Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

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.

My new idea is an app that will remind users to wash their ass every 24 hours

the internet of shit will never be the same

Sorry DJP, still too much user effort required. Would need to be an app that sends an underemployed gig worker over to aim a hose at the user's ass.

where would they plug in the hose?

"Have you guys tried SpitShine yet? TOTAL GAME CHANGER"

here 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.

― dan selzer, Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:02 AM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

My new idea is an app that will remind users to wash their ass every 24 hours

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:12 AM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this reminds me of those companies that make purportedly antimicrobial shirts that won't stink if you wear them for two days. Like literally the only people who would care are coders glued to their desks and complete lazy slobs who still somehow care what they smell like.

you know who makes my antimicrobial shirts, is a collaboration between Samsung and Tide

It is for the best that I never moved to Silicon Valley because I would either be even more insufferable or in jail after freaking the fuck out and punching everyone in sight

complete lazy slobs who still somehow care what they smell like

my people

you know who makes my antimicrobial shirts, is a collaboration between Samsung and Tide

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:55 AM (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Samsung x Tide

TidePods x Soylent

My GF forced me to listen to Conan O'Brien's podcast the other day, which was especially heavy on advertising. One 'service' he promoted was having a new car just delivered to your house. "No more boring trips to the dealer!" etc. etc.

I don't know who this is targeted to, but it's clearly not me.

certainly not the first to note the existence of that class of startups, and i did not come up with the name "MAAS", but it's a good one.

I thought a lot of the breathable shirts were marketed to people hiking/camping, but I think between my different online ad demographics I'm getting half outdoorsy types and half desk-bound coders and some brands are cross-marketing

it's aspirational -- the desk-bound coders are supposed to want to go hiking/camping and need a bona fide reason to buy these shirts, but instead, they don't and just, y'know, buy them to make up for not showering

well, I wear mostly merino wool shirts AND shower daily. so there!

#notalldeskboundcoders

baffler's not all bad... this is savage and i love it
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/how-to-become-an-intellectual-in-silicon-valley-timms

Join DocuSign executives, along with industry visionaries from Progressive and Arm, to discover how they are transforming their agreement process. You’ll also hear from singer/songwriters and inspiring speakers like Michael Franti and Mick Ebeling of Not Impossible Labs.

seriously, what happened to Michael Franti

I mean, Docusign is a pretty solid program as far as electronic signatures go but .... seriously ... ya, right?

"industry visionaries" = vomit all over myself

davey's link is indeed a pleasant read and highlights how much these dumb assholes are just 1970s/80s neoliberal chamber-of-commerce mouthpieces but with a fresh coat of rock-star paint plus ted talks and twitter.

There was a vinyl banner in SOMA San Francisco with some tech knob wearing a headset mic, and the pithy, airy quote: "We should only think of a technology as radical if it benefits every person on the planet."

And I thought "Bowls? Bowls is all I got. Maybe sandals?"