HI! I no longer update this Substack. Please visit this link to continue using Where’s Your Ed At! At the center of everything I’ve written for the last few months (if not the last few years), sits a cancerous problem with the fabric of how capital is deployed in modern business. Public and private investors, along with the markets themselves, have become entirely decoupled from the concept of what “good” business truly is, focusing on one metric — one
Most insightful thing I’ve read for ages. This is a rich vein Ed, keep at it. It takes a while to get one’s head around the fact that growth without aiming at creating shared value is empty and stupid. Especially hard to grasp for finance professionals.
Banger post Ed. The realization that many of these VCs care more about the perception of value in a company than any actual underlying unit economics was a big one for me. Dump those bags on retail and get their money back out.
This lines up with what I've been thinking for a long while: some time ago, common wisdom was that the goal of a company was supposed to be providing products and/or services, and profits were the necessary by-product that allowed them to support and refine said products and/or services. This is how many American propaganda cartoons from the mid-20th century actually promoted capitalism. But eventually that wisdom was turned upside-down, and now the explicit goal of a company is to generate profits, while offering products and/or services is seen as the necessary, but ultimately secondary by-product. Wild.
Just reading the Neumann quote, I think he's just trying to tap into a business model that's tried and true: "Rent seeking". He just wants you to treat his investors private property like you would your own home and pretend it's a community. You see, you're not renting, you're "sharing". Same as you're sharing the car owned by the bank with the Uber driver, same as you're sharing the e-Scooter / e-Bike littering every city with the investors who own that turd of a company. A lot of this seems like Feudalism 2.0 - Feudalism without the profit. You don't own the house you live in, you don't own the car you drive in, you don't own your college degree that you'll keep paying off from your meager social security in your 70ies.
When you get really worked up like this you make me feel like early 2000s Taibbi made teenage me feel. And it will be absolutely hilarious to me if in 20 years you've followed his descent into hell.
Please know that I mean this with the utmost love and respect for you and disdain for him.
I'm not exactly a Matt Taibbi fan these days, but I still love the "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" notion. That's basically where we're at here. It's why the Adam Neumann thing is simultaneously insane and the funniest thing ever. What the fuck is he even talking about? What are any of these assholes talking about? Does anyone want to invest $400 million in my spy balloon start-up?
"one truly noxious metric — over all else: growth"
Whoa there Greta, hold up.
Just kidding, keep going, you're spot on, just as she is. Even though you're maybe coming at it from different angles and for different reasons.
The parasitic do not understand they die when the blood runs out. This world view... it isn't only environmentally unsustainable. It's unsustainable also because it's near always a bit of a con and it is increasingly obvious to anyone not living under a rock in the metaverse.
The charade really doesn't lie far past ponzi scheme, it just lacks even that much guile.
If this continues, they'll collapse the system itself and de facto destroy their position in it. Good riddance.
Beautiful. I couldn't agree with you more. And I'm glad that you acknowledged that "This is the problem at the center of almost everything [you've] written."
Ed, you've done it again. To paraphrase Truman, you're not giving late-stage zombie capitalists hell, you're giving them the truth and they think it's hell.
TechCrunch is an engine for hyping up startups and VC interests. It can be blamed as much as an abused dog can be blamed for its owner-implanted neuroses.
Most insightful thing I’ve read for ages. This is a rich vein Ed, keep at it. It takes a while to get one’s head around the fact that growth without aiming at creating shared value is empty and stupid. Especially hard to grasp for finance professionals.
Banger post Ed. The realization that many of these VCs care more about the perception of value in a company than any actual underlying unit economics was a big one for me. Dump those bags on retail and get their money back out.
This lines up with what I've been thinking for a long while: some time ago, common wisdom was that the goal of a company was supposed to be providing products and/or services, and profits were the necessary by-product that allowed them to support and refine said products and/or services. This is how many American propaganda cartoons from the mid-20th century actually promoted capitalism. But eventually that wisdom was turned upside-down, and now the explicit goal of a company is to generate profits, while offering products and/or services is seen as the necessary, but ultimately secondary by-product. Wild.
Just reading the Neumann quote, I think he's just trying to tap into a business model that's tried and true: "Rent seeking". He just wants you to treat his investors private property like you would your own home and pretend it's a community. You see, you're not renting, you're "sharing". Same as you're sharing the car owned by the bank with the Uber driver, same as you're sharing the e-Scooter / e-Bike littering every city with the investors who own that turd of a company. A lot of this seems like Feudalism 2.0 - Feudalism without the profit. You don't own the house you live in, you don't own the car you drive in, you don't own your college degree that you'll keep paying off from your meager social security in your 70ies.
When you get really worked up like this you make me feel like early 2000s Taibbi made teenage me feel. And it will be absolutely hilarious to me if in 20 years you've followed his descent into hell.
Please know that I mean this with the utmost love and respect for you and disdain for him.
Been a free subscriber for a bit now but this torching of VCs, growth, and a16z is enough to kick you some bucks. More! More! More!
I'm not exactly a Matt Taibbi fan these days, but I still love the "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" notion. That's basically where we're at here. It's why the Adam Neumann thing is simultaneously insane and the funniest thing ever. What the fuck is he even talking about? What are any of these assholes talking about? Does anyone want to invest $400 million in my spy balloon start-up?
If you haven’t played “Little Inferno” (https://tomorrowcorporation.com/littleinferno), I highly recommend it. Seems like an apt metaphor.
Great post.
I just read about Uber's results, and for the life of me I can't understand why their stock popped. That business model is defective by design
"one truly noxious metric — over all else: growth"
Whoa there Greta, hold up.
Just kidding, keep going, you're spot on, just as she is. Even though you're maybe coming at it from different angles and for different reasons.
The parasitic do not understand they die when the blood runs out. This world view... it isn't only environmentally unsustainable. It's unsustainable also because it's near always a bit of a con and it is increasingly obvious to anyone not living under a rock in the metaverse.
The charade really doesn't lie far past ponzi scheme, it just lacks even that much guile.
If this continues, they'll collapse the system itself and de facto destroy their position in it. Good riddance.
Beautiful. I couldn't agree with you more. And I'm glad that you acknowledged that "This is the problem at the center of almost everything [you've] written."
Now: WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT?
Ed, you've done it again. To paraphrase Truman, you're not giving late-stage zombie capitalists hell, you're giving them the truth and they think it's hell.
extremely apt and well written.
Bigness is truly a curse.
TechCrunch is an engine for hyping up startups and VC interests. It can be blamed as much as an abused dog can be blamed for its owner-implanted neuroses.
All this will continue as long as there are enough stupid people to put forth $$$ to people like Neumann, crypto, and everything else.
It truly is disgusting trying to google anything. I have to always scroll HALFWAY down the page top truly get to what I want.