One thing NYC elites did very well, and the mafiosis and gangsters before them, and the robber barons before that is to make your local community tangibly richer (either directly or with art/parks/architecture/schools/hospitals/unis etc.). Diffuse "good" is often much less visible than concentrated "good". Also its nice to be liked where you live, instead of everyone in Menlo Park hating you...
Great read. Many points I agree with. Just to add another part of the problem is the incentive structure created by the current AI cycle. VC firms are competing for AI logos to justify their investments to LPs, while enormous rounds are pushing early-stage valuations to levels we’ve rarely seen before.
That creates a feedback loop. Bill Gurley I think has mentioned this.
The inflated valuations incentivize founders to optimize for fundraising, valuation, and perceived status rather than building a durable business. It also pulls founders into the AI wave who otherwise might not have pursued it, because the potential for enormous paper wealth is so compelling...
But as most of us know that paper wealth only matters if it eventually translates into a real business creating real value.
The ecosystem itself is rewarding founders for playing the cycle rather than building something that can survive after the cycle ends. But we'll see what happens.
This is going to be a messy comment bc many thoughts but....
It IS the only punk rock thing left in tech that in general people working within it do not care what others think of them. But, whatever story we tell ourselves - and certainly when I joined my first startup in the 00s it was the outsider energy I responded to, then the myth of making money AND doing good while wearing my Google tee in the early 10s - it's just no longer sufficient to be so unaware.
A benefit of living in London is having many friends who don't work in tech, startups or venture. The maths teachers and TV directors I have dinner with feel extremely mixed, if not outright hostile, to what they see as one industry. It doesn't matter if you're Facebook reselling kids attention or building walkable robotics wheelchairs to help in rehab, it gets flattened out into one field - and the loudest voices of tech make us look very bad. The sentiment on AI's impact on labour (which I'd argue is a consequence of many things beyond just AI) climate & data centres is deafeningly negative; I wish more of us actually engaged with this sentiment because it seems to be getting worse.
What we build has meaning, impacts countries we will never visit, and will be governed by those we may not agree with. Unfashionable as it sounds written down, with meaning should come responsibility. Tech has a set of clear behaviours and norms, tech results in outsize wealth for a few, but it's hard to know if it is really an "industry" anymore in that it spills across so many fields. In the UK the government has struggled to work out where it sits in the org chart...
For centuries, from the Medicis building soft power through patronage to railroad tycoons creating public goods to further their empires to the first-gen leftie tech funders like Omidyar and Gates doing the same there have been many reasons - not all entirely pure - to engage in philanthropy.
I hope AI cash funds culture and art, sure, but considers more pragmatic unsexy causes like poverty alleviation alongside the fashionable topics that will build in-crowd status for what gets funded (in EA it was space governance at one point..) But, beyond giving money away, I think a core thing to be considered is a) actual engagement with politics and locations outside of SF, NY, Ldn b) less fetish for agency, more slivers of time to reflect and listen. A lesson of the Medicis is that power does not lead to legitimacy per se - that has to be earned and re-earned over time.
the distinction between power, status, and legitimacy is the real contribution here. tech has spent 20 years assuming that enough power eventually becomes legitimacy. history suggests they're very different
i live in brooklyn in nyc and have a decent amount of friends not in tech so quite a lot. I'd say my main gap is I spend probably 90% of my time in major cities like nyc, sf, boston, la, london.
been thinking about our philanthropy discussion a lot
One thing NYC elites did very well, and the mafiosis and gangsters before them, and the robber barons before that is to make your local community tangibly richer (either directly or with art/parks/architecture/schools/hospitals/unis etc.). Diffuse "good" is often much less visible than concentrated "good". Also its nice to be liked where you live, instead of everyone in Menlo Park hating you...
Great read. Many points I agree with. Just to add another part of the problem is the incentive structure created by the current AI cycle. VC firms are competing for AI logos to justify their investments to LPs, while enormous rounds are pushing early-stage valuations to levels we’ve rarely seen before.
That creates a feedback loop. Bill Gurley I think has mentioned this.
The inflated valuations incentivize founders to optimize for fundraising, valuation, and perceived status rather than building a durable business. It also pulls founders into the AI wave who otherwise might not have pursued it, because the potential for enormous paper wealth is so compelling...
But as most of us know that paper wealth only matters if it eventually translates into a real business creating real value.
The ecosystem itself is rewarding founders for playing the cycle rather than building something that can survive after the cycle ends. But we'll see what happens.
This is going to be a messy comment bc many thoughts but....
It IS the only punk rock thing left in tech that in general people working within it do not care what others think of them. But, whatever story we tell ourselves - and certainly when I joined my first startup in the 00s it was the outsider energy I responded to, then the myth of making money AND doing good while wearing my Google tee in the early 10s - it's just no longer sufficient to be so unaware.
A benefit of living in London is having many friends who don't work in tech, startups or venture. The maths teachers and TV directors I have dinner with feel extremely mixed, if not outright hostile, to what they see as one industry. It doesn't matter if you're Facebook reselling kids attention or building walkable robotics wheelchairs to help in rehab, it gets flattened out into one field - and the loudest voices of tech make us look very bad. The sentiment on AI's impact on labour (which I'd argue is a consequence of many things beyond just AI) climate & data centres is deafeningly negative; I wish more of us actually engaged with this sentiment because it seems to be getting worse.
What we build has meaning, impacts countries we will never visit, and will be governed by those we may not agree with. Unfashionable as it sounds written down, with meaning should come responsibility. Tech has a set of clear behaviours and norms, tech results in outsize wealth for a few, but it's hard to know if it is really an "industry" anymore in that it spills across so many fields. In the UK the government has struggled to work out where it sits in the org chart...
For centuries, from the Medicis building soft power through patronage to railroad tycoons creating public goods to further their empires to the first-gen leftie tech funders like Omidyar and Gates doing the same there have been many reasons - not all entirely pure - to engage in philanthropy.
I hope AI cash funds culture and art, sure, but considers more pragmatic unsexy causes like poverty alleviation alongside the fashionable topics that will build in-crowd status for what gets funded (in EA it was space governance at one point..) But, beyond giving money away, I think a core thing to be considered is a) actual engagement with politics and locations outside of SF, NY, Ldn b) less fetish for agency, more slivers of time to reflect and listen. A lesson of the Medicis is that power does not lead to legitimacy per se - that has to be earned and re-earned over time.
I like how Brad Feld does it https://feld.com/archives/2008/01/i-got-my-bathroom/
the distinction between power, status, and legitimacy is the real contribution here. tech has spent 20 years assuming that enough power eventually becomes legitimacy. history suggests they're very different
How often do you step outside the Silicon Valley/founder bubble? Visit other places? Talk to real people?
i live in brooklyn in nyc and have a decent amount of friends not in tech so quite a lot. I'd say my main gap is I spend probably 90% of my time in major cities like nyc, sf, boston, la, london.
Wow! 😍