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Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

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Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#51

Post by [deleted] »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #47
sumukh1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As a rule, the only thing that can kill a good startup is the startup itself" - http://www.paulgraham.com/superangels.html As a rule, the only thing that can kill a good _ecosystem_ is the _ecosystem_ itself Edit: We live in a democracy. If there is something that stands to significantly harm us, then we should (and can) do something about it. A recent example would be SOPA. The biggest threat we face is not from Wa…

Is there any rational reason to derive this from pg's statement? Word substitution does not work in all cases. For example: > As a rule, the only thing that can kill a good _human_ is the _human_ itself.

[deleted]

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#52

Post by sgarg »

martythemaniak wrote: post #17

It's tempting to dismiss this as just e-lebrity gossip, but I think that this kind of rottenness is probably more dangerous to the Valley than threats from Washington or talk of bubbles. If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. If somebody is an unscrupulous douchebag, don't to business with them, don't read their blogs, don't upvote their…

I completely agree. Would you trust Yelp for restaurant reviews if Yelp invested in the restaurants it provided reviews for? Of course not. Like you said, the only way to really punish behavior like this is to stop using their product.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#53

Post by dotBen »

throw911 wrote: post #21

Investors in PandoDaily: Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Chris Dixon, Saul Klein, Josh Kopelman, CrunchFund, Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Menlo Ventures, Lerer Ventures Many of these are top class investors and certainly don't expect a return on their money from a startup tech blog. But they might expect favorable reviews of their portfolio companies when launch time comes or when shit hits the fan.

Exactly, I fear this too. I like Sarah Lacey, and I think she does have integrity.

But I can't help but feel this is the investors simply moving up the food chain to protect their startups. Rather than rebutting against the media when their own startups are attacked, they have obtained an inside position at source.

I don't believe Sarah thinks this will happen (or she feels she can push back and mitigate) but I'm [sadly] confident this kind of internal pressure will occur at some point.

Fuck it, if I'd invested in her media venture I'd want preferential treatment. And I'm ex BBC with a 'no bias' agenda beaten into me it hurts.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#54

Post by xpose2000 »

This is a fantastic article. I think the start-up industry and the bloggers who report on them is increasingly tiring.

I'm glad this guy had the guts to call people out for who they truly are. Though I am sure this is far from the end of it all....

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#56

Post by philwelch »

avoutthere wrote: post #41
martythemaniak wrote: post #17

It's tempting to dismiss this as just e-lebrity gossip, but I think that this kind of rottenness is probably more dangerous to the Valley than threats from Washington or talk of bubbles. If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. If somebody is an unscrupulous douchebag, don't to business with them, don't read their blogs, don't upvote their…

Nothing is more dangerous to the Valley than threats of force from Washington.

Threats from Washington are the natural consequence of shitty, unethical behavior. Which really brings it back to what the OP is about.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#57

Post by philwelch »

martythemaniak wrote: post #17

It's tempting to dismiss this as just e-lebrity gossip, but I think that this kind of rottenness is probably more dangerous to the Valley than threats from Washington or talk of bubbles. If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. If somebody is an unscrupulous douchebag, don't to business with them, don't read their blogs, don't upvote their…

Speaking of bubbles, the optimistic part of me thinks that this really is a bubble, and that the next time the Valley crashes, all the sharks and trolls will be reaped and only honest people will be left to rebuild. It's better to imagine it than the alternative.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#58

Post by doktrin »

jwwest wrote: post #13

I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet somehow he's ridden on the coattails of Apple's ascent by positioning himself among the fandom as a "champion of good taste". In interviews he doesn't even come off as particularly pleasant.

Siegler is a shameless bottom feeder. He and his ilk are an embarrassment to the tech community, who have sadly gotten rich off the sweat of others.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#59

Post by martythemaniak »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #48
martythemaniak wrote: post #17

It's tempting to dismiss this as just e-lebrity gossip, but I think that this kind of rottenness is probably more dangerous to the Valley than threats from Washington or talk of bubbles. If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. If somebody is an unscrupulous douchebag, don't to business with them, don't read their blogs, don't upvote their…

If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble. For me its just another sign that 'tech' is growing up. Pretty much any industry creates an economic flow, and the flow is a source of power (some would argue the only real source in peace time), and one can harness that power by having influence over the flow. Back when the Homebrew Computer Club wa…

I think one of the challenges with growing up is that you have to work increasingly hard at preserving that which made you special.

As others have argued, "Don't be Evil" is Google trying to inoculate itself against growing up too much and always having a nagging reminder to strive to be the company they were in their youth. Perhaps the valley was never a gentleman's game, but it was (and still is) much more so than other industries.

Re: Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool

#60

Post by moocow01 »

I feel like this is a part of the larger conversation of how the dynamics of Silicon Valley are changing (at least from my insulated perspective). I'm not going to sit in my arm chair and smatter Silicon Valley but I enjoyed and respected the culture and environment of SV much more 5 to 10 years ago. It may be untrue but I feel like SV is becoming increasingly dominated by hustlers and scheisters and it has become more difficult to effectively collaborate with the many true technologists there. Actually took a job last year outside of the traditional SV circle of companies to take a break from the atmosphere and have found it to be surprisingly more fun from a technological perspective than the consumer internet products I was building previously.
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