Silicon Valley is the envy of the world. Every single state on earth looks towards it, and wish they had something similar. This of course misses the point, which is that it's a local evolutionary optimum, destined to collapse, due to the very same ideas that facilitated for its existence in the first place.
Local Evolutionary Optimums
A local evolutionary optimum occurs when something gains a drastic evolutionary advantage over its competitors. It's typically used to explain why species goes extinct, but it can also be used to describe anything that follows evolutionary laws.
Human ideas are evolutionary in essence. Silicon Valley is an idea. It therefor follows that Silicon Valley obeys by evolutionary law. The problem with local evolutionary optimums is that they create a situation, where previously gained advantages becomes the reason why future collapse is inevitable. If I've been taught that waving my hand results in me getting food, I will continue waving my hand, long after it is no longer beneficial for me to do so.
Silicon Valley's success becomes the reason it can't sustain itself in the future
Smart Money doesn't exist
I used to have an investor and a partner. He thought he could tell me what to do, because he was "above me in the food chain." For a couple of years I'd go out of my way to try to explain to him how to build a company, to no avail of course, because he thought he was smarter than me.
He had an empire with 15,000 employees, doing quite well for himself, with billions of dollars in revenue, and others admiring him for his skills. This made him believe he knew everything required to create a software company, so he'd spend a lot of time telling me "how things really are." The fact that he had made his money literally on cake and bread was irrelevant. He still thought he knew how to create a software company, and I'd spend 2 hours every single day on the phone with him, defending my decisions, to reduce his paranoia.
You can't pour tea into a full cup
When we finally parted, there were lawyers involved, and the guy hadn't slept for a couple of weeks. Basically, after 2 years of me trying to please him, I "snapped" - And in order to have him leave me alone, I had to use words and logic typically only used by two entities engaging in open warfare against each other.
Silicon Valley is full of idiots
When you're given VC funding, you typically end up with lots of people having absolutely no idea how to build what you're tryng to build, telling you what to do, in order to create what you're trying to build. To further the insult, unless you do what these idiots tells you to do, they'll stop the money flow, and your startup will go bankrupt.
This creates a situation typically referred to as "wagging the dog", where the least capable person ends up with the most amount of control. Anyone with any amount of decency will of course never tolerate such a situation for any extended period of time, and will hence for obvious reasons "snap", and tell these idiots to go fรธkk themselves at some point.
Only the least capable entrepreneurs will tolerate such behavior over time, resulting in that all the smartest entrepreneurs ends up in a situation where they do something else, and refuses to accept VC money. While all the idiot entrepreneurs, barely capable of building anything at all, being the only ones capable of tolerating such behavors, ends up taking the money - Inevitably resulting in yet another collapsed startup.
The reason why startups fails is because only the idiot entrepreneur will allow the bigger idiot (the VC fund) to tell him how to create a business, resulting in that two idiots tries to build what neither of them have the skillset to build, throwing good money after bad.
The bigger idiot is leading the lesser idiot
There is one other type of entrepreneur that exists besides the idiot, which is an even larger problem than the idiot. The idiot at least tries. The other type of entrepreneur doesn't even try, because he doesn't give a shit. These entrepreneurs are like parasites, and besides the idiot, these are the only types of entrepreneurs left standing in Silicon Valley today. The other type is of course the thief.
The Idiot and the Thief
There are a handful of legitimate startups in Silicon Valley today. Ignoring these, there's a 100% statistical probability of that you're one of the following if you've got a Silicon Valley startup today.
- Idiot
- Thief
This is because only idiots and thieves allows other idiots and thieves to tell them what to do. People who actually want to build something have long since given up on the whole idea of "VC funding", which is the essence of what Silicon Valley provides.
Silicon Valley is a bubble
Why 80% of startups fails
I've created a lot of startups, and contrary to what many believe, I have not failed once. In fact, I've had 100% success ratio. It's not hard to succeed either, it's just to apply shit loads of work, and deliver something that people want, and that they're willing to pay for. After that, it's just a budgeting balancing act, making sure you spend less than you earn.
My current company is profitable enough for me to sustain a living, and increasing its revenue by 20 to 30 percent on a monthly basis, while increasing its costs by some 2 to 5 percent per month. I assume you can do the math yourself to figure out my future earnings.
Before you ask, if you're a VC dude wanting to invest in me, then go fรธkk yourself!
Startups don't fail, it's not even possible to fail. The idiot fails though, because he's an idiot, and he's spending more money than he earns. Thieves uses this to their advantage, to steal everything they can steal, for then to blame it on the market. This creates a perfect situation where the thief can slip between the cracks, taking advantage of the idiot's existence, to create a situation where he can steal without ever being noticed for what he is.
The idea of that building a company has an 80% failure ratio is quite frankly preposterous. If you have any idea of what you're doing, it's not even possible to fail - Unless you're an idiot or a thief of course. This results in a situation where 90% of those who knows anything about anything have no idea what 80% of all Silicon Valley startups are doing, and zero belief in what they're doing, because we all see them for what they are; Idiots and thieves ...
When Theranos failed every single scientist having any idea what so ever about their product knew they were a scam. It was only the idiots, chemically cleansed for any knowledge about the domain what so ever, who believed in their rubbish ideas. But nobody listened to those who knew, because, and I paraphrase here; "So many rich and influential people with amazing skillsets would claim it was a legitimate thing."
Which basically sums up Silicon Valley today. All the idiots who believe they actually know anything, are throwing good money after bad, believing in a technology miracle, that will unfortunately never come - And when they understand what they've done, it's already too late, and a bunch of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs will inevitably have to go to jail, being seen for what they actually are - Which is one of the following ...
- Idiot
- Thief
And all of this because the least capable man in the room, has the most amount of money, and therefor believes he's got the most valuable experience, and is therefor entitled to tell everybody else what they should do ...
Legalised Robbery
Gambling is basically legalised robbery, where the house is playing on the emotions of their victims, to steal everything, resulting in ruin for their victims. There's a saying in poker that goes as follows; "Unless you know who the idiot on the table is, you're him." Let me ask you a simple question ...
Do you know who the idiot in your startup is?
If you do you're the thief, if you don't you're the idiot. Regardless of who you are, you'll either go bankrupt or go to jail or both ...
Conclusion
Silicon Valley is a bubble, destined to collapse. Everybody who's got any idea what so ever about software and technology knows this for a fact. We (experienced software developers) look at companies for 5 minutes, understand their lack of value, and can easily project their place into the future. However, none of the idiots are listening to us, because "they're smarter than us" - After all, they have to be, right? How would they otherwise end up with their huge VC funds, and their Teslas, and their Italian vacation resorts ...?
Local Evolutionary Optimums - Google it!
Top comments (6)
Startups fail. The idiots and thieves you mentioned donโt. They mostly succeed (personally), become serial entrepreneurs, and attract (or make) new investments for new startups. I donโt see how this factory can ever stop working until the pipeline works.
Good point, but you're also missing my point, which is that Google or Meta could never have happened in the valley today. But yes, 1,000+ startups will fail, and thieves will steal billions of more dollars, before everybody just give up on the "gold rush" that Silicon Valley used to be ...
The new Google or Meta couldn't happen today because the current Google or Meta monopolists ensure that potential rivals are never allowed to become actual rivals by being bought up for a tidy sum, and so providing a windfall for those startups' investors (and maybe create a new billionaire or two).
Since this is the competitive reality, isn't this what startups (whether driven by the idiots, thieves, or both) now aspire towards ? To be bought up, rather than become sustainable, competitive business entities ?
Never thought a former Hollywood Cowboy could sow the seeds to wreak such havoc, yet here we are.
It's called "exit". It's been the primary business plan for startups now for almost 20 years, implying that they're not actually trying to be profitable, but rather disrupt to such an extent that Google or Facebook have to buy them.
Which is why a startup is evaluated by how many employees they have, and not what value they're creating.
This of course can only go so far, until the big companies realize the best way to avoid competition is to simply let these unsustainable companies die, at which point all their (best) devs will anyway apply for jobs in the big companies.
Ignoring the fact that Google and Facebook are filthy companies deserving only the worst, it's actually a business model based upon "extortion" ...
But hey, let the thieves rob the thieves ... ๐
Sadly, I agree with your observation.
It matches my experiences in the Silicon Valley of the shadow of startup death...