The leaders behind the funding, functionality, and media coverage of the tech industry have abdicated their authority so severely that the consensus is that it's fine that OpenAI burns $5 billion a year, and it's also fine that OpenAI, or Anthropic, or really any other generative AI company has no path to profitability. Furthermore, it's fine that these companies are destroying our power grid and our planet, and it's also fine that they stole from millions of creatives while simultaneously undercutting those creatives in an already-precarious job market.

The Phony Comforts of AI Optimism

Another trend I expect to emerge is an attempt to re-create the Internet of a decade ago by erecting virtual barriers to keep out the rabble. When I'm feeling down I call it “Internet Gated Communities”, when in an optimistic mood, “The Faculty Club”. This may lead to what many observers refer to as “the Balkanisation of the Internet”—a fragmentation of the “goes everywhere, reaches everybody” vision of the global nervous system into disconnected communities. This may not be such a bad thing. Yes, we will not end up with a ubiquitous global wired community. But if you want to get an idea what that might actually look like, here's a little experiment you can try. Turn off your spam filter and read all the spam you get in a day, including visiting the Web sites they direct you to. Now imagine that, multiplied by a factor of about a hundred. Welcome to the electronic global slum! I am one of those despicable people who believe that IQ not only exists but matters. From the origin of the Internet through the mid 1990s, I'd estimate the mean IQ of Internet users as about 115. Today it's probably somewhere around 100, the mean in Europe and North America. The difference you see in the Internet of today from that of ten years ago is what one standard deviation (15 points) drop in IQ looks like. But the mean IQ of the world is a tad less than 90 today, and it's expected to fall to about 86 by 2050. So, when the digital divide is conquered and all ten billion naked apes are wired up, you're looking at about another standard deviation's drop in the IQ of the Internet. Just imagine what that will be like.

The Internet Slum

If you've been around the block for a while, you know that this industry was always prone to hyperbole: some things get blown out of proportion, some people overestimate their own knowledge, and some people take advantage of the fact that this field is complicated to advance their own "brand" by speaking authoritatively about things they know very little about. It doesn't matter that reality insists on being nuanced and more complicated than what you can convey through a couple of paragraphs on LinkedIn. If you are in a position of power, and you sound like you know what you're talking about, you can get away with some bullshit.

20% of Zero is Zero

With the power to shape what we see comes the power to shape what we believe. Whether through deliberate manipulation or the slow creep of algorithmic recommendations, engagement is fueled by outrage, and outrage breeds extremism. The result is a feedback loop that isolates users, reinforces beliefs, and deprioritises opposing viewpoints.

Kill your Feeds - Stop letting algorithms dictate how you think - usher.dev

Sales cycles stretch to match government budgeting timeframes, extending runway requirements. Companies that previously measured progress in sprints now plan around fiscal years and appropriations cycles. This fundamentally alters startup DNA, creating organizations structured more like government contractors than disruptive innovators.

GDP shock: Venture Capital's government bailout begins

The migration to Washington represents venture capital's ultimate admission of market failure. Unable to generate returns that attract private investment, they now seek capital that can't walk away - money extracted through taxation rather than earned through performance.

GDP shock: Venture Capital's government bailout begins

With a bit of experience, most job listings are simply an honor roll of dead IT projects. And because many executives hop onto the same bandwagons at the same times (but call it innovation), there seem to be specific patterns for the type of cog that companies are pursuing at any given moment. The friend who gave me most of the tips in here has an "Azure Data Engineer" CV, where he removes all mention of AWS work he has done so that government recruiters don't hurt their pretty little heads, and vice versa. Companies on Azure want Databricks because you can spin it up from the Azure UI, and companies on AWS similarly use Snowflake because of groupthink. Just smash those words onto the page.

Ludic's Guide To Getting Software Engineering Jobs — Ludicity

What once was Hollywood—with its goal of making the best film or series possible, its financial structure of gathering revenue to pay its actors, directors, and crews, its residuals for artists between jobs, its camaraderie on the set, the passion behind a marketing campaign, and the triumph of making a film or series that is not only very good but has the luck of being released to the public at exactly the right time to cause a sensation—has passed.

Hollywood is dead. This is what's next- Fast Company

To me the other key aspect of the Soy Right psychological profile, beyond its desperate need for approval and respect, is a childlike refusal of agency and responsibility, even while in power. A 20-something with access to Treasury Department systems is a “kid” whose racism shouldn’t be disqualifying. The South African billionaire throwing Nazi salutes is a enthusiastic neuroatyptical man who needs our sympathy. The Vice President of the United States would never have attracted the attention of the Pope if it weren’t for “hysteric progressives,” the real villains. Silicon Valley oligarchs were “driven into Trump’s arms” by the perfidy of Democrats. No one in the Soy Right makes affirmative choices; they’re smol beans who need protection and care.

Soy Right ascendant - by Max Read - Read Max

Last weekend, the Bay Area hosted the NBA Dunk Contest.1 Today, it will host the Humane dunk contest. We're going to get slam after slam after slam against the company after it was announced that they were acquired by HP for $116M.2 A regular person might read that headline and think, "wow, a startup sold for nine-figures – impressive." Of course, it's not impressive in this case. It's a fire sale for a company that has been under duress for months after their product, the Ai Pin, failed to catch fire in the market. Actually, that's not technically true. There was a literal risk of fire when charging the device, which led to a recall. And so you'll forgive me for sort of re-using a headline here – but this situation is much more akin to the Hindenburg disaster from which the phrase originates.

Oh, the Humane-ity