Sometimes, it’s worth it to feed the trolls.
Douchey startup types are increasingly chasing clout by cranking the obnoxiousness up to 11 on Twitter and basking in the hate-clicks. Because for douchey startup types, it’s not just about building a business by whatever means necessary; it’s about building a personal brand. Influencers are out there using social media to get rich, and rich people, or wannabe rich people, are trying to use their money to make the case that they should be influencers.
Sometimes it’s not worth going in on it, like when one Silicon Valley startup founder tweeted a “day in the life” thread that showed her doing basically no work, then turned around and bragged about what a successful business strategy it had been to court “hate-driven virality.”
Sometimes, though, you get this—and no, I’m not linking it.
Quite a thing to brag about, right?
Nothing against Filipino workers, of course, who are looking for the best jobs they can get, just the same as U.S. workers. But the guy hiring them and bragging about it because he knows it will get him attention by making people angry—he’s a raging dickwagon, and I say that even though it will make him happy, because it just has to be said.
We know that this kind of offshoring work to countries where companies can pay rock-bottom wages is common. But Mr. Sweaty Startup over there is making the case that it’s a thing large businesses do that small businesses should start taking more advantage of—he even links the outsourcing company he uses to hire workers, which he loves so much he went and invested in it—and he has other blue checks in his replies enthusiastically agreeing that this is the way to go. (Huber’s blue check is legacy; at least a couple of those agreeing with him are Elon's $8 blue checks.)
This guy tries to set himself apart from startup culture by not seeking to be some kind of tech disruptor. He runs a self-storage company and argues that “Entrepreneurship culture in America is all messed up” because all the would-be entrepreneurs are looking for a big, revolutionary idea rather than making money at safe, boring businesses.
But the thing is, Mr. Sweaty Startup still shows how much Elon and his ilk have to answer for. Because he might be a guy with a self-storage business, but he, too, fancies himself a business guru. It’s not enough to make money, he needs an audience for his profit-making. To show that he, not the would-be-revolutionary entrepreneurs, is really the smartest guy in the room. That culture is so pervasive these days, all these people think that having some money means the world needs their opinions. Despite the level of smug ignorance that would lead someone to, for example, tweet one day that, “If you're over the age of 30 and your situation sucks, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Your life is a direct result of the decisions you made last week, last month and last year,” as if there aren’t a million ways U.S. policy ensures that some people do well while other people’s “situations suck”—and then three days later tweet that he was able to start his first business with help from his father and that he had a rent-free place to live for a year at one point courtesy of his partner’s uncle. He’s not self-made, he admits, but can’t connect the dots between how he got where he is and how some other people might struggle more for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with decisions they made last week or last month.
To be fair, people with money have always believed the world needed their opinions. It’s just the mechanisms that have shifted. Now attention, not real power, is the currency so many of them seek, at least on their way up. But the substance of what they’re doing—exploiting workers for personal profit—doesn’t change all that much.
Douchey startup types are increasingly chasing clout by cranking the obnoxiousness up to 11 on Twitter and basking in the hate-clicks. Because for douchey startup types, it’s not just about building a business by whatever means necessary; it’s about building a personal brand. Influencers are out there using social media to get rich, and rich people, or wannabe rich people, are trying to use their money to make the case that they should be influencers.
Sometimes it’s not worth going in on it, like when one Silicon Valley startup founder tweeted a “day in the life” thread that showed her doing basically no work, then turned around and bragged about what a successful business strategy it had been to court “hate-driven virality.”
Sometimes, though, you get this—and no, I’m not linking it.
Quite a thing to brag about, right?
Nothing against Filipino workers, of course, who are looking for the best jobs they can get, just the same as U.S. workers. But the guy hiring them and bragging about it because he knows it will get him attention by making people angry—he’s a raging dickwagon, and I say that even though it will make him happy, because it just has to be said.
We know that this kind of offshoring work to countries where companies can pay rock-bottom wages is common. But Mr. Sweaty Startup over there is making the case that it’s a thing large businesses do that small businesses should start taking more advantage of—he even links the outsourcing company he uses to hire workers, which he loves so much he went and invested in it—and he has other blue checks in his replies enthusiastically agreeing that this is the way to go. (Huber’s blue check is legacy; at least a couple of those agreeing with him are Elon's $8 blue checks.)
This guy tries to set himself apart from startup culture by not seeking to be some kind of tech disruptor. He runs a self-storage company and argues that “Entrepreneurship culture in America is all messed up” because all the would-be entrepreneurs are looking for a big, revolutionary idea rather than making money at safe, boring businesses.
But the thing is, Mr. Sweaty Startup still shows how much Elon and his ilk have to answer for. Because he might be a guy with a self-storage business, but he, too, fancies himself a business guru. It’s not enough to make money, he needs an audience for his profit-making. To show that he, not the would-be-revolutionary entrepreneurs, is really the smartest guy in the room. That culture is so pervasive these days, all these people think that having some money means the world needs their opinions. Despite the level of smug ignorance that would lead someone to, for example, tweet one day that, “If you're over the age of 30 and your situation sucks, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Your life is a direct result of the decisions you made last week, last month and last year,” as if there aren’t a million ways U.S. policy ensures that some people do well while other people’s “situations suck”—and then three days later tweet that he was able to start his first business with help from his father and that he had a rent-free place to live for a year at one point courtesy of his partner’s uncle. He’s not self-made, he admits, but can’t connect the dots between how he got where he is and how some other people might struggle more for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with decisions they made last week or last month.
To be fair, people with money have always believed the world needed their opinions. It’s just the mechanisms that have shifted. Now attention, not real power, is the currency so many of them seek, at least on their way up. But the substance of what they’re doing—exploiting workers for personal profit—doesn’t change all that much.