"Building a startup is like Someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down"
@reidhoffman
So here is what i have to ask, how can ethics/being fair be your priority while falling of a cliff? Imo this analogy is normalising the lack ethics in startups
cc @paulg
-
It's a meme often resorted to by journalists who are either lazy or have an axe to grind (or both). Readers believe it because the growth rate of successful startups is so counterintuitively high that it seems like some form of cheating is needed to explain it.
I remember one article in the NYT purporting to show a pattern of bad behavior by successful founders, and the reporter was so hard-pressed to find a third example that he had to use the fact that Parker Conrad got bad grades in college.
-
-
In my experience (and I have a lot of data about both), journalists writing about startups cut more ethical corners than the founders they write about.
-
This Tweet is unavailable.
- Show replies
New conversation -
-
-
Didn't Conrad end up having to settle almost a million dollars with the SEC over falsely representing whether or not they were licensed to sell insurance?
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
Come on. It's not that hard to find examples of SV founders behaving badly. https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/01/larry-ellison-hearsay-we-cant-be-successful-if-we-dont-lie-to-customers/ … https://mastersofscale.com/selina-tobaccowala-let-fires-burn/ … https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/ … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos https://www.businessinsider.com/ubiome-startup-fbi-raid-jessica-richman-ceo-founders-misled-age-2019-5 … https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/small-fry-reviewed-lisa-brennan-jobss-mesmerizing-discomfiting-memoir … https://www.thedailybeast.com/video-of-silicon-valley-mogul-kicking-his-girlfriend-117-times-could-send-him-to-jail … http://fortune.com/silicon-valley-startups-fraud-venture-capital/ …
-
The question is not whether people behave unethically in startups, but whether the fact of it being a startup makes them behave *more* unethically. If you investigate further, you may find you can also compile a list of established companies behaving unethically.
- Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.