The Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Should be a Radicalizing Moment

They spent the past fifteen years eroding the position of workers, extending surveillance practices, funding monopolistic endeavors to destroy traditional industries, and ultimately creating bubbles they knew would burst, but which they hoped to profit off.

For years, the narrative of the tech industry was that it was run by conscientious liberals, but no one can reasonably argue that any longer — if it was ever truly anything more than a marketing pitch for a particular moment in US politics.

Teamflow founder Flo Crivello opined that the reaction to the collapse was a much bigger story than the fact his colleagues had kicked off a bank run because of the “honest to god, hammer and sickle communists hating tech and actually wanting our heads on a spike.”

After years of being treated as our saviors, they haven’t responded well to the increased criticism leveled at their industry and the role they’ve played in all the ways tech has made the world a far worse place. People are getting fed up with rampaging Goliaths who want to be treated as heroic Davids until the end of their days.

The system devised by the people at the top of Silicon Valley has made them fabulously wealthy, but it hasn’t worked out for the rest of us. They promise us innovations that will improve our lives, but the reality is they gave up on true innovation long ago. Instead, they’re just tinkering with new systems to exploit, exclude, and oppress for profit — consequences be damned.

La réaction des VCs est assez hilarante.