#and practices like undercutting (how airbnb burned cash until its competitors died off then raised prices)

[on-stolen-sunbeams]

Might just be me but it's kind of depressing, the way we don't really have any new tech figureheads. and by figureheads I mean super well-known startup to entrepreneurs, etc. New ones. I'm not talking the one's that were already CEOs in the 2000s/super early 2010s.

I mean, it does make sense. FAANG et al. are pretty market dominant, and plus the last 'big equal opportunity push' in terms of new frontiers in tech was the internet. Like we do have AI now, and people like Sam Altman, but it kind of seems that startup culture is dead, or maybe just oversaturated. if everyone is trying to be the next big thing, no one will be, and the bonus of large companies (*looks at Alphabet pointedly*) acquiring successful smaller ones that make it out doesn't help.

Plus there's also the fact that so much stuff has already been made, I suppose. Forms of social media, ride-share apps, productivity apps, everything. AI could be the next frontier but even then, said tech giants have already made the pivot. (Also I kind of really fucking hate generative AI, mostly because if you want a ton of data to train it on you kind of have to take other people's work without asking, so not only is the creation soulless but also you end up fucking over other people. not cool). AI takes a ton of power. And also a lot of water to cool stuff. you have a bunch of stories of founders making things in dorm rooms but you would not have the required space or money to house a data center that way. this makes sense, that bigger companies are getting into this; I mean, this is how to avoid the same fate as, say, IBM; embrace new tech, move while you can before you become the next Polaroid.

Also economy-wise, it's less safe to start something new now. the job market isn't great, and the tech bubble is probably not going to do super well-- it expanded a ton during the pandemic, hence 2023's and now 2024's layoffs. Every bubble pops.

Adding to the fact that it's so much harder to really dig into the stuff we use these days. We may be part of the 'digital native' generation, but we're also the oldest of the 'there's an app for this' generation. The downside of all the tech at our fingertips is we don't know what makes everything tick, and we can't know absolutely everything. the upside is that we have it.

Idk, it's just that we have all this cool tech and new discoveries, literally everything, but it feels like we're lacking in honest-to-god independent innovation. the internet is no longer the final frontier. the wild west got divvied up between corporations and the goal is to get the cash and get out. It's always a race for the future, but now there's no room for the wildcards.