Any examples of corrupted companies that you’d like to share? I’m especially curious about your thoughts on Meta and Google, the biggest startups of their time and how they evolved.

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eries 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I write about both companies (briefly) in the book. I've noticed in the comments I get from readers that people still feel very tenderly towards Google, remembering that incredible sense of idealism they instilled in so many of us when they went public. So I had to be very careful what I wrote about Google; I actually mostly left the critique to ex-Google employees, by quoting a dataset of people who had been at Google 10+ years and then wrote about their experience after leaving. Put together, those essay are heartbreaking.

By contrast, I can say pretty much anything about Facebook and nobody seems to care. Yet, if you go back and read their S-1, you can see how they very much wanted to be seen as the mission-driven good guys.

It's all quite sad, really. There are plenty more stories of corruption in the book. To be honest, it was a challenge to avoid having the whole thing read as bleak given how pervasive this corruption is today. I did my best to balance it out. You'll have to let me know if you think I got it right.

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aamar 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> So I had to be very careful what I wrote about Google

Can you say more about this? Do you think those tender feelings towards Google track some strain of values which Google still carries? Or does this statement reflect some fear of retaliation or conflict that would drown out the rest of your message?

Genuinely interested in how you think about this, especially in the context of this new book’s topic. Thank you for this AMA.

	▲	munificent 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Do you think those tender feelings towards Google track some strain of values which Google still carries? I suspect that it's largely just that brand reputation tends to be very sticky in the minds of people. It's the same reason that Pyrex, Harley-Davidson, and Dyson are still high reputation brands even though the product they make today is tragically worse than what gave them their initial reputation. (I tend to think of private equity as often existing as an arbitrage system to take advantage of the fact that they can buy a loved brand, slash the quality and increase the profit, and continue to sell at its original price based on that brand stickiness for a while until people eventually wise up.)

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creamyhorror 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> that incredible sense of idealism

The idealism that has been sucked out of the tech industry. It was so (naively) hopeful at one point, and now the arms race and profit-maximization has eroded it all. Your observations really resonate with me.

I'm surprised I hadn't heard of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, it seems like a much healthier direction for the market.

	▲	eries 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You might want to ask yourself why, in all these years, you haven't heard of it. There's quite a few people invested in keeping it that way.

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Barbing 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I write about … [Meta] in the book.

This mean you are now under gag order as you rise on the bestseller list? :)

Lean Startup is awesome, can’t wait to read your new. Excited to read about the ostensibly-not-evil Costcos of the world and hope the smartest & wealthiest amongst us grok it, that we win more when others win.

	▲	eries 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Thank you. I really appreciate your kind words, and I consider myself deeply fortunate that I've been able to speak my mind freely on these topics, at least so far.

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m_a_g 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think you’re spot on. Facebook employees have accepted its fate. It has become a company of mercenaries. I’m surprised they folded more quickly than Google.

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tonymet 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Neither of those have been corrupted . They both seem to be carrying out their long term strategy extremely well.