Silicon Valley Corporatists

Remember the days when an entrepreneur would perfect their whiz kid ideas in a garage and bring them to market? Did Steve Wozniak ever envision the behemoth that Apple would become and the cult camp that worships every new product that flows from their robotic coolie assembly lines? Riots Over Rotten Apple Mania describes an example of the forbidding underbelly of corporatist business model that Apple exemplifies so dramatically. Notwithstanding this record of 21th century sweat factories, do the venture vulture capitalists of Silicon Valley interject added value in the products and services they fund or do this culture of touting IPO offerings simply game a system to print money based upon imaginary dreams?

The Economic Policy Journal article, Silicon Valley Investor Joins The Corporatism March, cites Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley angel investor, who has backed many of the tech companies that we know and love.”

“Conway wrote a piece for Techcrunch where he’s calling for the other Fascism. Remember the Fascist Mussolini from Italy. It was he who said, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

“Gone are the days when the tech community can innovate and run their businesses in spite of government. As we saw with the SOPA/PIPA debate, public policy has a direct and significant impact on startups and the investors who support them.

Whether it is regulations that stifle innovation or tax policies that hinder job creation, government has a major role in the success or failure of a startup. It is critically important for the tech community to engage in public policy.”

Silicon Valley companies are not limited to IT development, just as much as investment funding is not wholly occupied from Wall Street firms. The principle is the same wherever the money comes from, as the Rise of the “venture corporatists” explores in an account about John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

“None of the alternative energy sources being developed today – solar, wind, geothermal, or biomass–is close to financial sustainability, which means that the supersize returns V.C. funds depend on will require massive government subsidies, regulations, and mandates… So Doerr has launched an audacious campaign to invest millions in handpicked political candidates and influential political action committees, to push for subsidies and pro-greentech policies and require the government to purchase the kinds of fuels and technologies his startups will be marketing. Since 2000, Doerr and his wife, Ann, have contributed more than $31 million to political candidates and causes.

In essence, Doerr is helping to create the biggest new market the world has seen since the dawn of the oil industry–and asking for taxpayer dollars to do it.”

“Green” alternative energy has more to do with replicating money than producing sustainable energy. Instead of writing code for computer-generated speech, the paradigm at play buys the ambassadors of government policy, circuitously as part of the business plan.

Lachlan Markay sums up the paradox for investors and the public in The Venture Corporatists. “As long as green technology remains not simply an economic venture but a moral one, taxpayers will continue to nobly lose money as politically connected “social entrepreneurs” reap a windfall.”

Here lies the rub. What exactly is the moral imperative? The lament of Alex Shud Bayley in No, I still don’t want to work for Google makes a universal point.

“Since I’ve been out of the Silicon-Valley-centred tech industry, I’ve become increasingly convinced that it’s morally bankrupt and essentially toxic to our society. Companies like Google and Facebook — in common with most public companies — have interests that are frequently in conflict with the wellbeing of — I was going to say their customers or their users, but I’ll say “people” in general, since it’s wider than that. People who use their systems directly, people who don’t — we’re all affected by it, and although some of the outcomes are positive a disturbingly high number of them are negative: the erosion of privacy, of consumer rights, of the public domain and fair use, of meaningful connections between people and a sense of true community, of beauty and care taken in craftsmanship, of our very physical wellbeing. No amount of employee benefits or underfunded Google.org projects can counteract that.”

The notion that Silicon Valley business enterprises automatically advance civilization and improve the human condition is one of the most disturbing viewpoints that have infected the smart phone sect. Placing the blame solely on tech executives avoids the reprehensible relationship that Ron Conway is so eager to exploit.

The article, Why DC And Silicon Valley Don’t Mix Well seems to agree.

“The thing that DC should be most focused on is “fixes to previous government efforts that tried but failed to fix a problem that turned out not to need a regulatory solution.” Other industries seem to want handouts and investments and the like, but you don’t see that much in Silicon Valley.”

REALLY ???

However, some executives excel in screwing up a once reliable service.  Silicon Valley corporatist companies often fail. The next likely candidate for a downfall is Yahoo.  Marissa Mayer’s tenure as CEO may be numbered according to Eric Jackson, founder and managing partner of hedge fund Ironfire Capital.

“Jackson says that since Mayer took over she has spent $2 billion buying companies and that most of those acquisitions have been for naught.

“Can you name any other acquisition Yahoo has made besides Tumblr? If not, what does that say about them?” Jackson writes at Forbes. “If these small acquisitions were mostly talent-driven as characterized by management, why was it necessary to spend, say, $30 million to hire 3 people from a dying company? Was this really the best use of shareholder capital? Yahoo should not [be] responsible for bailing out VCs from their failed investments. This isn’t TARP.”

Deplorably, many tech corporatists are mismanaged like Yahoo. Divesting a significant portion of Yahoo’s stake at the , raises a much needed current valuation, but what does this transaction do to improve the service? The Corporatists only care about tapping the rigged markets for immediate gain.

The Business of the Christmas Season

Commercialism, long criticized, as a distortion of the true celebration of Christmas, has become a crucial profit component for the corporate economy. Very little observation about the religious nature of the holiday rises for reflection. Likewise, even less focus is devoted to the underlying reasons why holiday gifting has become a stable to the season. Heritage and tradition has given way to popular cultural advertisement. A disconnect between purchases of necessity and acquisitions of disposable novelties is the hallmark of the mad rush to buy needless objects.

As long as the psychology of the herd and the guilt of the good parent deem it is an obligation to fork out money that is usually not available, the credit and debt purchases cycle continues. The National Retail Federation is forecasting holiday sales will increase 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion. Yet a consulting firm, commissioned by NRF, projects a reduction in individual spending.

“According to NRF’s holiday consumer spending survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, the average holiday shopper will spend $737.95 on gifts, décor, greeting cards and more, two percent less than the $752.24 they actually spent last year.”

In spite of this pattern, the average holiday shopper is part of a very allusive community. How many people do you know that actually spends this kind of money? If you answer in the affirmative, you might well be in need of shopaholic rehab treatment. The Mad Men on Madison Avenue work for corporate clients. Main street merchants provide the sensible alternative to big box stores. Will you make the switch or are you infected with the ether zone smart phone bug.

Yet, the seemingly attractive cost sensitive pricing and online convenience has increased. Matt Couden writes in the Examiner article, on the rush to buy online.

“A Dec. 3 report from Biz Journals out of San Francisco, notes that Monday’s online shopping was a single-day record, with sales up 19% from last year.

The reports come about online shopping’s success as bad news has hit the retailers with “brick-and-mortar” stores, who saw their first decline in shopping over Black Friday weekend since 2009.”

According to the internet retailer, 65% of U.S. shoppers will browse online and buy in store over the holidays as the “line between store and web will further blur this year as 36% of shoppers plan to buy online and pick up in store, and 21% expect to see up-to-date information on product availability on e-commerce sites.”No discussion of seasonal sales can avoid the largest and dominate bell weather of retail. Forbes is reporting that the 2013 — A Not So Merry Christmas For The Consumer And Retailers?

“Even Wal-Mart reported weak sales last month and shared its view that a challenging environment would persist into the fall. Then this week Wal-Mart announced it was cutting orders to reduce its inventory for the rest of the year. In the company’s commentary there were two key items that don’t bode well for the upcoming holiday shopping season. First, consumers are not spending at the rate predicted by Wal-Mart executives. Second, Wal-Mart isn’t hiring enough workers to keep its shelves stocked. Remember, Wal-Mart is the country’s largest retailer and if it is seeing this problem odds are it is not alone.”

NFL Marketing Machine

Hey FANS, are you ready for more football? How much do you know about the business end of your favorite entertainment addiction, the NFL? The revenue stream from media contracts, ticket sales, official NFL products and products, government stadium subsidies and syndication rights has reached enormous levels. The pie has grown from a sandlot clubhouse hobby to a billionaire jet set club. Now that fantasy football is in full swing, the beleaguered but rabid buff, sticks with their voyeurism as they act out their heroism celebration. Devotees of the noble sport seek the thrill of victory, but experience the agony of defeat in their pocketbook.

The NFL (not for long) article, Fantasy is the Current Test of Reality, shows that escapism is preferable for most athletic enthusiasts.

“NFL Football is the national sport. It more closely resembles the evolving social trends than any other indicator. Our society is a mirror of a game that once encompassed the essence of the human struggle against the elements of nature and competing warriors. The symbol of this era was the spent sacrifice of an average quarterback who achieved miracles. The famous photo of an exhausted Y.A Tittle captures the meaning of the game that each fan treasured in their heart and desired to know for themselves. The America of this period was not that long ago, but now seems to be from a different century.”

Now that the purity of a game is but a mere memory, the business is all about theBenjamins. Forbes notes in The Most Valuable NFL Teams, that the “NFL’s 32 teams are worth, on average, $1.17 billion, 5% more than last year. The Cleveland Browns, a lousy team for years in a midsize market, sold for almost $1 billion last year.”The last agreement with the players association produced a new contract that “included a provision that gives players between 46 percent and 48 percent of league revenues. That’s down from the previous agreement’s 50-50 split.” Even the causal bystander must admit that the owners are wielding the hammer in free agency. If the marketing machine is geared to extract more revenue out of a hooked public, just what does the future hold?The vision from NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell in another Forbes article, reports:

How The National Football League Can Reach $25 Billion In Annual Revenues.

This year revenues for the National Football League will be somewhere just north of $9 billion, which means the league remains the most lucrative in the world.

He has stated that he wants to reach $25 billion in annual revenues for the league by the year 2027. Here’s how the NFL can get there:

1) The first—and most significant step—will be the renegotiation of the league’s television rights deals.

2) A new labor deal. The 2011 collective bargaining agreement ends in 2020.

3) The NFL has mastered the art of dividing up its rights. In other words when, say, CBS gets the TV rights deal, it does not get the live-streaming Internet rights.

4) The NFL is in initial discussions about forming its own mobile network.

5) The NFL’s fantasy game, at 3 million players, is still well behind ESPN and Yahoo, which have an estimated 14 million and 12 million players, respectively.

This ambitious plan is looking to up the ante. Merchandising will not boost an additional 16 billion out of cash strapped fanatics. Maybe selling NFL uniforms to the military or running a bookmaking network with an anti-trust exemption might get permanent seating in skyboxes for elitist politicians, but it does nothing to bring relief to the lowly stadium season ticketholder. Soon with enhanced and intrusive security measures, many fans will just be content to be tailgaters.

Relying upon the referees to umpire a fair playing field might bring back the perception of an honesty game, but doubts linger that the point spread is often more important than the final score. The Drunk Never Knows When To Leave The Bar, might offer a better option than havingJimmy Haslam or Eddie John DeBartolo Jr. in change of public relations.

“Now you say, what is wrong with the fox guarding the hen house? Surely, you are not saying that this compares to the NFL Players Association passing judgment on all new referees, writing the rule book and picking only from their own ranks every new candidate for the job?”

Looking to the players for that wholesome image has its own pitfalls. Review the NFL Arrests Database.

“These are arrests and citations involving NFL players since 2000 that were more serious than speeding tickets. U-T San Diego reviewed hundreds of news reports and public records in compiling it. The list cannot be considered comprehensive in part because some incidents may not have been reported and some public records proved to be elusive. Increased media coverage of incidents also probably accounts for more incidents listed in recent years.”

It seems that the poster boys are running a campaign to rename the NFL to the Aaron Hernandez league. Ownership flack, when Tim Tebow Says Football Comes After Faith and Family, illustrates that selling the NFL vision of Jerry Jones is the way to the $25 billion super bowl.At some point, the public will become played out. Their satisfaction with the NFL experience will never approach the dignity of Y.A Tittle. An aficionado of the sport likeHoward Cosell would tell it like it is. “Don’t you remember the $28 million dollar judgment against the NFLPA and its affiliated marketing company (of which $21 million was punitive) for breaching their fiduciary duty to retired players?”

Players, players almost sounds like , playoffs . . . playoffs !

Soon the virtual reality of a smart phone app will provide the excitement of a two-minute drill without the cost of admission. The NFL marketing machine owes more to than to the collective wisdom of the players or the owners. The business of the end zone dance rests upon the good will of the fans.

Business of Evangelism Religion

Theologians preach that religion is based upon faith, while economists depict that the world runs on money. Many confess that ministries repeatedly lose their way, while no one really disputes churches operate as business enterprises. The actual purpose of such churches varies with different dominations, but organized religion frequently functions more like a “PC” soapbox than a congregation of moral values. Often, it is all about the money, because they operate their worldly business, even if they profess to be a spiritual mission. The vast temple empires of modern day evangelism ignore the bible verse that talks about “we are in the world, but not of the world”.

Joining the ranks of the Political Toadies and a Broken Down System, warn of the results from their secular endeavors.

“The moral majority back in the heyday of Farwell and Robertson promoted a pro American viewpoint. Thirty-five years later, the gospel message of moral character is silent. Only the promoters of fundraising appeals and the accountant’s 501 C3 filings are preached from most pulpits. The Pharisees that populate the secular congregations are eager to send their heretical voices to lobby on K Street.”

Since medieval times, expansive tracts of property were under the control of clergy. Today the difference is that institutional churches are in decline, while resourceful organizations that are in the marketing trade of pitching a religion, are building grand enterprises.

Back in 1987 that great defender of traditional values, Time Magazine wrote in Religion: Enterprising Evangelism about a trend that has over grown in the last twenty-six years.

“Televangelism is a special kind of big business. In less than two decades, the vocation of preaching the Word of God via video has grown from hardscrabble beginnings into far-flung real estate and broadcast empires with assets ranging in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In almost every instance, those holdings are dominated by a single dynamic individual who decides how the money will be spent and who strives, above all, to keep vital donations flowing from the faithful.”

Buying salvation with indulgences updated for the electronic age. Back when the Catholic Church was the universal way of selling the passage key into heaven, raising money was a full time business. Guess Luther, Calvin and Knox missed the renaissance version of the Infomercial.

In Bloomberg’s Business Week, writing about a different tribe, How the Mormons Make Money, we get a sense that Jews have real competition in the synagogue business.

“It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, an indigenous American religion, would also adopt the country’s secular faith in money. What is remarkable is how varied the church’s business interests are and that so little is known about its financial interests. Although a former Mormon bishop is about to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, and despite a recent public-relations campaign aimed at combating the perception that it is “secretive,” the LDS Church remains tight-lipped about its holdings. It offers little financial transparency even to its members, who are required to tithe 10 percent of their income to gain access to Mormon temples.”

Applying the term evangelism to the Jewish tradition may seem to be a misplaced association. However, any discussion about the business of religion needs to include this mindset.

Eric Simon in Money, Money, Money is most blunt in his viewpoint.

“Judaism is very realistic about money and business. It knows that much of our daily lives are involved with money. And so, just like waking up, just like eating, and just like speaking, there is a religious way to act with money, a religious way to do business. In fact, the largest of the four sections in the classic text of halacha, the Shukhan Arukh [Code of Jewish Law, by Rabbi Yosef Caro], is about business. To go even further, the Talmud tells us that the first question we will be asked at the Heavenly Court will be: “Did you conduct your business affairs in a fair manner?”

The bottom line is this: to be religious Jews, we are not supposed to isolate ourselves on a mountaintop and meditate, nor are we to take vows of poverty — rather, we are supposed to get out into the world, interact with it, and elevate the mundane.”

This is a stark departure from the Christian convention. Yet, how many Dispensational Sermonizers seem to have more in common with Talmudic Rabbis, than the Franciscan tradition of the current Pope? If the “winning or revival of personal commitments to Christ” is the primary definition for evangelism, the second meaning – militant or crusading zeal – seems to be the prevailing motivation in the pursuit of spreading the gospel in the business of religion.

The essay, Where are the Clerics?, reflects upon the nature of religious congregations compliance with the requirements of government, effectively licensing, their operation.

“For more than thirty years, a consistent slide in religious leadership has taken over the institutional Churches in America. Once upon a time, their mission was preaching the gospel. Today the assignment is to get and keep tax-exempt status. The holy grail is an IRS 501 (c) (3) non-profit tax exempt corporation. Incorporation, of any kind, accepts the rule of the State, over an organization. Why in the world (certainly not a requirement of heaven) would an assembly of believers consider themselves a ‘trust’ of the government?”

Most are familiar with Ephesians 6:12 – For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]. Nevertheless, the darkness blinds the evangelists who focus upon building crystal cathedrals or apocalyptic enterprises. What is next, the prospect of paying for the Ted Haggard app for your smart phone?Passing the plate during church services might not appeal to everyone much less tithing ten percent. Although, funding ministries is a continual challenge, the true business of religion is the saving of souls. Just maybe, the critical question at the pearly gates has nothing to do with money.

Technology Servitude

Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high tech devices, while driving, while walking, while shopping, while in groups of friends, while in restaurants, while waiting in doctor offices and hospitals, while sitting in toilets – everywhere.  While connected electronically, they are inattentive to and disconnected in physical reality.

People have been steadily manipulated to become technology addicted.  Technology is the opiate of the masses.

This results in technology servitude.  I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.  Most people do not use independent, critical thinking to question whether their quality of life is actually improved by the incessant use of technology products that are marketed more aggressively than just about anything else.

I for one have worked successfully to greatly limit my use of technological innovations, to keep myself as unconnected as possible and to maximize my privacy and independence.  I do not have a smart phone; I do not participate in social networking; I do not have any Apple product, nothing like an IPod, IPad and similar devices.  I have never used Twitter or anything similar, or sent a text message.  I do use the Internet judiciously on an old laptop. Email is good and more than enough for me.  I very rarely use an old cell phone.

So what have I gained?  Time, privacy and no obsession to constantly be in touch, connected, available, informed about others.  Call me old fashioned, but I feel a lot more in control of my life than most people that I see conspicuously using their many modern devices.  They have lost freedom and do not seem to care about that.  When I take my daily long walks I have no device turned on, no desire to communicate, nor to listen to music; I want to be in the moment, only sensing the world around me, unfiltered and uninterrupted by any technology.

I am not hooked by advancing technology, not tethered to constantly improved devices, not curious about the next generation of highly priced but really unnecessary products, not logged on and online all the time.  I have no apps or games.

Those who think interactions with people through technology devices are the real thing have lost their sanity. Technology limits and distorts human, social interactions.  Worse yet, people have lost ability and talent for actually conversing to people face to face, responding to nonverbal nuances, or through intimate writing with more than just a few words.

Consider these findings: “Researchers from the University of Glasgow found that half of the study participants reported checking their email once an hour, while some individuals check up to 30 to 40 times an hour. An AOL study revealed that 59 percent of PDA users check every single time an email arrives and 83 percent check email every day on vacation.”

A 2010 survey found that 61 percent of Americans (even higher among young people) say they are addicted to the Internet. Another survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to technology.   found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sex, sleep, cigarettes, and alcohol.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project found that 44 percent of cellphone owners had slept with their phone next to their bed.  Worse, 67 percent had experienced “phantom rings,” checking their phone even when it was not ringing or vibrating. A little good news: the proportion of cellphone owners who said they “could live without it” increased to 37 percent from 29 percent in 2006.

The main goal of technology companies is to get you to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve your quality of life.  They have successfully created a cultural disease that has gone viral. Consumers willingly surrender their freedom, money and time in pursuit of what exactly?  To keep pace with their peers?  To appear modern and sophisticated?  To not miss out on the latest information?  To stay plugged in?  I do not get it.

I see people as trapped in a pathological relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them.  I call this technology servitude.  Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google acknowledged that “we can be swept away by our technologies.”  Welcome to virtual living.  To break the grand digital delusion people must consider how lives long ago could be terrific without all the technology regalia pushed today.

What is a healthy use of technology devices?  That is the crucial question.  Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if they are to have any chance of breaking up delusions about their use of technology.  When they can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then they can regain control and personal freedom and become the master of technology.  Discover what there is to enjoy in life that is free of technology.  Mae West is famous for proclaiming the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is wonderful.”  Time to discover that it does not work for technology.

As to globalization of technology servitude: Is this worldwide progress what is best for humanity?  Is downloaded global dehumanization being sucked up?  Time for global digital dieting.