Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Alyssa Royse
It’s been a while since I read any of the local startup blogs – evenlonger since I wrote one. Mostly because of the insider nature of themand the incredibly snarky comments that are so often left by anonymousposters. So Glenn Kelman’s recent post on TechFlash, and all thecomments on it, really got me thinking.
He is so right. And so wrong. And we all need to grow up.
Ifyou didn’t read it, you should. But I’ll sum it up by saying that Glennis sick and tired of the vitriolic crap left in the comments onTechFlash blogs, the glee that some of us seem to take in the failureof others, and generally snarky celebrations when others suffer. In alot of ways, he’s right. It’s just stupid and doesn’t seem to serve apurpose.
That said, it is an accurate reflection of us, so maybewe oughta ask why so many of us are so pissed off. Calling for arousing round of Kumbaya isn’t going to change anything, andpersonally, I hate to sing.
Let’s start with the acknowledgmentthat the Seattle Tech Startup Scene is pretty much like high school,but with higher stakes. There are the popular boys who all pal aroundtogether. There are the really smart, hard-workers whose papers arecopied. There are the administrators who are routinely snowed by thesuck-ups. There are the bullshit tests and milestones that don’t meanyou’re smart, they just mean you know how to play the game. There arethe teachers who are lecturing all day long about stuff that they don’treally know anything about and is in no way useful to you. Even thevast sea of people that no one ever notices, which is where most of usare. And, of course, the gossip. All in a pressure cooker with aninvisible timeline by which you have to succeed, or get out and fail.
Only,in high school, the only thing really at stake is whether or not youwill get the girl (or guy,) or maybe get a date to the prom. To winbig, in high school, is to get laid. And look how crazy everyone gets,even with that low bar to success.
In the Startup Scene, thestakes are much higher. You have all the clicks, all the bullshittests, all the backslapping, competition and gossip. But the stakes arenot only higher, they are finite. There is, essentially, one giant poolof startup money to pull from, and the same incestuously smallcommunity of people from which to get money and advice. It’s prettymuch a zero sum game – someone else’s success may well lead to yourfailure. The money that goes into that guys company is not going to gointo yours.
Sure, it’s only money. But that money is needed tosupport your family, bring a dream to fruition, validate your veryidentity as an entrepreneur and prevent you from having to pullespresso shots at Starbucks. You have to be deemed a success evenbefore you succeed, so that people will invest in you, work with you,buy your product. You have to be popular.
And the more that wedefine success by one narrow set of criteria – good looking, captain ofthe football team, dating the head cheerleader – the more the rest ofus feel alienated, and maybe unnoticed. In high school it was the headcheerleader. In “our” world, it’s getting investors and press.
Everynow and then, one of the popular guys falls. And just like in highschool, people talk about it. It’s not going to stop. The suggestionthat anyone ought to be censoring the community is counterproductive atbest.
Sometimes the angry mob is the only place the truth can befound. Remember the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes? As the foolEmperor paraded around in his skivvies because he believed the tailorwho told him that it was a magical & invisible suit, the wholecrowd applauded. Most of them were fairly sure the Emperor was naked,but having also been told it was a magical & invisible suit, theyeither believed it or kept their mouths shut, despite the fact that itdefied all logic.
So finally, one brave onlooker said, (paraphrasing,) “Dude, the idiot is NAKED!”
Thatbrave onlooker was not mad at the emperor, he was mad at the communityof people who didn’t call “bullshit” when it was so obviously bullshit.
Andso it goes with blog comments. I am guessing that the glee that peopletake in the “failure” of others has less to do with that person andmore to do with fatigue from the eye-rolling, high-fiving generalridiculousness that is a community that does not often enough say,”really? Are you kidding me?”
The TechFlash Blog poses aparticular problem because it is neither a blog nor a newspaper.Indeed, as former reporters, those guys do not offer opinions orinsight, that’s not what they set out to do, so don’t expect that ofthem. They set out to report on the Seattle Startup Community, it’sfair to expect that of them. That said, they pretty much only talkabout the same smallish group of people that is certainly the “populardude” click in high school. And when they do things like report on thesale of Martin Tobias’ house rather than cool new companies thatprovide valuable insight to the rest of us, they pretty much solidifiedtheir “by the dudes for the dudes” reputation. But that’s what they do.Nothing to get upset about.
When the “heroes” and success storieslike Terry Drayton, Mark Phillips, Ron Weiner, and the Entelliumdynamic duo are day-lighted as being something shy of successful andethical, many do applaud – and leave snarky comments. But it’s notbecause we’re “mad” at them. We’re mad at an entire community thatknows perfectly well that something shady was probably going on, andthey still got all the money and yes, all the press. And no one saidanything!
We feel vindicated. How many of us read those posts andsaid, “it’s about time!” How many of us gossip about these characterswhen we’re drinking with our friends? How many of us know people whowere screwed over by the very people who are constantly written up andlauded as successes? You don’t have to answer that outloud -anonymously or otherwise – but I know, and drink with, enough of you toknow perfectly well that we know the “real” dirt on most of thecommunity, and it never gets talked about.
Just like in high school, most gossip is based in truth. And generated by fear and insecurity.
Theanswer is not to censor blog comments, it is to censor the purely PR”news” that we are fed on a daily basis. To question its merits, notits characters. It is to actually cover the depth and breadth of thestartup community. To acknowledge that this is a really hard job, thatmost of us will fail, most of us are weak, scared and vulnerable, andthat if we work together and learn from each other, we will all dobetter. It is to stop creating a false and sophomoric dichotomy of”cool guys” and “outsiders” and really analyze what’s going on aroundus. After all, we all face the same problems.
And there are awhole lot of naked emperors running around with their flocks of lackeysand no one is saying anything for fear of getting booted out of theinner sanctum.
Sure, if “that guy’s” company fails, it may freeup more capital and column width for you. But that’s specious reasoningfor celebration, because it really means that the whole eco-system isweak.
Glenn is right, for sure, that the “chicken-shit” anonymouscomments are useless. Ad-hominem attacks do not further the dialog atall, and if you can’t put your name on it, then you are part of theproblem.
If you have something to say, say it, and put your nameon it. If the emperor is naked and you know it, say so. But don’t do itin a way that makes this seem like a locker room, say it in a way thatfurthers the dialog. Problems are never about people, they’re aboutprinciples.
I know it’s hard. And I know the cost. Hell, when Istill had my P-I blog and wrote about what a scam I thought Kieretsuand Zino were, I fell off the list of every group in town and no onewould answer my calls. But I still think I’m right, I feel good aboutthe stand I took, and I got it done without them.
Yes it’s asmall town. The cost of pissing people off is real; there is reason tofear it. However, the cost of letting our community degrade into eithera cesspool of name calling or an artificially candy-colored cult ofcharacters is even higher.
We don’t need to be censored, we need to start telling the truth.
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AlyssaRoyse speaks her mind on a regular basis in her free online magazineJUST CAUSE, which focuses on solutions to cultural problems.
