The Intellectual Violence of Silicon Valley
Cognitive laziness has donned the banner of progress.
Silicon Valley’s overgrown startups are facing a common problem that no one wants to address: product quality. Tesla’s supercars are built notably poorly if at all, Facebook’s social platform cuts people off from the world of opinion around them and targets them with falsehoods, and Uber’s services are so imitable that it is resorting to (possible) criminality to survive. Name an overgrown startup, and you will find a similar contradictory problem. With thousands of Ivy League and MIT/Stanford grads on their payrolls, trillions of dollars in market value, and an endless stream of new mini-startups to gobble up, why are these giants failing so badly?
The answer comes down to a common theme in the leadership at these companies. Their executives all commit intellectual violence. What is intellectual violence? It is the insistence on absolutes that other people must adhere to. For example, if I were to say that I am king and I am worth more than you no matter what, that is a form of intellectual violence. You would know there is no reason why my personal absolute must be true, and so it would cause you brain damage to believe my claim. This is what Silicon Valley executives preach to their employees, shareholders, and the world.
What is the absolute that these companies claim? They claim that they cannot be compared to older companies in other industries, or even to their apparent competitors. They are a class apart, each one totally unique. Much of their market value depends on this assertion because it looms large in the mind of investors. There is one social media company, one electric car company, and one ride hailing company, as far as they are concerned. Google and Amazon have competition, but the newer Silicon Valley startups are desperate to prove that they do not, and make it an iron rule to operate as if they did not.
This is intellectual violence. Facebook can be likened to a glorified internet message board, Tesla is essentially a maker of flamboyant and impractical cars, and Uber is just like a very cheap cab. When you compare these companies to things that they are similar to, their apparent innovativeness magically decreases. Comparisons also offer the keys to how each company can improve. Facebook could improve on the message board model by keeping harmful content away from people’s news feeds. Tesla could improve on the specialty car model by making a practical car for the masses. Uber could improve on the cheap cab model by becoming safer and more consistent. Nothing I’m saying here is novel. But it is all humbling for these companies.
Unfortunately, these companies are all headed in the opposite direction. They are doubling down on the old playbook of insisting they they are absolute in their novelty, and incomparable to anything that has previously existed. It stunts the thinking of their supposedly brilliant employees, and it weakens the industry as a whole. Believing in their absolute novelty prevents comparison, which prevents improvement in product quality. It also sticks consumers with subpar choices.
Not thinking isn’t progress. As consumers, we need to be careful about what we accept as innovation and what is simply a low quality substitute for what existed before.
