Silicon Valley's Cargo Culting Problem

What are some other examples of cargo culting in tech and startups?

I love that YouTube CC kept transcribing “cargo culting” as “call girl quilting”.

Software engineerings do that as well by blindly adding tech that's not necessary for their companies current stage and needs.

I love the dynamic between these two guys, great energy and vibe. Keep it up!

Thank you guys for making such videos! gives a lot of motivation to people who don't believe in the superficial facade of modern day startup buzz.

I was so obsessed to Cargo-cult eBay and Google back in 2008. I didn't succeed to build the exact product(or even a good one), but I learnt a lot.

One example that comes to mind is you have to live in Silicon Valley to start a tech startup. I believe you make it with what you have and where you are.

I love these guys! They make these lessons so fun! 💓

Great points - also if your startup is intrinsically motivated rather than extrinsically sometimes there will be a lot more successful foundations made, as it becomes not just about money but purpose. Which, if we are seeing anything from the ad fatigue in the the public, focus on purpose and authenticity has more traction than just kicking pain points

I learn so much from these two. Thank you for all the wisdom you two share!

But does the superficial "looking like x" not also influence investors decisions? What are your thoughts on this? Does it just filter out bad investors, so it doesnt matter?

00:35 : "call girl quilting"🤣🤣🤣 yes plea

Thanks for doing these!

Great episode gentlemen! 😊

In Permaculture we say "From Pattern to Detail " , You need to understand the pattern to get details that wor fo your particular context

Integrated thinking is the key note, thanks guys

I don’t know but wearing a black turtleneck really did convince people that Elizabeth Holmes was the female Steve Jobs. 😂

serious question though: trying to copy something that worked somewhere else is an understandable gut instinct. but what about something like "state of devops report" that is more data oriented and trying to apply that to a company? i can still see how this might end up in the cargo culting end of the spectrum when it goes awry without carefully considering your individual context.

We turned down three guys in Shibuya (Japan) because their idea sucked, and then they got funded, and bought an Exotic Red Car and drove it around, slowly, in traffic, with three guys in it (T-tops removed, one dude cracking and destroying the center console) and overheating it. They took the money and skipped to the bro-success stage in one hop.

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Coming Up 00:19 - Cargo Culting Explained 00:35 - What Is It? 01:47 - Classic Variety 02:18 - Obsessed With Google 04:24 - Facebook Playbook 05:33 - Uber: Spend As Much Money As Possible 06:41 - Why It Worked? 06:47 - Google: Hiring Many Smart People 07:38 - Facebook: Not Charging Users 08:59 - Uber 10:27 - Morden Cargo Culting: Copying Companies That Haven't Succeeded. 12:11 - Founders Are Focused On The Superficial Things 13:15 - Three Levels Of Cargo Culting 13:41 - Think Through The User's Eyes 14:48 - You Can't Just Copy & Paste: Plagiarism vs Borrowing Good Ideas