Fascism for First Time Founders

Summary

Fascism For First Time Founders from the democracy-is-actually-important-for-innovation dept Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump train. Yes, there are the big name folks who everyone knows about and who didn’t really surprise anyone—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Elon Musk (pre-fallout)—but the more troubling trend has been watching younger entrepreneurs and VCs listen to their podcasts, read their posts and books, and slowly nod along to the idea that democracy is holding back innovation. The logic might seem compelling at first: regulations slow us down, politicians don’t understand tech, wouldn’t it be better if someone who “gets it” could just cut through all the bureaucratic nonsense? But this line of thinking leads directly to the neoreactionary conclusion that what we really need is a “tech-friendly” strongman to sweep away democratic institutions and let the smart people (spoiler: they mean themselves) run things. It seems like it might be useful to point out how incredibly dangerous and counterproductive that utter nonsense is. The idea of a benevolent dictator to get past the nonsense is appealing for those who can’t think more than a step or two ahead and consider what happens next. Look, I get it. You’re building something cool. You heard the stories some are telling of the Biden admin looking to regulate crypto or AI (not that any such regulations ever actually appeared) and you think “ugh, too heavy handed, just let me code.” And then you hear Trump promising to “cut red tape” and “unleash American innovation,” and you think: Finally, someone who gets it, someone who will stay out of my way. But before you start crafting your “make coding great again” hat, let’s have a little chat about why embracing fascism is probably the worst possible business strategy for anyone actually trying to bui...