Viral tweet about mind-altering drug exposes Silicon Valley’s toxic culture
Plant hallucinogen ayahuasca is all the rage among those seeking enlightenment and healing in a shallow tech milieu desperate for a quick fix and patch
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me … Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are.”
A viral tweet sent by BloomTech CEO Austen Allred makes me think of this quote from the great writer of the Jazz Age, which was at the tail end of America’s Gilded Age. The very, very long thread the tweet inspired is, for once, actually worth reading in its entirety because it says so much about the toxic culture of Silicon Valley, the cutthroat tech world, late American capitalism, and what it’s like to lead a spiritually empty existence while aspiring for something better but without having to give up the top executive pay. Tough indeed, like trying to square the circle!
The thread contains so many layers of meaning, no thanks to Allred but rather to his many respondents. If I have interested you somehow, I suggest you stop reading me – I can’t possibly hope to match it – and just read the thread yourself, if you have time.
And yes, Allred’s post is about drugs, or rather psychedelics. On the surface, his observation seems intriguing enough, but if you think about it, it’s actually rather trite.
“Of the Silicon Valley founders I know who went on some of the psychedelic self-discovery trips, almost 100% quit their jobs as CEO within a year. Could be random anecdotes, but be careful with that stuff,” he wrote.
I was, like most of his respondents, intrigued at first. Now it just makes me laugh.