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Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

slog.thestranger.com

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Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#61

Post by RyanIyengar »

smacktoward wrote: post #32
trevelyan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I quite like the name Appthwack.

For those of you who are too young to have lived through the original dot-com boom, I can't recommend this 1999 article on company naming from Salon highly enough: http://www.salon.com/1999/11/30/naming/ Read the whole thing, it's hilarious. As soon as I saw the parade of names in the OP I was reminded of one of the names the naming consultants in the the Salon piece devised -- "Jamcracker": When Altman and Manning p…

The Jamcracker Services Delivery Network (JSDN) enables Service Providers to unify the delivery of disparate cloud services to their direct customers and through their channels. Key features include:

http://www.jamcracker.com/

Oh goodness

Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#62

Post by gatordan »

polyfractal wrote: post #3

Really enjoying the author's prose. This had me rolling: >> It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way.

I agree. If nothing else its always refreshing to read a piece on HN written by someone with a command of language and writing. Sometimes it gets tiring reading bullet pointed articles about how to design an engaging landing page, or poorly written and thinly veiled link-bait blog posts meant to get free marketing ("Dear Mark Zuckerberg", or "If You're Doing X, You're Doing it Wrong").

I think there were two big points made by the author, and he argued them fairly well: be aware of how powerful language is, and if you're a "hacker" - which by definition is someone who thinks out if the box - look around once in a while and realize if you've become a member of just another Herd. Sure he made his points through pointed satire and ridicule, but i think we all benefit from laughing at ourselves once in a while.

Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#63

Post by mamoswined »

"The women have it tougher. Their business casual is neither business-minded nor all that casual, a confusing melange of sundresses and sensible slacks, gossamer sweaters tossed over spaghetti straps."

That seems weirdly sexist to me. I guess I really like working in tech because I can wear generally what I want, and often in the summer, that means sundresses, instead of a stifling business suit. And I guess I always assumed the tech world, particularly the start-up scene, wasn't judging me as less business-like because of it.

TLDR: yes, a lot of the startup world is full of shallow business-speak, but don't you dare insult my sundresses.

Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#65

Post by ktizo »

polyfractal wrote: post #26
bradleyland wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I don't know. I think it's wise to take a step back and listen to yourself from time to time. When you set out to do something, you start by learning, then by doing, then you recyle that process over and over. You entrench yourself with like-minded individuals, and everything starts to become second nature. This is the exact moment that you should take a step back and read a piece like this. In the process of try…

Yep, I'm right there with you. I enjoyed this piece, and that's why I said half was legit criticism. If I hear a startup unironically use the term "leverage" or "pivot" one more time...

I think it is allowed if they are engineering some sort of giant pivoting lever.

Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#66

Post by jamesbritt »

ianstallings wrote: post #21
polyfractal wrote: post #3

Really enjoying the author's prose. This had me rolling: >> It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way.

And he gave us a term we can use - "linguistic nihilism" >> It’s linguistic nihilism, in which everything means nothing and nothing means anything at all.

Surprisingly a more popular phrase then one might have imagined.

From 2005: http://curmudgeonjoy.blogspot.com/2005/10/instance-of-lingui...

Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#68

Post by smashing »

yajoe wrote: post #23
polyfractal wrote: post #3

Really enjoying the author's prose. This had me rolling: >> It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way.

The slog is awesome. To those outside of Seattle, the Stranger is Seattle's alternative "magazine"/"newspaper"/"culture digest". My favorite choice line: > This world of business, these job creators, have specialized to the point where they have developed their own language. This is normal, but the problem is that their language is as tepid and lifeless and dumb as any language that ever existed. This is true wheneve…

I believe its called jargon. MBA's do tend to document jargon more than other professions, but every job has them.

Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#69

Post by akoumjian »

The Stranger disappoints, as usual. Easier to poke fun at people's clothes and other shallow topics than provide something of substance. Don't get me wrong, I love the occasional quip, but the author has put zero effort into understanding the culture before casually ridiculing it.

Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.

#70

Post by Apocryphon »

kstenerud wrote: post #51

"Hell, as I check my e-mail, I notice with a resigned shame that my coworkers—smart people I consider to be excellent writers—are unironically using the word “spearhead” as a verb in an e-mail thread." Aaaaand this is where I dismiss the author as simply looking for things to complain about. Complaining about names (as if that even matters). Complaining about the way they dress. Complaining about the way they talk. M…

Buzzwords must die.
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