Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

Do you remember 20 Tank Brewery, across from Slim's?

In like the 1999-2000 era, they had a DotCom night... present a business card from a dotcom, get a discount.
Teacher? Firefighter? Healthcare worker? Yeah no, sorry, the discount is for dotcom workers only.

Fortunately the place is gone.

Yes! I hated that place. There was also that weird multilevel bldg on the corner of Folsom & 11th that changed hands many times during that era. I remembered it mostly as a precursor to Chipotle (overpriced fast casual) but it was so many things in such a short period of time.

The Paradise Lounge? I think.

Across 11th street from there. It was a brick facade that had kind of a multilevel tower with many landings serviced by a rickety spiral stair case made of iron.

Ok, either I'm remember it wrong or it looks totally different now?

https://goo.gl/maps/5nAm2uys9eSGJZJU8

Yeah, the old Brewery Bldg with the alley behind it.

Decent Thai restaurant on that corner now.

Hsieh was in my college class and we were in the same major and I don't remember him because I decided very early on that practically everyone in my major was a diseased cock and actively avoided studying with anyone who wasn't one of my roommates.

(Just one of multiple ways in which I proactively shot myself in the foot re: becoming a billionaire, really)

lol at this thread becoming douchey San Francisco circa 2000 and college assholes that if we had less self-respect and consorted with we would be rich by now -- I approve!

also - DJP, didn't you say years ago that you had hung out with one of my former college roommates? The guy with the same name as the dude who invented Capitalism?

Yes! I lived with him for a year.

Instead of the current tech journalism model whereby people who could never land tech jobs and possess no skills whatsoever opine and militate furiously about it, imagine we had the sportscaster model whereby former great technologists comment on developments in real time.

— Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) December 22, 2020

Instead of the current tech journalism model whereby people who could never land tech jobs and possess no skills whatsoever opine and militate furiously about it, imagine we had the sportscaster model whereby former great technologists comment on developments in real time.

— Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) December 22, 2020

lol what a garbage take, as if the “tech press” isn’t knob-slobbery enough as it is

Who told this guy he could tweet words like “militate”

Programmers, as I’ve often said, are just so fucking dumb

is that even a word?

I know a thing or two about being in proximity to hyper-rich tech assholes who might have hypothetically made me richer by association if I could continue to put up with their antics, but honestly I can run that simulation in my head as many different ways as I want and it never seems worth it

I knew one person who worked briefly for Facebook.

They quit after three months and became a yoga instructor. Said it was the worst experience of their whole life.

Now they work in "wellness."

That’s the only way to trade down from working for Facebook.

They're actually a very kind and generous person, we've known each other for more than 20 years. Let's just say I was a little hedgy when they told me they were going to work for Facebook...and sure enough, the next time I saw them, they were like, "you were right. i just got a vitamin b12 shot and feel high as hell"

there are so many douchier tech companies than Facebook ...

facebook has so many employees that most are probably just people doing a job!

I’ve known a few at fb, one who was kind of a jerk in our youth but was probably fine as a manager (I think he was integrating payments into messenger). Another guy from my youth left google and started the pin things you’re interested in company

I think the ills are in the things that become mundane, like the slow creep (probably on interesting projects) into controlling all local business web presence, or a universal disinterest inside the company into constructive community building over that based on
engagement alone

i know people who've been at facebook for a while who are ... fine. it has a *relatively* benign internal culture compared to uber or tesla or tbh a lot of other tech companies. but i think anyone who *joins* facebook in 2020, knowing what we know, is a terrible person.

i know a legit awesome person who works for FB, despite everything. it's not sustainable

Whatever happened to Bodega? Some tech braws that wanted to put little vending machines everywhere, and garnered the ire of nearly everyone by using the name Bodega.
I haven't seen one yet.

Wasn’t that like 5+ years ago or so? We bitched about it somewhere on here, I swear.

I lol'd

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/aaron-traywick-dead-biohack-ascendance-tank-herpes-12878414.php

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, May 2, 2018 10:11 AM (two years ago)

I watched the movie about this dude and biohacking last night -- Citizen Bio

also, one of the other dudes in the movie has a website for his biohacking company/project that also has a page for:
https://www.the-odin.com/oakland-food-reviews/

I know this observation has been made many times before, but I really think silicon valley companies would benefit from having more people who aren't 20- and 30-somethings living in the bay area or seattle. I heard this guy talking on a podcast about the future of drone food delivery and how amazing it was that this would save $2-3 in costs per delivery. And the guy was talking about how he orders delivery "at least" every day, sometimes twice, so this would be so great. Meanwhile most Americans are ordering delivery like 2-3 times a month. Hard to see this as a game changer - maybe it is for the bottom line of a Domino's, but it's not exactly going to reshape American spending habits.

*20- or 30-something highly paid professionals living in the bay area or seattle

Is there anybody (let's say outside the context of a pandemic, where things might be different) who orders delivery every single day and to whom it matters whether the delivery costs what it costs or costs $3 less? OK, I can imagine some people. People with limited mobility for instance. But I don't think that's what's contemplated here.

Venture funded Silicon Valley startups hire dipshit college graduates with no skills to produce nothing of value in order to achieve a successful exit for the funders, the presence of employees with any kind of perspective on anything would be entirely beside the point.

the young male engineer mindset certainly means they focus on mom-as-a-service more than the rest of the world cares about that sector. it also means they (and the people who invest in them) think what they're doing is new or there is a gap in the market for their business outside the west coast. there often isn't.

e.g. convenient food delivery already existed on the east coast. i'm skeptical there would be so many companies doing it if SV was in NYC. this would be funny, but because of the way VC works, they're smothering an industry that was doing fine in an effort to pay back california VCs who are amazed by the concept of "quick delivery".

and e.g. "sending money" is not a good idea for a business in pretty much the entire developed world except for the US and Canada. (this one is funny. they keep doing it.)

did you see the tweet by the 'streamer' suggesting all his fellow streamers hire a personal chef to save money on takeout? similar vibes

To all my streamer friends, I recently ended up getting a personal chef to cook meals for the week. Instead of spending easily $1400 a month on fast food i now spend about 800-1k a month on home cooked fresh food made in my own home. It was the best decision I've ever made.

— Nokokopuffs (@Nokokopuffs_) February 23, 2021

How do you spend $46 a day on fast food??

The man hasn't shit right in years.

mom-as-a-service

omg

this recipeasly thing went well lol

How do you spend $46 a day on fast food??

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, February 28, 2021 8:36 PM (yesterday)

not all fast food is cheap! those delivery charges add up. ... seriously, there are people in my neighborhood who get delivery at least once a day.

this recipeasly thing went well lol

― mookieproof, Monday, March 1, 2021

blame canada!

Ngl, people throwing money around like this while nearly everyone I knew lived with roommates into their late 30s is among the reasons why I left the Bay Area and won't ever live there again.

mom-as-a-service
omg

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 1 March 2021 15:17 (yesterday) link

Srsly this has been bouncing around in my head since. Caek, is that your coinage?

Invest in MOAS stocks

*MAAS

no offense to caek, but that idea has been around for years: https://bostonreview.net/gender-sexuality/sarah-sharma-going-work-mommys-basement

About three years ago a funny quip began circulating on social media that the gig economy was now mostly composed of Mommy apps. Business Insider suggested that twenty-something techbros were wasting their talents designing technologies and programs for things they wished their Mommies still did for them: driving, cooking, cleaning, laundering. Newsweek even ran a similar story under the headlines read “Silicon Valley Needs Moms.” The term “post-mom economy” emerged to capture this particular moment in tech(bro) culture when Uber (“Mommy, drive me”), TaskRabbit (“Mommy, clean my room”), GrubHub (“Mommy, I’m hungry”), and LiveBetter (“Mommy, I’m bored”) emerged.

this is why the cult of Elon Musk bothers me so much, virtually all of the man's "innovations" consists of stuff that would only really be useful to a rich Silicon Valley person. the early crop of Teslas has obvious design flaws because apparently nobody ever considered that someone who lived in a less sunny place than California would ever buy one! he's like all those hack comedians who have been on the road for 15 years and now their entire act consists of complaining about airports and hotels

How do you spend $46 a day on fast food??

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, February 28, 2021 8:36 PM (yesterday)

why does a private chef cost less than this?

xp, aha. That makes sense. I used to call those "I'm to lazy to do" startups. I thought it was a sign of how spent the current tech boom had become. The mom terms work better.

Lately it feels like the hype has shifted away from apps to emergent tech - robotics, AI, EVs, batteries, biotech, etc. I guess that's at least better than having everyone try to find a way to sell beer at an unreasonable markup through an app.

There was an article from a few years ago that I'm sure was shared and discussed here where it was put in a good way that basically said the same thing, something about how 20 something start-up founders only knew how to create apps that solve the kinds of problems 20 something start-up founders have.