Can anybody name a unicorn in the last 10–15 years that did anything truly socially beneficial? Or has it all been hipsters, poseurs, and wantrapreneurs blowing smoke and leaving existing communities and livelihoods gasping for air?

The industry is a mirror, if not a direct instrument, of the disruption and ravagement that hordes of pseudocapitalist locusts have visited on the world like plagues. They’re instruments of wealth extraction and concentration. I’d honestly love to be convinced otherwise, but the last few dozen people who’ve tried either eventually got around to the point where they admitted they hadn’t really been paying attention, or they stomped off like petulant four-year-olds when they realised their arguments were less substantial than rainbows made of pixie dust.

I’ve been in software for almost 40 years; I’m in my fifth startup right now, and I have come to the realisation that it is impossible to overstate my utter loathing and contempt for the unicorn fetish and the absolute destruction of social capital in the headlong pursuit of financial concentration.