6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

While this author is of a younger generation, this really resonated with me as a Gen Xer. I feel there is so much disillusionment among folks that came of age during the 90s because there was so much techno optimism then, and it didn't quite turn out like we envisioned. Two things made me think about this recently:

1. I saw a Reddit post that was titled something like "The 90s were peak humanity. Enough tech to make life comfortable, but not so much that it had totally taken over the focus." It was a video of a packed mall around the holidays filled with generally happy people socializing in public.

2. That viral quote that was making the rounds, "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes."

I just feel there has been a growing chasm over the past 25 years where tech is no longer solving pressing human problems (generally, obviously not true in all areas e.g. decarbonization tech) but is more concerned with just rent-seeking value extraction.

It would be interesting if someone analyzed the “California communication style” and its effects on the startup industry. As someone that grew up on the East Coast, I often notice how the communication style on the West Coast is much less confrontational and more “everything is awesome”, which I think leads to the sort of fake enthusiasm the author grew tired of projecting.

Of course, there’s no lack of hype and BS in NYC/DC/Boston, but there seems to be a much more developed culture of criticism and analysis than in California. And so the default attitude on the East Coast is a bit more cynically pragmatic, which is both good for the above reasons, but also less imaginative and more restricted - which is why SV has more “dreamers” that do crazy things.

Hope I’m not firing off too many East Coast vs. West Coast battle shots here :)

I love it.

There have been a few times in my life where I put everything on the line (or so I felt then) for a value I deeply held. Risking friendships, letting go of money, deeply uprooting behaviors… all for abstract (yet impactful) ideas like honesty and kindness.

I in no way regretted those choices, ever, and found that after a few weeks or months my position was strengthened. Integrity has this effect — it closes feedback loops. The result is a deep empowerment.

I praise the author and wish them continued courage.

This is very well written. Good on them for following their integrity.

More people in this industry should realize that there are large sections of it that are deeply toxic to humanity, and reconsider whether they want to be a part of that. For all the "disruption" caused by "unicorns", has it really had a net positive effect on our lives? Big Tech companies keep building technology that is designed to extract as much value from their users by any means necessary. Most of the startup world revolves around growing companies based on this premise, in the hopes of one day making it big as well. There are still companies that ignore this rat race and try to do the right thing, but they are hard to come by. Those are the real unicorns, IMO.

I realize the irony of this opinion on a VC forum. But this needs to resonate here more than anywhere else.

Public Relations used to be known as Propaganda. It rebranded, because of the use of its techniques in war, but it's still based on grabbing attention on the masses who are then put through the sales funnel. It doesn't matter what you are selling, all that matters is that you follow some basic rules. It is not for people with conscience or those who are able to see that what is being sold is not good for the buyer. One of the early commercial successes claimed by that field human activity was successfully encouraging women to smoke cigarettes by hijacking women's liberation movement. When you start that low and are paid more to do more of it, you have to choose money or conscience.

This resonates with me - someone who left big tech 2 months ago. It is so refreshing talking with business owners and thinking of smaller scale ideas. In addition to being a lot more authentic, they seem to generate a lot of wealth.

This person acts like they were disseminating propaganda for the reich. I get that doing corporate PR probably feels very cynical in general but coaching founders not to fumble the bag in an interview or writing blog posts about funding rounds are on the lesser evils side I think. Who is the victim of manipulation there? VCs? Lol

Great summation of how it looks (and smells) from the outside. The only thing that jarred me out of furious agreement was this line:

> At least I have my integrity.

And I may be throwing stones from a glass house but, in my opinion, they have 6 months of integrity on a backdrop of <unknown number> of years of quite specific non-integrity.

Exiting the speeding-train-with-no-brakes saves you. Helping to stop the train has at least the chance to save others, which earns integrity.

Write an (anonymous?) blog describing how to recognise the bullshit, what the strategies are that you, yourself employed to convince the rubes. Expose your methods so that others who are employing them are made toothless.

There lieth integrity.

Edited to add:

This kinda thing, it's good to see the reversal: https://www.joanwestenberg.com/techs-accountability-tantrum-...

Good on them, I applaud them for deciding to change even at the cost of a fat check.

I would not, my bank account really matters Integrity might sooth my soul, but not my retirement.

Life increasingly feels like a trade off between integrity and living in modern society.

Advertising.

That's the problem. Computing has become a branch of the ad industry.

What we need is a big tax on advertising and marketing. In the US, it doesn't create more demand, because most people are spent out. It just moves demand around. So much of that effort is a net lose that pushes prices up.

(This might be politically possible during an "anti-tech" Trump administration.)

I'm freelancing about ten years in audiovisual production and design. I'm avoid commercial sphere. I'm absolutely avoiding product advertising.

In those 10 years I realized how fake it is. Basically product advertising is proof that product is not good enough to be sold on market. Good product is advertising by itself. With this honesty, you cannot participate in fake indistry.

Great piece. Good on them for getting out.

>Give me a half-baked startup idea, a semi-charismatic founder and a fistful of VC dollars, and I could write a story compelling enough it barely mattered whether there was an ounce of truth in it.

Pretty sure anyone can do this. The setup is not in the writing of the story but in the things you just listed...

> Tech is an out-of-control locomotive with no fucking brakes.

The way I see it, "tech" is simply the area where a very old pattern is playing out.

In another era, the dreams being peddled would involve gold from transatlantic expeditions, Dutch tulips, textile machines, railroad networks, etc.

Thank you for your honest words, I needed that.

I am one of the tiny wheels in the corner of this industry in an organization not built on top of loose bullshit from the start with the speed of light but made to build useful tools for engineers decades ago. However along the road the 'do whatever that looks good' overruled the 'do something good' in the competition with the pretentious capitalists and their servants wandering in all corners of the industry now poisioning good places with attitudes they learned and grown with in bad places and now being considered 'experts of the industry', not to mention the need of survival pushes you in this direction, the must pick up the indutry trends or die panick makes you do things you hate, and all this sweeped in to my low level of building parts so I have to make things that look good with degrading quality tools and degrading quality operating system built to look good to sell instead of helping the user so my every day, yes, every day work is a piss in headwind uphill. The products of the industry serves itself rather than the users, we can do a lot very fast that we wouldn't need to do if things were made right not pretentious. The life got difficult on a whole different level, not easier, with the products of the industry. I see little option than getting out, it is poisioned to all parts now. I have two babies so it is hard and very risky but I will need to show example to them soon and this is not something to show with integrity. Not to mention that staying is also risky when you are increasingly handled as commodity (Human Resources is a very hones title indeed!!). The previous personality of yours made this happen with the likes but still thank you for not doing it anymore and for spreading your story. I might never be in a position to work with you but if I will I will recommend you.

Sort of a vapid piece.

The optimism and buy-in that excited people about tech from the debut of the iPhone until fairly recently was a function of PR and technology marketers-- like the author-- doing their jobs very well. For any industry, generating interest and excitement is more than a purely descriptive process. The magical venture doesn't just appear and then the marketers have the simple job of describing it. Marketers/strategists/PR people play a very important role surveying the project and then articulating a compelling vision. That vision then becomes sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy since stakeholders (both creators and users) have bought into the promise of worth.

If strategists aren't able to see a path forward, to survey the field and identify the things that make the project worthwhile, exciting, sustainable, tactical, etc... then they're just not great at their job.

Admitting that you haven't really believed in anything you've worked on as a marketer is a bit like an actor admitting that someone else is reading their lines. A good marketer, like a good actor, lives in their promises like they are already real. The realer and more convinced you are, the more you can speak your vision into reality.

Easy to say when you made money, that's the good moment to get out.

“Technology has potential when it's guided by ethical considerations and a genuine desire to improve the human condition.”

Yup, and Bill and Dave are probably the last two that I can really point at to say that’s what they had. True ethics and a genuine desire. Probably also the Fab 8. It may have stopped there.

“The tech industry has a long memory.”

Nope. I think it has no memory and zero penalty for failure. That’s, of course, a double-edged sword.

It would be easier to take her seriously as a critic of tech industry BS if her LinkedIn didn't list her as a current advisor to "MODA DAO" and her social media handle wasn't "@daojoan.eth". Yee-ikes.

> The inflated valuations, cult-like frat house “culture,” and the relentless, mindless pursuit of growth that comfortably glossed over the human cost of "disruption."

It has been finally admitted.

The entire VC grift that was seen through unfounded valuations was purposely executed to gloss over the issues and positive spin to unprofitable startups and startups generating little to no revenue for years rather than necessary scrutiny in their business models.

> A nagging doubt. An odd moment of "Jesus, what the hell am I doing?"

> I would lie awake at 3 AM, staring at the ceiling. My life was slipping away, and I had nothing to show for it

Perhaps the bullshit industrial complex just accelerates this realization. I think I'm a bit older than the OP. I work on notionally quite pro-social software and still wake up thinking the same thing.

in other words, she had a midlife crisis

I kept on gritting my teeth, waiting for the author to try to sell me something, or on something. Says something about this bullshit industrial complex, I suppose, that I’m so jaded about anything contrarian in this vein.

Everyone with an ounce of common sense can see that the gig economy is just a way to pay people less and side step labour laws, so a small number of people can sleep on a bed of money. I find it obscene and sociopathic.

If you are grounded in religious faith, your whole life won’t revolve around whatever your job is. The author seems very intertwined with his job and the output.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t analyze the meaning of your work, but he seems fairly un-anchored