While the normies were resting, I was mainlining tech discourse all weekend to bring you the latest trends, rumors, fights, and innovations from the sweatiest corners of the internet. This week: Journalists argue what powers the tech engine, Cydney texts Sydney and hates her vibe, and someone made a Silicon Valley intro for the AI age.
This is Manic Monday.
Who runs tech?
As the tech industry has become the world’s pulsating power center, reshaping daily life and molding a dreaded “K-shaped” economy, everyone wants to know who, really, is to blame. Last week, two articles came out that tried to answer that question:
Wired says the gays...
First, Wired published “Inside the Gay Tech Mafia,” an investigation by Zoë Bernard into the network of gay men in San Francisco who (allegedly) trade sex (or the promise of it) for venture capital, close deals (allegedly) in hot tubs and the locker rooms at Barry’s Bootcamp, and (allegedly) exclude the poor straights, no matter how promising (allegedly) their startups are.
The angle was problematic, to say the least. While reading the 6,000-word feature, I couldn’t help thinking that if we swapped “gays” for, say, “Jews,” someone would’ve rightfully called it bigoted the second it was pitched. The article relies on majority anonymous sources, who say salacious (alleged) things (one unnamed investor calls the scene “power-hungry, network-driven, and, at times, very horny,” for example) but ultimately paint a pretty banal picture. What industry doesn’t (allegedly) run to some degree on cronyism, sex, and ingroups? Suffice to say, the reception online has been bad: Sen. Scott Wiener called it “a tabloid conspiracy piece,” at least one person said Wired should pull the article, and others are citing it as evidence that the US is (allegedly) “post woke.”
...while Harper’s says the idiot children
A day later, Harper’s Magazine offered another explanation for the dizzying state of things with “Child’s Play,” a 10,000-word (take that, Wired) essay by British writer Sam Kriss about tech’s obsession with the idea of being young and “agentic,” which in tech-speak means acting autonomously, “just doing things” without waiting for permission. Kriss compares three young, stunty men: Roy Lee from Cluely, Eric Zhu of “sperm racing” fame, and a fringe Twitter personality with a dog avatar known as “Donald Boat.” Kriss argues that the AI age has ushered in the end of thinking, where only the most brainrotted clowns will survive. Some insiders say the piece mischaracterizes the tech industry and ignores the more serious work happening within it, but I think Kriss is pretty much on the money. The tech industry is built on speculation and the attention economy; truth and seriousness are not nearly as enticing as shock and stupidity. Even Roy Lee, who Kriss frames as a sad little boy deeply afflicted by loneliness and an inferiority complex, tried to leverage the visibility. Tech hustlers gotta stay publicitymaxxing.
I texted that guy on the wheatpastes
Yesterday, a photo went around on X of wheatpastes around the city, advertising a mysterious phone number and unnamed man’s #OpenToWork LinkedIn photo. It didn’t take much — just a curious investor who asked “What’s the story?” — for Alex Kim, the founder of a chatbot company called TwoThumbs, to reveal himself as the culprit. First of all, have we learned nothing from Abby AI?! Of course it’s a chatbot. Second, I texted the number. There seemed to be some confusion behind the scenes, because the first response was “hey! what’s up?” immediately followed by a more official autoresponse: “Hey, I’m Sydney! I’m created by TwoThumbs, powered by ZetaChain.” It told me I had five free chats before I needed to sign up. I asked what the point of this product is, why would I choose TwoThumbs over a regular LLM, who funded TwoThumbs, how much funding they had, and how many people had texted. My Wario answered none of these questions, except to say that TwoThumbs is for “having a fun, personalized buddy who matches your vibe.” Unfortunately Sydney did not match Cydney’s vibe. Who has two thumbs and won’t be signing up for this? This guy!
The people yearn for Silicon Valley: 2020-2026
The most fun I had in the digital trenches this weekend was thanks to a São Paulo-based engineer at Brex named Marcelo Prado, who used Google’s Veo 3 text-to-video generator to update the HBO Silicon Valley title sequence for the AI age. It covers everything the show, which ran from 2014 to 2019, missed: crypto, data centers, AI, NVIDIA. The iconic timelapse in a Sims-like animation style is nostalgic and cute, despite being laden with AI wordslop (“Solapa,” “Boston Dynomics,” and “Anthopiic” make appearances on the sides of rising buildings). Some netizens are now calling for a reboot, and I would not be surprised if, in a year or so, HBO (allegedly) delivers.
