Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

^^ xpost it's somehow comforting that i wasn't the only one... i still like Slack tho

Not to get all mar1ssa on this thread but I have had a lot of jobs at cool places and neither this company or warby parker are cool.

any kind of company 'core values' used against workers is some sociopathic forced teaming bs. People need to learn to protect themselves from it.

they're not cool but they are Brands Your Friends Have Heard Of with active instas

you guys already covered this re: "cool companies" but I left this post in an open tab so you get it anyway

The thing that stands out to me from the article is the listing of other hot brands that apparently thrive on this direct-to-consumer model: Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club, Glossier, Everlane - meanwhile I've been buying luggage and clothes for myself and my family from old ass catalog brands like LL Bean and Lands End for decades and 1) nobody cares 2) don't recall any big stories about them being fucked up to work in (they might be, it just doesn't make the news because see (1)

There's a manager in a parallel group to mine who has tried to institute a "no side conversations about projects" rule because he thinks there should be an actual meeting he's invited to when things are worked out. It's ridiculous and not taken seriously because it's the dumbest micro-managing overreach and he really just thinks he should be involved in every interaction. I think we violated that rule about 20 times this week, lol

I've realized I can put up with a lot of bullshit at work so long as there's none of that hyper micromanagement shit going on, drives me absolutely n u t s

Taking advantage of young, naive workers who over-identify with brands and think themselves too smart to need a union is the bread and butter of tech companies. Dell pulled all of this shit when I worked there like twenty years ago, and the support workers ate it up/burned out in the same pattern.

never forget what they did to the "dude you're getting a Dell" guy, I still haven't forgiven them for that

Not surprising they canned that guy when he got caught buying pot. Dell is really puritanical about drugs. A tech I knew was discovered to have used LSD in high school, and they unceremoniously fired him. Not arrested for possession, mind you. His manager just found out he had taken LSD once, and said it meant he had lied on his job application.

I need a new hardshell lg suitcase and am considering this Away luggage, but the only thing that seems to be favorable is that it has a lifetime guarantee (for the life of the company, which hmmm). But shipping a 30" thing to be fixed seems really annoying.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/6/20999091/away-ceo-steph-korey-apology-employees-toxic-work-slack-logs-luggage-brand

fuckin brain genious over here

Managing people is extremely hard and they are making it even harder by absorbing all the terrible Lean In, Goop, live/work/love shit that they should completely ignore.

It's not even 'Warby Parker for luggage' because Warby Parker has a much more accessible price point and was fillin the gap of not being owned by Luxxotica who completely dominate everything eyewear related. I am still trying to figure out this popularity besides them advertising on instagram during an optimal time.

the suitcases have batteries

My main go-to is still a 2000yen Don Quijote find from 15 years ago lol. I bought it to supplement my Samsonite and it has replaced it.

But you have to take out the battery to check the bag. Also a lot of airports now have tons of charging stations even if you don't have lounge access so it seems like a meh perk.

xpost Oh, I will check out the local DonQ in Jan. I was planning on getting a bag from somewhere then. Typically, the actual hardshell is always fine but it's the handles and wheels that go first and crack out of the shell.

check out the death stranding thread

I also don't want a suitcase with a baby in a bubble.

eBags.com have their own house brand and they hold up incredibly well. I still use a weekender backpack I bought from them 15 years ago, it goes with me on basically every trip

Hard shells are ridiculous btw, idgi

But you have to take out the battery to check the bag. Also a lot of airports now have tons of charging stations even if you don't have lounge access so it seems like a meh perk.

yes it was a joke. no one should buy these bags.

I was recently gifted an inexpensive hardshell from bed bath and beyond. It meets international carry-on restrictions, and I can fit a lot of stuff into it. It may not last that long but for now it is the best piece of luggage I've ever had
xp

you have to remove the battery from the bags where they’re part of the bag even if you’re not checking them now, I think. some airlines don’t even let them in the overhead compartment!

I get the convenience idea but binding a somewhat perishable commodity to a suitcase, which could last most people decades, seems like you’re acknowledging the suitcase is a disposable reputation item

I like hardshells because I sometimes take a lot of breakable things (bottles) on flights. I think I have a samsonite or delph spinner right now and my normal carry on is a weird japanese softshell. I can do 3 weeks with only a commuter backpack as long as it's not super wintery.

i don't know what delph is, i meant delsey.

Use this thread to discuss how 2 use luggage moar effective LUGGAGE ADVICE SOUGHT

I was picturing Yerac with bottles and maybe crackers stuffed in a suitcase and was pondering how endearingly on character that’d be!

lmao and rip to the scooter startup whose efforts at nominative determinism were a colossal failure

Unicorn, the electric scooter startup from the co-creator of gadget tracker Tile, is shutting down operations after blowing all its cash on Facebook and Google ads but only receiving 350 orders for its glossy white e-scooters, it claims. In an email to customers, the company says it lacks the resources to deliver any of its $699 two-wheelers, and won’t be issuing refunds “as we are completely out of funding.”

In a remorseful email, Unicorn CEO Nick Evans said the company had “totally failed as a business” and has also “spread the cost of this failure to you, the early customers that believed in us.”

Unicorn emerged six months ago as part of a new crop of scooter startups hoping to capitalize on the popularity of dockless rental services like Bird and Lime, while also pitching itself as an affordable alternative to shared scooters. In addition to having a striking profile — the all-white look was really something — the scooter was loaded with a lot of high-tech bells and whistles, like GPS tracking and smartphone-enabled locking. Naturally it included integration with Tile, Evans’ other company, which uses Bluetooth to track lost items, like a wallet, keys, or phone.

But now Unicorn is no more. The company claims it sunk all its money into advertising and marketing, as well as loan repayments and other expenses, with little leftover for production and deliveries.

can't believe that spending all your money on advertising and forgetting to keep some aside to actually build your product was not a gangbusters business plan

lolllll

“Unicorn”

I guess their value proposition was they had an app and maybe an additional piece of hardware tagged on to a scooter they were sourcing from segway

how is that not just committing fraud?

look if 'fraud' is disqualifying in and of itself then we're gonna have to shut down a lot of tech companies, can't we just keep turning a blind eye and pretend we're not heading for a colossal collapse for a little bit longer

Zuck's laughing all the way to the bank.

https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.
That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

...

WWhen the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.
They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

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