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

realdanlyons.com

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

#111

Post by orthecreedence »

This is why I feel like a lot of startups raising their hands in a "ohhh write about me!!! write about me!!" frenzy of desperation seems to get them the users and followers (edit: and investors) they deserve. Sure, if your market is the tech crowd, go for it. If you're market is not the tech world, then I believe it makes sense to avoid the shitty tech press altogether.

Getting a Techcrunch piece about your app doesn't mean you're successful in any measure. Having a business model and making a profit does make you successful. Sure Techcrunch is marketing, but in most cases it's the wrong kind...not all eyeballs are good ones. Know your market.

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

#112

Post by polyfractal »

RegEx wrote: post #109
polyfractal wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or all the recent nonsense about non-compete hiring practices between top tech firms.

I wasn't aware of this issue. Do you have a link to a recent article/HN discussion concerning it?

Sure:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3521817

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3516314

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

#113

Post by felipemnoa »

Jayasimhan wrote: post #105

And now these writers occupy HN. 597+ upvotes. Seriously? Sigh.

Is probably more a sign that HN now has a much bigger diverse audience. Not so long ago it would be really rare to get 597 upvotes in a single story.

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

#115

Post by cageface »

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'm not sure. Sleaze tends to correlate with easy money. Before 1997 or so most of the people I knew that were in tech were in it primarily for love but when all the easy capital started flowing in suddenly the quick buck hucksters started coming out of the woodwork. Very few of the latter stuck around after the first dotcom crash.

Right now a lot of dumb money is pouring into tech because there's nowhere else for it to go. I'm seeing a lot of the same kinds of low class opportunists popping up as a result.

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

#117

Post by man1sh »

lukeholder wrote: post #26

I stopped reading techcrunch about 9 months ago, after realizing that the majority of articles were friends of the author - and realizing it was almost impossible to get featured on there unless you were connected in some kind of monetary way.

I stopped reading it two years back, but still get linked to that website. Whenever I land over there, the post contains some or other of BS.

It's no co-incidence. Techcrunch is the same as it was 2 years back, probably venom from Siegler has increased

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

#118

Post by VonGuard »

Oh... My... God.... Lyons is a fucking god. As a journalist in the valley, I can just say that the first paragraph he's written here hits the nail right on the fucking head.

---"It’s tough being a journalist, especially if you’re covering technology and living in Silicon Valley, because it seems as if everyone around you is getting fabulously rich while you’re stuck in a job that will never, ever make you wealthy. What’s worse is that all these people who are getting rich don’t seem to be any brighter than you are and in fact many of them don’t seem very bright at all. So of course you get jealous. And then you start thinking maybe you could find a way to cash in on this gold rush. But how do you make gobs of money when your only marketable skill involves writing blog posts?"

I feel this way all the time! But there's a distinct difference between acting on these feelings and just feeling them. Arrington would be just fine and above reproach, these days, if he'd keep his fucking mouth shut now that he is ludicrously compromised and un-objective.

If he'd quite being a "journalist" he'd not look like such a douche...

Perhaps this is why I haven't jumped the fence yet... I don't think I could give up the journalism. It just gets in your blood. And once it's in, the thought of compromising yourself is sickening. Unless you're Arrington.

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

#119

Post by eurohacker »

thanks for explaining not only how the Silicon Valley media channels work but pretty much how the whole American mainstream media cesspool works ,

GENERAL ELECTRIC --(donated 1.1 million to GW Bush for his 2000 election campaign)

Television Holdings: * NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households. * NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise. * CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%). The "MS" in MSNBC means microsoft The same Microsoft that donated 2.4 million to get GW bush elected.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/47530.php

DISNEY / ABC / CAP (donated 640 thousand to GW's 2000 campaign).

When Pixar deal closed - Steve Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately seven percent of the company's stock.[12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

Disney Television Holdings: * ABC: includes 10 stations, 24% of US households. * ABC Network News: Prime Time Live, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America. * ESPN, Lifetime Television (50%), as well as minority holdings in A&E, History Channel and E! * Disney Channel/Disney Television, Touchtone Television. Media Holdings: * Miramax, Touchtone Pictures. * Magazines: Jane, Los Angeles Magazine, W, Discover. * 3 music labels, 11 major local newspapers. * Hyperion book publishers. * Infoseek Internet search engine (43%). Other Holdings: * Sid R. Bass (major shares) crude oil and gas.

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

#120

Post by Jayasimhan »

felipemnoa wrote: post #113
Jayasimhan wrote: post #105

And now these writers occupy HN. 597+ upvotes. Seriously? Sigh.

Is probably more a sign that HN now has a much bigger diverse audience. Not so long ago it would be really rare to get 597 upvotes in a single story.

We should start flagging users who post sensationalist stories on HN. Not reward them with karma.
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