What Went Wrong with Silicon Valley?

The Billionaires like to Argue Over the Future of the Internet

Elon musk recently said the Metaverse isn’t compelling and Web3 isn’t real (yet).

Jack Dorsey was recently blocked on Twitter by Marc Andreessen after Web3 comments. Jack Dorsey has bought up huge amounts of Bitcoin and is CEO of Block (formely Square) that has made a killing with its Cash app.

The block comes after Dorsey criticized the venture capital industry and made several remarks about Andreessen Horowitz in particular.

While still a hazy concept, Web3, has been hailed by proponents as a decentralized version of the internet based on blockchain, the technology behind many major cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.

Web3 has Mixed Reviews and Centralized Ownership Models

The entrepreneur said “Web3” — a potential new decentralized version of the internet based on blockchain — would be owned by rich VCs like Andreessen instead of “the people”. Silicon Valley has consolidated to the point where a few white male Tycoons hold much of the power over the future of the (American) internet.

Ironically Jack Dorsey is one of those people. He is very bullish about Bitcoin. Elon Musk in recent years has manipulated the price of certain crypto, supposedly for profit.

Elon Musk thinks Web3 is more of a “marketing buzzword” than a reality, while Jack Dorsey argues that Web3 will ultimately end up being owned by venture capitalists. It’s 2022 and everything from Tesla’s greatness to the utility of blockchain is still somewhat speculative.

“I’m officially banned from Web3,” Dorsey tweeted Wednesday alongside a screenshot showing he had been blocked by Andreessen. Jack Dorsey has been blocked on Twitter, the social media platform he co-founded, by renowned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Male bias permeates Silicon Valley venture capital and technology executives in a bro-culture of mostly white men.

This week, Dorsey has expressed multiple views on “Web3” — a potential?new decentralized version of the internet based on blockchain. Perhaps most notably, the entrepreneur said Web3 would be owned by rich VCs like Andreessen instead of “the people”. Analysts have been pointing out for years how crypto, DeFi, FinTech and blockchain projects and ownership of Bitcoin and related digital assets mostly just perpetuate wealth inequality pyramids schemes.

Maybe Jack Dorsey should be critical of himself as well. “You don’t own ‘web3,’?he tweeted. “The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It’s ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.” Jack and Elon have been whales among other Billionaires that have hyped Bitcoin and Web3, among the more scammy cryptos like dogecoin.

I’m not sure what goes around as honesty or integrity any more among the Silicon Valley tycoons. Andreessen, who has made billions off the back of early bets on companies like Facebook, has backed a number of companies that are working on technologies that could one day underpin Web3. Meanwhile Dorsey has named Square, Block, supposedly in reference to the power of blockchain and the Web3 to transform the world.

Mark Zuckerberg tried to copy crypto’s fame in a Libra product that failed only to become Diem that could turn WhatsApp into a FinTech app. It’s not clear how Meta will participate in Web3 in its own bid to own the Metaverse platform of the VR based future.

What’s clear is heading into 2022 that Silicon Valley is so centralized, monopolized and stunted by these Billionaire Tycoons that it’s not very innovative. In spite of a stranglehold on talent, there’s been a an exodus from companies like Facebook in 2021 that’s significant. Bankers are moving into FinTech and tech executives have been spinning out Web3 startups in anticipation of some blockchain revolution that amounted to just Bitcoin’s price skyrocketing, and not too much else.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey — two of the world’s best-known tech billionaires — have been voicing their thoughts on a hypothetical new iteration of the internet this week: “Web3”. Silicon Valley is now a personality gangster hall of Billionaires that are sort peaked in their careers in the past already.

Andreessen Horowitz also has a page on its website called “web3 Policy Hub,” with the subhead: “We Deserve a Better Internet.” It’s uncertain what he’s referring to exactly. Mostly the Tycoons seek to justify a narrative that pads their profits. Which any layman pawn in BigTech can easily analyze.

Is this the great Silicon Valley’s end-game? To produce Billionaires that squabble over the leftovers they mimic and parrot and copy as innovation in a gated world stunted by years of digital advertising and data harvesting models?

It’s a little bit ugly that this is the best America could come up with in the 2010s. Blockchain didn’t really change our lives, Web3 remains a myth, the Metaverse a dystopian game over our attention.

How can we trust conceited personalities like Musk, Dorsey or padded venture capitalists at this point? It’s not as if they are any better than puppets and politicians in a game of monopoly that has gone sour due to a massive lack of regulation.

I guess a lot of the Silicon Valley marketing such as decentralization, the gig-economy or the Metaverse hype turn out to be fake. It's getting harder to trust these aging Tycoons have much left in the tank or can be respectable stewards, custodians or pioneers of a better internet.