Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

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

intensified public offense

i'm reading super pumped. it's good so far! anyone else?

sounds like a good audiobook-from-library choice…but either there's no audiobook yet or SPL doesn't have it yet…darn.

I got it from LAPL but it looks like a brand new copy

In 2015, Neumann chastised a group of employees for not Googling a job applicant after finding out that WeWork had hired the Hipster Grifter, a Brooklynite who had become briefly famous several years earlier for scamming her way into jobs and cheating people out of money.

eh, it’s a little on the nose... oh wait this is nonfiction?

the first time I ever heard about throwing hot dogs down a hallway was the hipster grifter.

Hot dogs thrown down the narrow hallways of WeWork buildings

When hallways are tight, it might be gross

imo wework could have learned a lot from small-time grifting. The long-time grift of being a tech company posing as a real estate company (or vice versatile) could use that personal touch

lol I meant vice verse, but am pondering the autocorrect neologism

I have gone down a rabbit hole on Peloton's apparel business, which sells $68 t-shirts but somehow had negative gross margins in the last fiscal year.

("Other" is mostly boutique and apparel sales.) https://t.co/MOW3B9cEG7 pic.twitter.com/BuzCFZp7oH

— Shira Ovide (@ShiraOvide) October 7, 2019

i just finished super pumped, the uber book. it's a solidly executed "and then what happened was. and then what happened was." business book. it's not as wild a story as bad blood, but somehow more appalling for being more archetypical of SV. and while i remembered all the stories (apart from a couple of things from new reporting it's not new news), i somehow hadn't realized that 90% of it happened in the space of about 2 months in early 2017.

V cool -- my girlfriend's got a copy and she's looking forward to it.

A fun discovery about the lil' workspaces I've been using

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/wework-phone-booths-to-be-removed-due-to-formaldehyde

this is going to rule

hi im really excited for this@briankoppelman and @DavidLevien are singular talents and i can’t believe i get to work with them and @Showtime to make SUPER PUMPED a show! pic.twitter.com/I9sjaBWnBK

— rat king (@MikeIsaac) October 16, 2019

things are gonna get interesting!

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/California-s-AB5-will-kill-the-gig-economy-14536962.php

I stopped at "whereas Prop 13 is a force for good..."

hahah -- yeah. But AB5 in general ...

Today in business models:

"Some prospective investors who met with Lime recently concluded that the current lifespan and costs such as charging and repair mean that the company loses almost all the money it sinks into purchasing each scooter." https://t.co/hyGk5HA9HK

— Eliot Brown (@eliotwb) October 21, 2019

cool

So we've basically fucked up every bicycle lane in the country so that a few liars can get rich off free credit. Cool cool.

lol no our bicycle lanes are fine it's our sidewalks that are fucked

I enjoy taking these scooters in cities with bike lanes and I think they do a good job filling a void for short distance trips. I hope one of the companies develops a sustainable business model.

What's wrong with rental bicycles?