--- Christopher Mims, in What I Got Wrong in a Decade of Predicting the Future of Tech, (unlocked article) WSJ, May 16, 2024
Excerpt
Kara Swisher, whose Boomtown column at the Journal was in many ways the precursor of this one, once said on a podcast that when she interviews a person in tech who is hyping their company or product, rather than asking herself how they’re lying to her, she asks “how are they lying to themselves?”
Tech is, to put it bluntly, full of people lying to themselves. As countless cult leaders, multilevel marketing recruits, and CrossFit coaches know, one powerful way to convince people that following you will change their life is to first convince yourself.
It’s usually not malicious. Given the rate at which startups fail, to be a founder of one is to engage in a level of magical thinking that in another age would qualify a person for the sanatorium.
