I watched the drama series StartUp in a small window pulled to the right edge of my monitor, occupying less than a fifth of the screen area. Filling the rest of the space would be work: code, or talking about code, or complaining about talking about code. My attention would swing between the two rhythmically. A Martin Freeman monologue would fade into a music montage that let eyes move back to the code editor. A slow app rebuild would let me steal some glances at a gratuitous sex scene. Rhythm of the boredom. Sometimes the work would require too mutch focus and I would have to close the tab. Other times the show would capture my attention enough that I would give it the honor of full screen. The living pulse of a startup. The pure frenetic energy of getting jacked into whichever reality fits your mood. A four-dimensional experience. This was GenCoin.
Now, if you read things online the way I do, you probably skimmed over the ending of that paragraph. You got the vibe and sensed that nothing of substance was going to be added, just the same idea reinforced. That is an entirely fair approach to take. Your time is valuable. My time spent writing mild satire of silicon valley tropes is less valuable.
By the same token, you may not want to spend your time watching the direct-to-streaming show StartUp which ran from 2016 to 2018 for a grand total of thirty episodes. It was released on a Streaming as a Failed Service (SaaFS as we call it in the biz) that doesn’t matter. Its plot was built around news headlines of the time. It echoed news outlets perfectly, using the topics as bland slices of bread to wrap around human drama peanut butter & jelly. If that description doesn’t get your mouth watering, then I encourage you to save yourself thirty hours of carbohydrates and skip this one.
However.
The drama series hit Netflix in May of 2021, the same month I quit a tech job. Coincidence? Did StartUp give me the clarity I needed to see what was wrong with my work environment?
No.
I actually watched the NIXVM cult documentaries earlier in the year. Those are more representative of the working conditions of a startup than the show StartUp. One trope that is surprisingly absent from the show is the Charismatic Leader who steers everyone towards a common cause using reins of abuse and and flattery. StartUp seems to avoid this type of character as part of its thesis, instead focusing on a trio of flawed-but-not-too-flawed characters: Nick, the entrepreneur; Izzy, the entrepreneur; and Ronald, the entrepreneur. Okay, sure, they each have more backstory than that. But in the world of StartUp, the most important trait is a fetish for small businesses with big dreams. If the dream is big enough, it doesn’t even need a leader to form a cult.
What, then, is the dream at the heart of StartUp? What idea could unify an investor with daddy issues, a hacker with a destructive ego, and a drug dealer with a conscience? Why, only the most important topic of the twenty-teens:
Cryptocurrency.
That was a joke. I feel I have to clarify that, because you might be reading this in the far future, or you might really think crypto is a more important topic than climate change or the resurgence of white supremacy. Sadly, I have to inform you crypto was as vapid a subject as Beanie Babies while receiving as much attention as those other topics. At least those stuffed animals weren’t actively harmful. They didn’t contribute much to climate change, unlike the ongoing energy sink of etherium. I don’t think any rainbow bears helped neo-nazis raise money.
However, this essay is not about “crypto bad.” And there is no reason a TV show can’t use it as a subject. Breaking Bad doesn’t try to convince you that methamphetamine is good, actually. But it does portray the effects of the drug and its black market. The real fun of StartUp is how it fails to address any of the real problems with crypto. Instead it waves its hands at some technical jargon to condemn or redeem the characters as is convenient.
It is this silicon straw man that I am going to spend my time burning down. I am going to put too much effort into explaining how StartUp creates technology that is somehow sillier than reality. Then I will interrogate the characters to find out if they know it’s silly, and whether they are in on the joke. I hope my sacrifice can help you enjoy this show, whether or not you choose to suffer through watching it yourself.
Harmless Writing 