Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

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!

haha i just read that this week. how is it that no one is in jail yet?

also, fuck david boies

One likes to think one couldn’t be conned but one probably just hasn’t been a target yet.

Also I could definitely be conned I’m very susceptible to salespeople who are ostensibly not outright scamming you.

Literally just wrote a story about how rich people get lesser charges due to filing endless technical appeals. https://t.co/kazZzdQloO https://t.co/c2lFbJt2zE

— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) February 12, 2020

Liz looking more normal-ish there

Adam Neumann's for sale apt is kind of a bland mess. That floorplan!

https://ny.curbed.com/2020/2/19/21143697/for-sale-in-nyc-adam-neumann-nyc-manhattan-wework

fits

ffs

I tend to be cynical about the idea of Late Capitalism, but an Uber driver last night told me a story which made my jaw hit the floor.

He picked me up, and apologised for the congestion.

"You see all these cars, though? They're owned by the same person". (1/9)

— Imran Khan (@imrankhan) February 19, 2020

: o

still use DC & Arlington cabs every week, never installed uber or lyft on any of my phones

Fuck buying into a scam, even at a 100% discount

this is some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard
https://www.sfgate.com/living-in-sf/article/bumblebee-spaces-modular-housing-furniture-sf-15080191.php

let's needlessly increase energy usage in homes with a bunch of hydraulics that can only be operated with your chronically faulty internet-of-things devices! imagine coming home drunk and wanting to pass out and yelling at Siri for 20 minutes to get your bed to come out of the ceiling

But with Bumblebee it’s like Marie Kondo lives in my ceiling.

ceiling cat, only Marie Kondo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_FUt5S7j0s

oh, what a feeling / when you’re yelling at the ceiling

overvalued and unprofitable startups desperately latching onto half-baked ideas for generating revenue: a thread

— sir this is a wendy 🌹 (@dellsystem) February 25, 2020

people are ruining the pivot moment, which was supposed to be realizing that you had developed a component that is useful on its own in the quest to create your original product

now it’s just “we can slap ads or loans in”

idk maybe the latter was the real thing and the former kismet

Or, you know, all this shit has just been a fucking obvious bubble to people who know how to read and do math

all these companies following ilx's lead. hook about 100 people. Then turn on that ad revenue, baby.

I feel so old about this stuff. My life is so lo-fi, i just would never be interested in most of these things.

The Homepolish story linked in that thread is a good one, if you enjoy reading about clueless entitled assholes ruining other people's lives.

I am seriously wondering what type of permitting / code compliance issues those things would require ... like, are they gonna fall down in an earthquake? What is the minimum ceiling height they require? What about fire safety ... what is the fire rating of these things? Normally, code stipulates that you can't have storage closer than 18" from the ceiling ... because it's a mechanical device, would it require mechanical permits? ...

"who cares just build it and then worry about that shit later!" = every tech company ever

It just seems like something that would be hard to integrate with a bunch of different pre-existing construction types -- like, apartments with 8' or lower ceilings.

disrupting the building code "industry"

a ceiling waterbed is actually safer than normal beds in the case of fire

there are so many small businesses that are the opposite of tech companies with the attitude of "who cares just build it and then worry about that shit later!" but maybe tech companies tend to grow more quickly, exposing the attitude in more dramatic fashion.

small businesses would run into the same problems if they were always trying to "scale up" and/or waste other people's money

One of the guys from Mad Men had his bungalow featured in Dwell and he had a bed that raised and lowered manually and I thought that was actually pretty cool in a tight space.