Is the Long Arm of Silicon Valley Being Cut Off at the Knees?
f you’ve been following what’s been going on lately in tech and focusing on the headlines, you might have missed the forest through the trees.
Silicon Valley Disruption Part 1:
Facebook just lost half a million users, the headlines screamed (out of nearly 2B, and no bigs, you’d think, but a) they’re not growing, b) those users are in the US: prime market, which meant they took a big hit on their profits and c) it’s the first time ever that FB lost users), and the stock was devalued 20%, wiping $200BN off the value of parent-firm Meta. Of course, founder Mark Zuckerberg was quick to come up with the excuses, par usual (ever notice that it’s never his bad?):
It’s TikTok’s fault! (Facebook’s decline in users is likely due to the boom in popularity of the competitor platform TikTok)
It was Apple’s privacy changes! (The company blamed privacy changes to Apple’s iOS and macroeconomic challenges weighing on advertiser budgets.)
The Pandemic Puppies are eating our key user base!
Or maybe people are finally reading the tea leaves and don’t want to participate in a Meta future.
Silicon Valley Disruption Part II: Kerfuffle #1 – The Mob
We reported last week on Ryan Breslow’s Twitter thread ‘outing’ the Silicon Valley Mob Bosses, and Breslow announced that he’s stepping down as CEO of Bolt but will continue as executive chair, and always interesting to see how – and what – the tech press reports.
That’s all I got for ya today! Thank you to the countless founders who’ve reached out to offer support. How can you help? Report your encounters with The Mob: https://forms.gle/aSnu6YhfrLFFEg9A8
Join the waitlist: A better system for founders
Is he starting a fund? The press was right about one thing: he’s not backing down and at 27, meet the new generation of founders – and possibly next wave of investor.
Silicon Valley Disruption Part II: Kerfuffle #2 – The Battle of the Titans
“Certain VCs who tweet a lot have grown a little vituperative of late, with some of the most powerful people in the industry lashing out in unprecedented ways. Two who spring to mind are Chris Dixon and Marc Andreessen, who’ve lately shown little patience for influential people who question whether the promise of crypto, blockchain-based collectibles, or decentralisation is overblown,” said Techcrunch. “The most prominent battle began in late December with billionaire entrepreneur and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, who tweeted to the six million accounts that follow him, “You don’t own ‘web3.’ The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.”
Andreesen entered the fray, and you have to ask what’s up when a social media kingpin (and Square founder; let’s not forget that payments are in the mix) goes head to head with one of the most successful VCs in the Valley. And let’s also not forget that A16z is the lead investor in Solana, and a major investor in Coinbase as well, where Andreesen sits on the board. No conflict there…
“There seems to be something in the water over there that’s making people lose their damn minds. It’s not a bullish sign for the portfolio,” said Parker Thompson, a venture capitalist with TNT Ventures, in the Techcrunch piece.
What’s going on? The ground is shifting. Andreesen, Dixon (Flicker, acquired by the basically defunct Yahoo) et al made their fortunes in the heady days of Web 1.0 when there was a lot of money being thrown at a lot of shiny new things, whether there was any hope of them being profitable someday or not. Neither founder’s companies were. Facebook is a Web 2.0 company, heralding the Age of Social. As is Twitter, for that matter. As we stand at the precipice of a new iteration, it’s a new world and a new playing field – with the regulators keeping close tabs on the monopolists of yore. Apple avoided the Washington techlash for years. Now it’s at the center of the bull’s eye. Facebook’s dream of connecting the whole world is dead, and for the record, as Facebook morphs into Meta to embrace its future, in Hebrew, we were told, Meta means ‘death.’
No one stays on top forever, and even tech hubs shift, given that it all started in Boston long, long ago, which is still alive and well but not exactly top of mind as one of the leading tech capitals of the world. Web 2.0 saw the total demise of Yahoo in favor of Google. Andreesen’s once seminal browser Netscape is an unknown to the current generation of web users. Web 3.0 is still anybody’s ballgame and for all we know, before too long, Tampa may well emerge as the new Bay Area as we go onward and forward.
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