What the fuck happened to nerds(mrmarket.bearblog.dev) |
What the fuck happened to nerds(mrmarket.bearblog.dev) |
I also think OP fails to understand how much more competitive tech culture is now.
Visit and talk with undergrads at a top CS program like Stanford, Cal, UIUC, MIT, etc. The culture is different because this is a much more competitive generation. When the acceptance rate into a top CS program is in the 1-5% range and laurels like being a Valedictorian, NHS member, JV or Varsity team member in HS, and taking 6-7 APs are viewed as table stakes, you get a degree of viciousness, competitiveness, and steel-eyed execution that older Americans just aren't used to.
Honestly, I like it. It reminds me of the culture and mindset I'd find amongst my Chinese peers in the 2000s and 2010s when they built China.
I dont like it. It might have built china but this isnt what built modern america. I dont think this focus on personal achievement, rather than slowing down and doing societal good is conducive to creating new technologies. Its hard to monetize new technologies, so if your in it to make the number go up, then youll just copy and optimize what already exists. You need to want to help people to make new things
The only way to win is by hook or by crook - that is what you learn in hypercompetitive environments.
Edit: Can't reply
> Yours is the kind of attitude that has ruined the industry
If you can't compete you will be made redundant.
Honestly, in some aspects that is what I appreciate about the Chinese mindset - much more competitive.
Yes some still exist, but I think the tend to be working in non-tech jobs or maybe in Corp IT and working on their own items in between.
Self-defeating attitude that you will regret later in life. Best of luck.
Don't be surprised if the sociopathy and destruction you love so much comes back to haunt you, though. I'm sure you'd think that was great anyway.
Then go live among them? Maybe you’ll be one of the millions killed the next time they do their thing lmao.
Advertisers vs Ad Blockers - as long as the Ad Blockers are blocking the vast majority of junk, I feel like team principles is winning. Like they have more nerd power to outsmart the lesser nerds working on team mercenary.
But there are places like Facebook where that is not the case. And even in Youtube, team mercenaries has recently won some territory from team principles.
I was even annoyed at the ads in a paper newspaper I was leafing through, I'm not just used to them and I think some of them were a bit dishonest and scummy.
When it was just about the "love of technology" and the building of the skills involved, things were different...
This reminds me of the way people think of the olden days when stuff was made of real wood and metal as "we had integrity! people built things to last!", projecting intentionality and generosity onto to the same machinery that built agent orange or rube goldberg machines for cigarette smoke to avoid liability for killing millions of people. We didn't build things out of metal because we had integrity, we did it because we didn't yet have advanced petroleum-derived plastics and shit. If they did, they'd have done that instead.
Reminds me of the difference between "peaceful" (capable of harm, electing not to be harmful) and "harmless" (incapable of harm even if you wanted to). I think it's a mistake to imagine the nerds of the past as peaceful. In terms of status, power acquisition, etc, they were harmless. Had you handed them the tools and understanding of today, they'd have acted no different, IMO.
the tl;dr though of my article is that, DESPITE these absurdly attractive short-term incentives, it is in each individual company's best interest as well as the best interest of the tech industry as a whole to return to the public narrative of nerd values: passion for niche interests, obsessive, loving relationship w/ one's intellectual work, and humility re: talking about yourself/being 'in the spotlight'. the Founders' Fund MAFIA video in particular was a bad move because it ran counter to the idea, however delusional, that founders would prefer to spend time on their work than being influencers.
Right up there with finding out Grimes was with Elon.
Maybe we should open our minds a bit, and also remember that a parasocial relationship (speaking for myself) isn't really knowing someone.
I also think its another variation of that trope that the people that seek power are the very ones you don't want to have it. And those that don't care about it are the ones we need to seek it. Take Woz for example.
I no longer really give a rat's ass whether people like me anymore, because a lifetime of being bullied over nothing more than my choice of hobby/career has taught me that I'm just gonna be widely hated for simply enjoying learning new stuff, no matter what else I do or how nice I am to people. (To the contrary, I'm hated and abused more the nicer I try to be.) Literally two people in my life have encouraged that joy of learning; My mother and my fifth grade teacher. Everyone else has tried to shut that down at every available opportunity (with the exception of the rare few others I occasionally find that also love learning). Fine. Hate me. Like I really care anymore. Not worth the effort to engage on that level anymore for literally no gain whatsoever. Hah-ha. I'ma nerd. Whatever. Get over it.
Arguably because of the media
Attention Economy/Social Media platforms exploited that piece of human nature. Its not just nerds trying to capture Attention but everyone. I have a cop buddy complaining about how top people in the police dept are competiting with each other for likes and views. Everyone gets trapped cuz pool of Attention to fish in is finite.
How do we get out of this situation? Platforms including HN have to be forced to show people that 1 View they get is actually a fraction because that viewer is going and reading 20 other things. By not showing it reality warps.
I've never had a happy nerd boss because they seem to be content to be my coworker instead.
The asset liquidation analogy is perfect. For about the past ten year, I think the Cambridge Analytica hearings are a good turning point, tech has realized that their warm and fuzzy persona is no longer valuable cultivating and so there’s been a very rapid burn down of that persona into the hyper capitalist power hungry one we have today. It has always been the case that money and power were motivating factors but until that was laid fully bare there was value in pretending like it wasn’t the only factor.
The reality isn't even that they went away, necessarily. Or that it was all a lie. There were always exceptions and it always took some level of good faith between our different institutions to keep them working well. At some point, that good faith interaction got hijacked and it has quickly spread as a rot to all things.
It’s all the same. What happened is that principals became a liability and lying became a virtue.
Similarly, lying has never been a virtue. But, joining people to your lie has always been a powerful way of gaining support.
I honestly don't know when or how things changed. My gut is, oddly, that the stakes all just changed. Used to be, you could literally retire to a homestead and you were living on your own. That just does not exist at all in the same way, anymore.
The reason you can’t see us anymore is because you don’t know how to look. Money and the major social platforms will never direct your eyes towards us. You must look at the independent spaces that are hiding in plain sight.
It isn't really about "nerds", more about a certain type of founder.
A true title (also dispensing the unnecessary swear) would have been: "What happened to the honest founder?". I wouldn't have clicked that, probably wouldn't even have noticed. That's OK, I'm not the target audience.
I clicked the original title though and even read it but honestly felt a bit lured in on false premises. Classic clickbait, little reputation lost, 5 minutes attention won.
If there was this shift, it was always superficial. To a certain degree, nerds were always 'terrifying overlords'. It’s just that once they accumulated enough power, there was no longer any point in maintaining that façade
The tech industry is essentially performing at baseline.
It took me utterly by surprise when, after finishing my PhD, I decided it would be less damaging to my soul to go into finance. Even more surprising, I think I was right.
What happened is that tech companies got so large that they are now essentially defense contractors. You can't both be a countercultural rebel, the kind who would evoke 1984 in a TV ad, and be a CEO and/or significant owner in a trillion dollar company.
At some point, the company's interests align with domestic and foreign policy and the company becomes a tool of the state, which is interesting because that's the accusation levelled at Chinese companies but it's exactly what Google, Meta, Microsoft, SpaceX, Tesla, Amazon, etc have become. They're deeply entwined with government contracts and defense that alignment is impossible to avoid.
You saw this as Tim Apple [sic], Sundai Pichai, Sergey Brin, Elon Musk and Sam Altman all bent the knee at the last inauguration. All of them paid 7 figures to be there.
Idealism, disruption, etc are fundamentally incompatible with being a multi-billionaire.
The tech giants have been spared regulation and oversight, in a way that has allowed them to cement their position at the top. Not only does this enable the sort of egregious abuses we've had to become used to, it also stifles innovation and competition - to the detriment of everyone, including their own shareholders.
The USA risks trapping itself in a spiral of oligarchy, reminiscent of Russia in the late 1990s.
Politics is about the negotiation of control.
Sounds like a very bold assertion to me.
Had it? The last time I felt like it did was mid-00s with Google, but I was a teenager back then and it's easy to be naive when you're a teenager.
Edit: Can't reply
> “Making money off of shareware” is no longer enough
Based on this I am guessing you are at least 10-15 years older than me and probably grew up in the 1980s and experienced the 1990s internet
> how do we make this company into an investment multiplier
> It’s a different mentality. It about unicorns or bust now
This is how startup funding has been since the beginning. You sure as hell weren't raising from Bessemer or Sequoia in the 2000s without also being able to answer whether you had a path to successful monetization.
Why would anyone give you their money if you cannot justify how you would make them more money?
You are lucky you got to experience so many people championing you, most people have way less or none. Please try to stop going to court in your head over how the world has offended you. As a grey beard, I lived there and ruined my life over it. Shockingly "I XYZ because 123" is not actually a productive/great life ethos or way to live life.
Hope that wasn't too harsh. I'm sorry you are hurting. I can hear the hurt in your comment. I can relate so hard to it. I am sorry you are hurting. Wish I could offer a hug.
https://www.illinoislawyers.com/blog/so-many-crimes-in-reven...
Also Google buying double click was an inflection point. Ads were kind of annoying up till then but they had not become the gross monstrosity that now exploits users and corrupts business.
“Making money off of shareware” is no longer enough (never mind that it’s a non-starter now that everything is needs to be saas these days.)
It’s a different mentality. It about unicorns or bust now.
The Netscape IPO happened 31 years ago. Over half of all Americans alive today were either in elementary school or not around yet.
It's the equivalent of someone in the 2000s trying to enforce standards and norms from the 1950s-60s.
The reality is, the tech industry has essentially always been like this, and any period in the 1980s or early 90s that y'all look back to just isn't actionable in 2026 and fails to understand how different Americans are today versus when you started in the tech industry.