I didn't publish the newsletter this weekend because I was walking around SXSW for the first time since I moved to Austin three and half years ago. I walked a couple of miles from my place near 45th to 6th, and it was interesting to note how much of the city is empty, and how concentrated SXSW activity is around two or three blocks in every neighborhood. The busy neighborhoods could best be described as a spectacle of pointless entropy. People with and without orange badges moving from one long queue to another across events that range from decidedly mediocre car exhibits to movie screenings, somehow bundled together under one festival. As I move through the crowd, I suspect I've fallen for the mimetic desire induced by the question, "what are you doing for SXSW?" which has been put to me every other day this month. The same has probably happened to many in this crowd I'm trying to wade through. This is why I don't dunk on all the smart venture capitalists who decided to put their money in the same not-so-smart bank (SVB) and then synchronously chose to stage a bank run. Even Peter Thiel, who apparently bases every investment decision on Mimetic Desire fell for it.
Monetize The Sublime Horror
Monetize The Sublime Horror
Monetize The Sublime Horror
I didn't publish the newsletter this weekend because I was walking around SXSW for the first time since I moved to Austin three and half years ago. I walked a couple of miles from my place near 45th to 6th, and it was interesting to note how much of the city is empty, and how concentrated SXSW activity is around two or three blocks in every neighborhood. The busy neighborhoods could best be described as a spectacle of pointless entropy. People with and without orange badges moving from one long queue to another across events that range from decidedly mediocre car exhibits to movie screenings, somehow bundled together under one festival. As I move through the crowd, I suspect I've fallen for the mimetic desire induced by the question, "what are you doing for SXSW?" which has been put to me every other day this month. The same has probably happened to many in this crowd I'm trying to wade through. This is why I don't dunk on all the smart venture capitalists who decided to put their money in the same not-so-smart bank (SVB) and then synchronously chose to stage a bank run. Even Peter Thiel, who apparently bases every investment decision on Mimetic Desire fell for it.