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Oh god. The hangover of long past cringes... I used to work for Venture Capitalists, reviewing business plans, and evaluating pitches. I was the Tech Guy the VC brought into the meeting to spear the tech mumbo jumbo of entrepreneurs. The entire VC/startup culture is IDENTICAL to the image we all know of Hollywood. The entrepreneurs are the young pretty girls fresh off the Greyhound at the downtown LA bus station. They are swarmed my smarmy weasels who pick off the weak ones that will never make it big, and divert them into porn. A few of the newbies gather, 10 of them living together in a one room apartment (coworking space), and pooling resources (internet connection fees), and over-selling each others' amazing and ground-breaking ideas/skillz. One of them gets into Harvey Weinstein's office. Takes off her clothes. Gets a bit part. Gets a rich husband. And drops out. (IPO) One in 100,000 of them makes a living at it... by enabling the machine they continue to profit from. New Title: Renowned professional in EdTech points out why a new edtech startup will fail. Startup fails. Professional is pilloried for being fucking right.
Okay, I have a few things to say and I didn't want to make 3 replies. A) The original tweet itself was not offensive or excessively demeaning in any way. B) This is an "emperor-has-no-clothes" type scenario where a person in "power" tells the truth and people go nuts because business is about stroking, both inside and outside. C) Silicon Valley tech culture and business culture is based on paranoia in general hence the arguing for PR agents. Young professionals who have no idea how the game is actually played are trying to impress people more than anything hence the dogmatic behavioural standards. Elon Musk is fucking insane and surprise he's expanding clout. The president is on Twitter. D) When the younger investors grow up they'll realize that the centre does not hold and the trick to adulthood is ngaf. E) My YouTube channel from when I was 12 is still active and it's funny as shit. You'll still be cringing about your posts from when you were a 29-year old, trust me on that one. F) Gen-X is not semi-old. They're PRIVATIZING EDUCATION.Founders, teachers, employees, students, they’re all real people with real lives, feelings and stories. They’re much more than 280 characters.
SF VC is all sorts ridiculous. However, I think the author is missing something. The dude was chastened because he was bragging about not investing in a company that failed. It’s something insanely easy to do, and basically worthless. If he just left out the part about them passing multiple times, the criticism would be fine. VC pass on dozens of companies for each one they invest in, if not more. Saying you’re smart because you passed is inane.
No. You know what? No. Calling bullshit on this. The dude was "chastened" for arguing against an entire approach to technology: He wasn't "bragging about not investing in a company that failed" he was celebrating the death of a bad idea that had been backed by big fucking money. goobster's comparison to Hollywood is apt - there are all sorts of abominably bad projects drifting around where the first thing you do is look and see what rich, powerful asshole is backing it - I mean obviously a movie in which a father and son speak babytalk to each other for two hours while communicating psionically to avoid a space bear is never gonna get made except when it is. And of course big backers can't steal all the good ideas from one idea to prop up another except when they do. You know why Hollywood makes nothing but fucking superhero movies now? Because in order to get anything done you need some asshole with $150m and the only thing he's going to make is sure things so now we've got Disney which bought Marvel which will stack 27 fucking movies together to drag your ass to Avengers Endgame. Meanwhile, every decent idea anyone has ever had eats shit. So here's Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Fucking Thiel and they've decided they're going to AynRand fucking primary school and somebody - the guy who was at the fucking Gates foundation for ten years - calls bullshit on it and you are BENDING OVER BACKWARDS to figure out a way for the blowback to be his fault. I'ma drag thenewgreen into this because I love how offended he gets whenever I mention Theranos but you know what? Theranos happened because Elizabeth Smart grew up next door to, and played with the daughter of, Tim Draper. So she bats her eyes at Tim Draper, says that her magical bullshit patent doesn't violate the space-time continuum, and inside ten years, $700m are up in smoke. Because nobody is gonna call bullshit on Tim Draper or else they'll be punished for it and now, the entire medical technology space smells like poison. No. The dude's future was existentially threatened for calling a spade a spade. In a space where WeWork has gone from a $57b valuation to a $10b valuation in six months only because the financial press has started going what the fuck softbank. Sure - saying you're smart because you passed is inane. But saying certain business models deserve to fail is the sort of thing investors should be allowed to hear.$174M lessons here. We passed on Altschool multiple times, mainly because disrupting school was a terrible strategy, but also b/c founders didn’t understand #edtech is all about partnering w/existing districts, schools and educators (not just “product”)
You're right, of course. She was able to do it because of who she knew. But also, she was very talented at pitching and lying.I love how offended he gets whenever I mention Theranos
I just hate her. HATE. She poisoned the well for all legitimate businesses in the biotech space. These are people that aren't liars but are trying to build solid companies, solving big problems. Her company came up in conversation a number of times while I was raising our seed round.
Yes but Elizabeth wore the Steve Jobs black turtleneck and jeans while she lied, so she must've been... r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶?̶ b̶r̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶n̶t̶ so confident that the VC community was a bunch of suckers that she'd be able to lie for the next 50 years of her life without solving anything? Thank goodness she was wrong on the timescale by more than an order of magnitude, but just a cursory grasp of how big Quest Diagnostics is and all of the market incentives they have to develop the product themselves made me immediately skeptical of Theranos. I know you guys are doing something totally different, and I'm genuinely sorry, because the odds are that some conjob cost you at least one legitjob. P.S. someday the chumps in my field at U-Mich will host a conference, and I'll bother you.
Right. Because they're bad people. Privatizing education isn't a fucking charity. Rand gargling fucks...“Tech entrepreneurs are just as mission driven as people in nonprofits,” Mr. Palmer said. “They believe they are helping the world just as much as nonprofit founders.”
If this guy: doesn't "get it" then "it" shouldn't be gotten. If your business is investing in educational technology and you aren't allowed to point out educational technology that shouldn't be invested in, this whole artifice needs to come down, man. These guys should be allowed to comment. If you're following them on Twitter, it's because you want to know what they think about stuff. A Zuckerberg and Thiel-funded libertarian spankbank that eats shit to the tune of $250m? We need the world to talk about that shit.Prior to his current role, Jason served as Deputy Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading postsecondary innovation efforts to improve the outcomes of disadvantaged college students by investing in colleges, universities and entrepreneurs pursuing digital and adaptive learning, student coaching and advising, financial aid innovation, and employer pathways. Prior to the Foundation, Jason founded and grew three investor-backed technology and services companies before holding a series of executive positions at Microsoft, SchoolNet, Kaplan and StraighterLine. At Kaplan, Jason led three education businesses as general manager or president, in addition to founding and leading the company’s venture capital effort.
Wait you're literally saying that professional investors shouldn't be allowed to opine about professional investing on Twitter? But it's totally okay for the rest of FinTwit to pillory this guy and declare that he's blackballed forever? Jason Palmer is under 50. What's the cutoff for using Twitter? What, to you, is "semi-old?"
...I mean I get that your beef is with Twitter. And I get that you're trying to make a point here that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, and I want to notice in passing that you're arguing that people should realize that Twitter is public (the Cheeto Benito has made that thunderously obvious). What you're steadfastly refusing to acknowledge is that your argument 100% GLOSSES OVER OTHER PROFESSIONAL INVESTORS eating this guy's lunch. On Twitter. This is a case of "say whatever the fuck you want" SO LONG AS IT'S PRO-STARTUP or ANTI-STARTUP CRITICISM. And three comments deep here, you are still arguing that "say nothing at all" is somehow a reasonable position to take in response to an article in which business criticism is systematically crushed by business interests.
NO. The whole problem is that people inside that tech bubble went to war over comments that were negative. And they went to war in an extremely negative way. The whole problem is that you can say whatever you want about stuff you're selling to investors so long as you don't say anything that might ever make an investor question the idea of investing. THAT is the issue.t's clear some people outside that particular tech bubble thought their comments were uncalled for