Silicon Valley: A Reality Check - Slate Star Codex

Scott Alexander:

“Here’s my theory. If you’re an average well-off person, leading your average well-off life, consuming average well-off media and seeing ads targeted at the average well-off demographic, and going over to your average well-off friends’ houses and seeing their average well-off products, which are you more likely to hear about? A structured-light optical engine for cytological research? Or a juicer?”

Everyone piled on the Juicero thing, including me. The fiasco became a poster child of Silicon Valley vapidness. Alexander reminds us that there’s usually more going on than what we are exposed to in our little social network bubbles.