The Ugly Unethical Underside of Silicon Valley
I have definitely met my share of sleazy characters in the startup world. However...<p><i>No industry is immune to fraud, and the hotter the business, the more hucksters flock to it. But Silicon Valley has always seen itself as the virtuous outlier, a place where altruistic nerds tolerate capitalism in order to make the world a better place. Suddenly the Valley looks as crooked and greedy as the rest of the business world.</i><p>...I strongly disagree with the implication that unethical behaviour is due to capitalism, or to be expected in the business world. <i>In the long run, screwing people over never works</i>. Building a successful business requires building win-win, non-zero-sum relationships. Good people prefer to work with good people. Cutting corners, breaking contracts, fiddling numbers - anyone who does these things will eventually be found out, and no-one decent will want to deal with them.<p><i>And the growing roster of scandal-tainted startups share a theme. Faking it, from marketing exaggerations to outright fraud, feels more prevalent than ever—so much so that it’s time to ask whether startup culture itself is becoming a problem.</i><p>This is closer to the real root cause. Today&#x27;s startup culture (and the nature of the VC game) incentivises &quot;faking it&quot;, delusional over-confidence, and pseudo-idealism that crashes into reality in an ugly fashion.<p>Amy Hoy and some others wrote about startup narcissism which is a big part of this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackpad.com&#x2F;Startup-Narcissism-sy2u5j2aTbE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackpad.com&#x2F;Startup-Narcissism-sy2u5j2aTbE</a>