The goal of the virus is to spread as fast as it can

June 5, 2017 9:56 AM

As long as you keep your curve exponential, all your sins will be forgotten at the exit. "There is no higher God in Silicon Valley than growth. No sacrifice too big for its craving altar. As long as you keep your curve exponential, all your sins will be forgotten at the exit."

How can we turn more of the Twitters and Facebooks and Googles into generics? What shifts in underlying technology and cost do we need to hit to make it feasible to run something like Twitter on Wikipedia’s budget (and fund it by donations rather than ads)? What if the next Big Idea looked more like email and less like the walled gardens of today?

See also: When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers.

posted by mecran01 (18 comments total)

Cancer has an exponential growth-curve, too, doesn't it?
posted by Thorzdad at 10:02 AM on June 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

You know what else has exponential growth? f(x)=b^x
posted by Rob Rockets at 10:18 AM on June 5, 2017 [12 favorites]

Of course, you can have exponential growth. We all know the markets are endless and will never get tapped out.
posted by Samizdata at 10:26 AM on June 5, 2017 [8 favorites]

Interesting that this was DHH.

I think he's quite correct about the power of the incentives in place, and because of that, I don't imagine he's going to reach a lot of people best positioned to benefit from them.

But Rails has played a pretty big role in the development of so many of the startups, and maybe especially the throw-it-at-the-wall-get-it-viral startups, it's occupied a prime space of mindshare in this arena, I'd imagine some engineering talent is going to think about this, and who knows, maybe a few others.

Also, JWZ's observation is always worth considering.
posted by wildblueyonder at 10:31 AM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is Capitalism reaching its apotheosis? Peak Capitalism? (Fingers crossed.)
posted by nikoniko at 10:44 AM on June 5, 2017

His heart seems to be in the right place. His metaphors are not so much mixed as bestrewing the ground like cannon-shot confetti. But again, heart in the right place.

I wonder how much of the fuel for this piece was his vague feeling of bitterness that his startup isn't cool anymore because they realized they couldn't attain exponential growth and had to trim their sails accordingly. Abruptly ceasing to be cool can really make you sit up and realize that the world is unfair....this happens to most people around 14, but he is a tech god, so one should grade on a curve....

There only real glimmer of an idea here is of tech reverting to the public domain after a set period. He does not seem to have followed through onto the next stage of this realization, that if it did so the venture capital might well dry up, but hey, now that he's got through Maybe We're the Baddies 101 he can always take 102 next semester...
posted by Diablevert at 10:52 AM on June 5, 2017 [9 favorites]

DHH is awful but I respect his point of view here. This essay is back from February, but he also just wrote Trickle-down workaholism in startups which is worth a read. It's part of a sprawling discussion going on right now across various social media about VCs wanting entrepreneurs to work 70+ hours of work. There's a good overview of the discussion on Wired.

Keith Rabois on Twitter has been sort of the center of the discussion, which is a shame because he's not very thoughtful. But there's been some good other stuff written about it like Bryce Roberts for indie.vc on "Real Businesses". Bryce heads up a VC fund trying an alternate path for investment, tech companies that are sustainable and profitable without being hyper-growth.
posted by Nelson at 11:28 AM on June 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is Capitalism reaching its apotheosis? Peak Capitalism? (Fingers crossed.)

10000 generations down the line, as the toxic wind churns the ashes on the surface, the simulated descendants of our reconstructed thought patterns writhing in endless torment to serve the inscrutable marketplace needs of their post-conscious algorithmic masters will turn to one another and wonder how much longer this can possibly go on.
posted by brennen at 11:39 AM on June 5, 2017 [15 favorites]

The bit about how much he loved Uber at first because it minimized interaction with the driver reminds me of the part in Edwardian Farm where Ruth took up domestic work to make some extra money and talked about how the servants were expected to be invisible. If anybody who was somebody was coming, you were supposed to hide.

Welcome to another Gilded Age. I wonder how this ends...
posted by clawsoon at 11:42 AM on June 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

I wonder how much of the fuel for this piece was his vague feeling of bitterness that his startup isn't cool anymore because they realized they couldn't attain exponential growth and had to trim their sails accordingly.

If so, he was disappointed very early and has been singing the same song for at least 8 or 9 years, because when we adopted Basecamp for my old company, all his old writings sounded exactly the same as this one.
posted by xingcat at 11:48 AM on June 5, 2017

Wait, why do we hate DHH?
posted by Dmenet at 12:58 PM on June 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

I hate DHH because I've had to use Rails before.

But he's also kind of a jerk, apparently, in addition to being the guy who stuck us all with Rails.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:22 PM on June 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

Rails made getting into web dev easy and fun for me, so I'm going to be grateful to DHH forever. Basecamp is, as far as I can tell, a company that ought to be emulated, rather than mocked - they actually bootstrapped, rather than taking funding, they have a stable, smart business model, they give back to the technology community, they prioritize diversity in their hiring process. And DHH and Fried have made a point of using their positions as "thought leaders", as stupid as the concept is, to call out some of the dumber and more regressive practices in the industry. I really don't get the hate.
posted by protocoach at 1:35 PM on June 5, 2017 [6 favorites]

Relevant cartoon
posted by lalochezia at 1:36 PM on June 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

And DHH and Fried have made a point of using their positions as "thought leaders" ... to call out some of the dumber and more regressive practices in the industry
posted by invitapriore at 1:59 PM on June 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

@invitapriore: That was an asshole thing for him to do and say. He seems like he has changed from that person, but you're correct, that's messed up.
posted by protocoach at 2:14 PM on June 5, 2017

10000 generations down the line, as the toxic wind churns the ashes on the surface, the simulated descendants of our reconstructed thought patterns writhing in endless torment to serve the inscrutable marketplace needs of their post-conscious algorithmic masters will turn to one another and wonder how much longer this can possibly go on.

The Aristocrats!
posted by Sebmojo at 2:29 PM on June 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

Wow, that picture of the advertising drones in Mexico City is pure SF dystopia.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:29 PM on June 26, 2017