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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
Describes the start-up culture as brutal, led by immature egomaniacs, with employees who are childish with clown-like behavior.
I wanted to dislike this book. I didn't love Lyons' Fake Steve Jobs shit, I don't particularly like tales, fictional or not, of "oddball miscreant doesn't fit in but is secretly smarter than everyone in the In Group", but I realized that something I dislike more than all of those is Start-Up Culture. That, combined with the recommendation of a good friend who has worked for nothing but Silicon Valley startups since we met in the late 90's, was enough to get me to read this thing.
I've also worked for some startups, but only of the Web 1.0 variety and certainly not in California. I had fun, made life-long friends and learned a lot. I did NOT become a millionaire or even a thousandaire, really. And I learned that startups are mostly bullshit and hot air, and what wealth any of them generate is mostly extracted at an extreme discount from young, smart but naive kids who don't know any better.
Disrupted does one thing pretty goddamned well: show what fucking insane, intense bullshit almost all startups are. They're snake-oil factories, run, often, by borderline sociopaths who will extract value from the labor of their employees and use that to pump up valuations with a goal of getting a new business over the hump of being a startup and turning it into a long-term profitable business. HAHAHAHAHAHAH JUST FUCKING KIDDING! The goal is to baffle venture/vulture capitalists into ponying up a large number of millions in VC funding and then keep the smokescreen up using that money until an IPO occurs, at which point anywhere from one to even five folks get really rich and everybody else gets fucked when the business inevitably collapses under the weight of real-world expectations of profitability that their horseshit business idea never had a snowball's chance in hell of meeting.
This is the story of those 99 out of 100 startups that, somehow, the completely-compromised tech "press" manages to rarely if ever cover. The ones that fail, completely and with a lot of wreckage left behind. The simple truth is: very, very few people get rich at this shit, and it's mostly a whole lot of people who ponied up a whole lot of sweat equity getting a whole lot of fucked.
Disrupted, in particular, tells that story of one specific real-world firm the middle-aged and suddenly-careerless author finds himself working for as a not-really-even-wanted media/marketing/PR flack dude. He's surrounded by millennials for whom this is a first gig so they love all the fluffy, non-work-related bullshit (parties! free beer! nerf swordfights!) that they're getting in lieu of, say, a living wage or health care. They're also stunningly, spectacularly bad at their jobs, according to the old-media author who's been dumped into their midst, and whose many decades of hard-earned, real-world work experience is about as welcome and wanted as a fart at a funeral. Lyons quickly also realizes that his immediate bosses weren't told about him being hired, and that the big boss who did hire him probably did so solely for the small bit of real-world media cachet Lyons' name carried as a former writer for Newsweek crossed with the bit of Internet fame he had as the Fake Steve Jobs guy.
Hijinks ensue as Dan bravely tries to do real work and come up with real projects that might actually turn into something useful for a company he's never quite sure has an actual product worth investing in or buying. Eventually, things sour, Dan leaves, and a weird coda occurs where (ALLEGEDLY) his former bosses at this place get wind of his book idea and possibly break into his house to steal the laptop it's being written on. Read the book if you want the details of that; suffice to say that I liked that part best because it hammers home the point that too many people are otherwise willing to hem and haw about: most of these tech start-up founders are real fuckers, if not outright sociopaths. And I don't mean in the "well, Steve Jobs was a real asshole" way; Steve at least was an asshole in service of a vision that actually produced beautiful products and created thousands of good jobs and made a whole lot of people lots of money and so on. The founders in this book, of which there are a lot more of in the world than there are Steve Jobs, know their product is shit and rely on every old school, pre-Internet trick the sales greaseballs of the world have been using to scam people out of money since a neanderthal with slicked-back hair and a tamer-than-yours mastodon to ride around on sold ice to an eskimo. If anything, Lyons doesn't hammer this point home enough: a very lot of the startups that are hailed as innovative, new technology wonders are actually nothing more than classic sales scams dressed up in new suits; think Theranos moreso than Google.
In the end, I liked this book because it was a great hate read, in the tradition of how I enjoyed PJ O'Rourke (before he went full Cato) and still enjoy Matt Taibbi (until Putin orders Trump to have him rubbed out). It's a total case of a book reinforcing shit I'm already mostly in agreement with, which isn't what I usually seek out in a book, but I need one or two of those a year just to keep me steady.
It's by no means a great book, but it sets hard facts against a lot of shit I already suspected was going on in that industry in general, and Dan's a good-enough writer to where it was surprisingly fun to get through. I can't recommend it unless you have worked at a start-up yourself, really, or are at least really familiar with the tropes of Silly Valley start-up culture. If you're a complete outsider to all of that, you're just going to think "what a bunch of useless assholes" without also getting to enjoy all the inside baseball snark the book is quite enjoyably larded up with.
I've also worked for some startups, but only of the Web 1.0 variety and certainly not in California. I had fun, made life-long friends and learned a lot. I did NOT become a millionaire or even a thousandaire, really. And I learned that startups are mostly bullshit and hot air, and what wealth any of them generate is mostly extracted at an extreme discount from young, smart but naive kids who don't know any better.
Disrupted does one thing pretty goddamned well: show what fucking insane, intense bullshit almost all startups are. They're snake-oil factories, run, often, by borderline sociopaths who will extract value from the labor of their employees and use that to pump up valuations with a goal of getting a new business over the hump of being a startup and turning it into a long-term profitable business. HAHAHAHAHAHAH JUST FUCKING KIDDING! The goal is to baffle venture/vulture capitalists into ponying up a large number of millions in VC funding and then keep the smokescreen up using that money until an IPO occurs, at which point anywhere from one to even five folks get really rich and everybody else gets fucked when the business inevitably collapses under the weight of real-world expectations of profitability that their horseshit business idea never had a snowball's chance in hell of meeting.
This is the story of those 99 out of 100 startups that, somehow, the completely-compromised tech "press" manages to rarely if ever cover. The ones that fail, completely and with a lot of wreckage left behind. The simple truth is: very, very few people get rich at this shit, and it's mostly a whole lot of people who ponied up a whole lot of sweat equity getting a whole lot of fucked.
Disrupted, in particular, tells that story of one specific real-world firm the middle-aged and suddenly-careerless author finds himself working for as a not-really-even-wanted media/marketing/PR flack dude. He's surrounded by millennials for whom this is a first gig so they love all the fluffy, non-work-related bullshit (parties! free beer! nerf swordfights!) that they're getting in lieu of, say, a living wage or health care. They're also stunningly, spectacularly bad at their jobs, according to the old-media author who's been dumped into their midst, and whose many decades of hard-earned, real-world work experience is about as welcome and wanted as a fart at a funeral. Lyons quickly also realizes that his immediate bosses weren't told about him being hired, and that the big boss who did hire him probably did so solely for the small bit of real-world media cachet Lyons' name carried as a former writer for Newsweek crossed with the bit of Internet fame he had as the Fake Steve Jobs guy.
Hijinks ensue as Dan bravely tries to do real work and come up with real projects that might actually turn into something useful for a company he's never quite sure has an actual product worth investing in or buying. Eventually, things sour, Dan leaves, and a weird coda occurs where (ALLEGEDLY) his former bosses at this place get wind of his book idea and possibly break into his house to steal the laptop it's being written on. Read the book if you want the details of that; suffice to say that I liked that part best because it hammers home the point that too many people are otherwise willing to hem and haw about: most of these tech start-up founders are real fuckers, if not outright sociopaths. And I don't mean in the "well, Steve Jobs was a real asshole" way; Steve at least was an asshole in service of a vision that actually produced beautiful products and created thousands of good jobs and made a whole lot of people lots of money and so on. The founders in this book, of which there are a lot more of in the world than there are Steve Jobs, know their product is shit and rely on every old school, pre-Internet trick the sales greaseballs of the world have been using to scam people out of money since a neanderthal with slicked-back hair and a tamer-than-yours mastodon to ride around on sold ice to an eskimo. If anything, Lyons doesn't hammer this point home enough: a very lot of the startups that are hailed as innovative, new technology wonders are actually nothing more than classic sales scams dressed up in new suits; think Theranos moreso than Google.
In the end, I liked this book because it was a great hate read, in the tradition of how I enjoyed PJ O'Rourke (before he went full Cato) and still enjoy Matt Taibbi (until Putin orders Trump to have him rubbed out). It's a total case of a book reinforcing shit I'm already mostly in agreement with, which isn't what I usually seek out in a book, but I need one or two of those a year just to keep me steady.
It's by no means a great book, but it sets hard facts against a lot of shit I already suspected was going on in that industry in general, and Dan's a good-enough writer to where it was surprisingly fun to get through. I can't recommend it unless you have worked at a start-up yourself, really, or are at least really familiar with the tropes of Silly Valley start-up culture. If you're a complete outsider to all of that, you're just going to think "what a bunch of useless assholes" without also getting to enjoy all the inside baseball snark the book is quite enjoyably larded up with.
The story of a patronizing douchebag in a startup environment. The author is so biased that you really have to filter everything continuously to make any sense out of it.
The book is about author's experience at a startup company. The author being a journalist has described the issues of new startup culture in a lucid way. However, unlike a neutral observer, the author is part of the narrative and hence his views are biased. The author does a good job in portraying the company in bad light. At the same time, he does an even better job in showing himself in poorer light.
After reading the book, one can understand the flaws of the current startup frenzy. These days we are seeing many startups, which are not backed by solid business model. The startups are also focused on creating hype and focusing more on sales, marketing, and less on building a good product. Instead of focusing on profits, the focus is on growing fast by leveraging the VC funding. As a result, most of the startups are losing a lot of money. However, the founders are still able to make a fortune.
The book also highlights ageism, racism, and sexism in the startup companies.
But the author could have done a much better job in highlighting the issues in an unbiased way and without showing his own flaws.
In the narrative, the author has joined the company in desperation after being fired from his previous company. His reason for staying at the company is never to add value or contribute to the company's goal. He is always hoping to make easy money in the upcoming IPO. At the same time, he leaves no stone unturned in criticizing the company founders and managers for trying to make a successful IPO and not focusing on building a great product. He leaves the company just after IPO and goes on to criticize the company in a book. At the same time, he expects companies to remain loyal to their employees. The author thinks most of the employees in the company as bozos. He looks down upon the younger employees. At the same time, he goes on to complain about ageism.
After reading the book, one can understand the flaws of the current startup frenzy. These days we are seeing many startups, which are not backed by solid business model. The startups are also focused on creating hype and focusing more on sales, marketing, and less on building a good product. Instead of focusing on profits, the focus is on growing fast by leveraging the VC funding. As a result, most of the startups are losing a lot of money. However, the founders are still able to make a fortune.
The book also highlights ageism, racism, and sexism in the startup companies.
But the author could have done a much better job in highlighting the issues in an unbiased way and without showing his own flaws.
In the narrative, the author has joined the company in desperation after being fired from his previous company. His reason for staying at the company is never to add value or contribute to the company's goal. He is always hoping to make easy money in the upcoming IPO. At the same time, he leaves no stone unturned in criticizing the company founders and managers for trying to make a successful IPO and not focusing on building a great product. He leaves the company just after IPO and goes on to criticize the company in a book. At the same time, he expects companies to remain loyal to their employees. The author thinks most of the employees in the company as bozos. He looks down upon the younger employees. At the same time, he goes on to complain about ageism.
Bottomline: Disrupted is an easy and fun read. I worked in tech companies my whole career and spent a few years in early stage startups too.
My experiences so far are way too normal. Perhaps that has to do that I was only in the Bay Area working at Google in 2005 when things were not that frothy yet. The rest of tech company experiences are all in Singapore and APAC region.
Having said that, I do go through a few things with striking similarity with what Dan experienced. The only difference is that what happened to Dan at HotSpot (and sounds like at many other startups in SF these days too) were at the extreme, whereas what I saw were minor versions. For example, being a "team player", having micro kitchen with beer, "silly" activities in office. I think these things when done in moderate and sensible are actually great for employees. But apparently HotSpot dialed it up to the eleven and got overboard.
Dan's cynicism is actually fun to read. It's clear that he criticizes everything and almost everyone. But he tries hard to be objective. And that makes it a worthy read if you are interested in what happens in a tech company at this day and age.
My experiences so far are way too normal. Perhaps that has to do that I was only in the Bay Area working at Google in 2005 when things were not that frothy yet. The rest of tech company experiences are all in Singapore and APAC region.
Having said that, I do go through a few things with striking similarity with what Dan experienced. The only difference is that what happened to Dan at HotSpot (and sounds like at many other startups in SF these days too) were at the extreme, whereas what I saw were minor versions. For example, being a "team player", having micro kitchen with beer, "silly" activities in office. I think these things when done in moderate and sensible are actually great for employees. But apparently HotSpot dialed it up to the eleven and got overboard.
Dan's cynicism is actually fun to read. It's clear that he criticizes everything and almost everyone. But he tries hard to be objective. And that makes it a worthy read if you are interested in what happens in a tech company at this day and age.
Entertaining view of SV - hits a little too close to home on many parameters
Even though I don't agree with many of the ideas of the author, it is a fresh view of the topic.
We frequently hear about the mythical startup stories, how the culture is great and the environment is challenging and fun, rarely the other side.
We frequently hear about the mythical startup stories, how the culture is great and the environment is challenging and fun, rarely the other side.
A fascinating read, at times laugh-out-loud funny and at others fairly disturbing. I could really identify with the author, as I am about his age and have experienced some of the same things in the workplace that he has. However, even if you aren't a 50-ish white guy who's experience and skills are not valued by your employer, I think you will find this book a compelling story that lays bare the weird world of the internet startup.
Fun read. I have every reason to believe this is an accurate depiction of a 'new-age' startup, esp. one centered around marketing.
Wow. No wonder this guy ended up writing for Silicon Valley (the show). For him it was a documentary!