"a post-optimistic world"
*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•by your best friend erin griffith•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
EGTttHoB™ is a semi-regular dispatch of stuff happening in start-up land that interests me. Thanks for coming along.
Hi friends! Two very different stories to share. I’ll start with the fun one.
📺
There is a new show about the tech industry called “The Audacity.” It’s on AMC. It’s funny, but not as funny as “Silicon Valley.” It’s dark, but not as dark as “Mountainhead.” We talked about this before.
I spoke with Alec Berg, a showrunner from “Silicon Valley,” who explained why, despite constant cries on X to bring back the show for the AI era, it would never work today. The show was optimistic, he said, and we are living in a “post-optimistic” world. Much more on how tech is portrayed in pop culture in the story:
Silicon Valley’s Image Takes a Dark Turn in Pop Culture
(Also this is surely the first time the New York Times has printed the word “roomcuck.”)
👀
Now the other one:
How Jeffrey Epstein infiltrated Microsoft’s inner circle. There is still so much to excavate from this trove of files.
A couple things that keep coming up in conversations about these stories: Not everyone affiliated with Epstein was involved in the trafficking / sex ring element.
Many of them say they had no idea. He had various explanations for his arrest / plea / prison stay in 2009 that they chose to believe, no further questions. They kept believing after the Daily Beast ran a series on the miscarriage of justice with his plea deal in 2010. And even more incredibly, after 2015, when Virginia Giuffre’s accusations about Prince Andrew first came out and were widely covered.
Those explanations become hard to square with photos like this one of Giuffre at Naomi Campbell’s birthday party in 2001, an obvious child in a sea of adults. The evidence was right there for anyone hanging around him to see.
So why did all these powerful people associate with him? The emails paint a pretty detailed picture of what Epstein offered:
Advice. On taxes, on negotiating a job move, on buying a jet (we cover this in the Microsoft story linked above).
Proximity (real or the image of it) to other powerful people. He name dropped a lot and seemed to exaggerate his friendships with high powered people as a way to seem ultra-connected.
A jet, an island, a ranch, a lifestyle, which appealed to people who were powerful or influential but perhaps not billionaires.
For many, it seems like he was just a gross friend. Someone they could tell off-color jokes, make misogynist/racist/homophobic comments, just be nasty with.
More Epstein reading: Thiel and Epstein. Naomi Campbell and Epstein. Peggy Siegel and Epstein.
Palate Cleanser:
Important Business Matters
Startup everyone’s into: IT’S TIME TO BUILD (software).
Startup everyone’s over: Live Nation’s head of ticketing thinks we are extremely stupid! “Robbing them blind, baby,” he said in internal chats, “that’s how we do it.”
Reason to go on living: You think New York is bad, try living in Roku City.
Reason to take up residence under your weighted blanket: When your director of AI safety lets AI accidentally delete her entire inbox.
Latest crush: What we really mean when we end a text with lol
Latest heartbreak: All these job cuts are AI-washing, ie, using AI as an excuse to cut.
Latest thing the kids are into: Reese’s Peanut Butter cup toothpaste.
Latest thing the olds are into: Boy kibble.
realtime view inside live nation’s boardroom:
“post-optimism, baby!”
*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•the end•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
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Forgive me, being a late boomer, I am getting a peak at the future. At 68, Jez, I am working with a robot manufacturing start-up and utilizing AI and LLM platforms. Recently started using Claude. I realize I have maybe 5 more good productive years with probably 15 max.
What I see are extremely bright, inquisitive youngguns. Their work ethic is not mine but they think different.
Not a bad thing. They are not in search of a 3/4-inch drill, they need a 3/4-inch hole.
I have full confidence these young people will muddle their way through life as we have. They won't do life like we have or the generations that have followed us. They will do it their own way and in the future wonder how that next generation of new and improved...idiots their children spawned, will ever survive.