

?

When given the option I always adjust EQ levels to suit a given system.

to clarify w/r/t novelty of this technology I'm referring to isolating the low end over the ear and transmitting higher frequencies via earbud

mlk, gandhi, maggie

Most people that changed the world were workaholics. MLK, Gandhi, Hamilton, Thatcher, etc all worked nights and weekends.

But if you are not interested in changing the world, then working more than 40 hours a week is optional.

I choose to try to change the world. https://t.co/6G0OhMsY7t

— Auren 𝐇𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐦𝐚𝐧 (@auren) December 25, 2019

At least two notorious adulterers on that list, and it seems that Gandhi had a questionable sex life to say the least. I assume Maggie never fucked

Wait a mo. I consider it possible that Maggie and Dennis could have had occasional angry sex.

Who’d fuck someone named Dennis

hmmm, makes you think

Nura came up through the university accelerator I occasionally mentor at. They stared as a couple of PhDs with some tech to make adaptive hearing aids that worked with the strengths and weaknesses of people hearing. Headphones was mainly something to do whilst they worked out how do the re gu altitude stuff for a medical device.

Headphones took off and the rest is history. The tech is cool and sounds remarkably good but I find the weird nipples in the earcups to be pretty uncomfortable. Keen to try the nuraloop buds when the come out.

Subscription is ridiculous but that’s the way of things today.

Guess who's back!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/business/steph-korey-away.html

they must have figured out the people they sell luggage to only read lifestyle magazines, so any news article (or the verge) wasn't going to affect their sales, right?

of course they're suing the verge, though. classic thiel move

https://thebaffler.com/latest/certain-unflattering-truths-schaffer

I’ve come to the view this as part of the project of the book itself: to leave us unsettled by how its narrator, like all of us, remains somewhat in the Valley’s mindset, if not its pocket. This entanglement is a feature of the system that works, as she notes, precisely as designed. In the end, for all the generosity she extends to those around her, Wiener is unsparing with herself: “Certain unflattering truths: I had felt unassailable behind the walls of power. Society was shifting, and I felt safer inside the empire, inside the machine. It was preferable to be on the side that did the watching than the side being watched.” Wiener has written an indispensable chronicle of this era in tech, the consequences of which we will all reckon with as the next decade unfolds. Still, given the Valley’s unmatched ability to avoid any sense of guilt as the world around it burns, there is no doubt in my mind that while Uncanny Valley will be read widely and voraciously throughout the empire, Wiener’s readers—techno-skeptics and technologists alike—will be able to recognize themselves without feeling indicted.

But surely someone, somewhere, eventually, will need to feel indicted. At some point, we’re going to need the sharp end of the knife.

wow, Casper CEO on CNBC, when asked why the company priced its IPO at less than half of its private valuation: "I loved getting out and meeting investors. ... People got very excited" about Casper's mission. 🙃

— eg (@eringriffith) February 6, 2020

wonder if you could say they were…exuberant

is this the mattress company or ... ?

I'm sure they'd insist they're a sleep technology company

it's a platform for sleep

not hot dog

sorry, sometimes I get this thread and the thread for the Silicon Valley tv show confused

I got one of their pillows and some sheets on deep discount and they're pretty good if very overpriced

if you run their stock through the lazarus, the valuation becomes real

CSPR ipo delivers

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-07/casper-sleep-slips-below-ipo-price-on-second-day-as-public-firm

nice, love seeing VC money destroyed, after financing thousands of podcasts

From 2016 to September 2019, Casper spent $422.8 million on marketing, according to an earlier filing.

this seems like a lot

I thought the same thing

i mean, if you want long-term national name recognition for a mattress brand in a hurry, mission accomplished and that's more or less what it takes.

whether or not that's a good idea is another question but it's not unreasonable on the marketing side for what they were after.

(what was obvious from the S-1 is no, it's not a good idea)

always hated their C

https://media.glassdoor.com/sqll/990859/casper-squarelogo-1434393923933.png

lol I do agree

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/business/media/the-information-jessica-lessin.html

Maybe Information Actually Doesn’t Want to Be Free
By Edmund LeeUpdated Feb. 8, 2020, 8:59 a.m. ET
Jessica Lessin’s online tech publication costs $399 a year and has no ads. Silicon Valley’s elite is eating it up.

heh I remember that valleywag piece

I miss valleywag

i'm reading bad blood. what a world!

turns out a lot of smart people are very dumb!