[debatem1]

I think there's something to what the author says about the shift from mission-driven startups to naked greed, but I don't think I would have put it that way.

Over the last two decades the startup scene has gone from trying to improve nearly everybody's lives at very low cost to consumers (ad-supported services like maps and email) to trying to improve the lives of the upper middle class with debatable impacts on everyone else (gig economy stuff) to something whose most obvious application is destroying jobs (ai).

That's a pretty quick shift from utopian to dystopian rhetoric, and people who bought the line are right to find that jarring.

[crock_smacker]

> to trying to improve the lives of the upper middle class with debatable impacts on everyone else (gig economy stuff) to something whose most obvious application is destroying jobs (ai).

Butter them up and then cut them off, they’ll be too fat to do anything about it.