Back in the day, when Silicon Valley was about silicon and technology, our industry elders used to wisely caution that Silicon Valley doesn’t invest in tobacco, alcohol, porn, and guns. Not anymore it seems. Thanks to an influx of new money and an increasingly porous definition of what is a Silicon Valley company, what was taboo once, is now a hot deal.
Om Malik has some tough words for everyone.
I agree with everything he says.
I’ll bet many of the same journalists who’re gushing about that new vape startup also had similarly adoring things to say about Theranos.
As usual, he is right.
But whoever thought that Silicon Valley investment was moral anyway? It seems to be one of the most immoral places in America
Theranos lied; had what they offered was real it could have been the game-changer they claimed to be, and deserving of all the money and hype sent their way.
The vaping startup isn’t lying about what they offer. They just don’t care.
Not Immoral, amoral.
A cotierie of stupidwealthy techbro glilibertarian billionaires like Thiel and Zuckerberg set the tone and keep it that way.
All true. But the giddy tech/financial coverage of each, focused mainly upon their funding, was adoringly credulous where it should have been skeptical. Readers were not served well.
Well, tbh, ‘Adoringly Credulous’ IS the official, probably trademarked motto of the Silicon Valley and business press corpse.
our industry elders used to wisely caution that Silicon Valley doesn’t invest in tobacco, alcohol, porn, and guns
Sinful Others!! Hisss!!!
(Though if he thinks “Silicon Valley” is orthogonal to porn he doesn’t understand what the Internet even does, eh?
If he was only railing against the idea that a vape pen was “Silicon Valley” somehow, I’d probably agree, but equally not get why it matters, because it’s 2018, FFS. Silicon Valley isn’t magic.)
(I disagree with Malik entirely on most of his thesis – because the alternative to vaping is not “no icky addictions, yay!”, it’s “smoking cigarettes”, which is far worse for everyone involved.
If the FDA banned all vaping tomorrow, we would not see “nictotine addiction” drop; we’d see cigarette smoking rebound, give you 100:1 odds.
[Nicotine addiction is bad in itself, but not very
bad when removed from the serious health effects of
inhaling lots of smoke to get it.]
People who aren’t Malik might note that teenage vaping is down, not up; is he lazy and didn’t notice it because he only read hype-pieces?
Hopefully, because the alternative is worse, and while I’ve never been fond of his work, I’ve never thought he was outright lying to me.
I do like how he tries to infer from “a lawsuit” to “the claims are therefore accurate”, a standard I expect from tabloids and clickbaiters, who I don’t normally think of including Malik.
Disappointing; he seems to have let his emotions write his analysis.
n.b., before someone decides to ad hominem, I am not a nicotine user or Juul shareholder. Just sick of prattling like Malik’s from people who seem incapable of applying analysis to something that makes them Sad.)