we wanted flying cars

instead we got surveillance, cyberfraud, AI slop and misinfo!

*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•by your best friend erin griffith•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•

Buddies: A very easy joke for tech commentator types to make is “we wanted flying cars, instead we got ____.” It’s a throwback to the old mantra from Business Hero™ Peter Thiel and his firm, Founders Fund: We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” A little preachy and whiny, but very catchy. At the time, it was edgy to shittalk the small dreams of social networks in favor of something much bigger / more important / cooler. (Nevermind that Thiel was a big Facebook investor.)

It worked as a rallying cry to inspire founders to take on super ambitious ideas so Founders Fund could invest in them. VC firms are big on manifestos as a kind of branding and marketing exercise. (See also: software is eating the world, it’s time to build, etc etc.)

Founders Fund has since updated its manifesto title to “What happened to the future?” Still a little self-righteous, but less mad about Twitter in particular.

Anyway, in the years since, “We wanted flying cars” became a trope / meme / cliche that mostly gets invoked in discussions about *actual* flying cars. It’s also top of mind anytime a tech company creates something that seems really, really dumb (we wanted flying cars, instead we got this stupid thing). Sometimes the two parts of it get twisted around — did we in fact want flying cars or is that dream as frivolous and silly as 140 characters?

I have followed some of the attempts to build flying cars over the years and concluded that the closest we’re going to get in my lifetime to the Jetsons is a very expensive personal flying mobile that a few very rich, risk-taking hobbyist types will own. The term “flying car” is even a misnomer; these companies are mostly making a new kind of chopper.

And then we have Alef, a company which last week put out this demo video of a car flying down the street. I found it amusing that they released this video on the same day that autonomous truck company Nikola filed for bankruptcy. Recall that Nikola’s founder rolled his truck down a hill in a demo video to show it could drive; that founder now faces 4 years in prison for fraud.

Anyway, this video is highly amusing in how absurd it looks…

🎶 there goes my hero 🎶

And for fun, here is an example of the kind of frivolous “140 characters” technology that Silicon Valley investors love to hate. We wanted flying cars, we got a remote control purse that costs $295. It is so, so dumb, but also, why not?

Important Business Matters

Startup everyone’s into: VC firm IPO?

Startup everyone’s over: Pinterest is being strangled by AI slop

Reason to go on living: The tech industry has its own Kendrick / Drake beef?

Reason to take up residence under your weighted blanket: The US Cyber Command decided to stand down on all of its planning for Russian cyber attacks? Seems fine…

Latest crush: Tina Brown on the New Yorker. (Also a sick burn from Tom Wolfe that TNY is “easier to praise than to read.”)

Latest heartbreak: Cyberfraud scam cities in Myanmar

Latest thing the kids are into: Vibecoding

Latest thing the olds are into: Beer sommeliers

Latest thing the billionaires are into: Demanding employees come in “at least” five days a week, if you’re Business Hero™ Sergey Brin. Coming up very short on your Hawaiian farming dreams, if you’re Business Hero™ Larry Ellison.

Latest thing the central banks are into: memeing out the truth in hopes of combatting rampant misinfo.

a dall-e summary of this newsletter:

why is that non-flying car so small? why are those ipads so big? i love 2 live in the future!

*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•the end•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•

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